Learning From Failures is the key to Success
The story of three students from Dehradun who prove the line“We can never lose. We can either win or learn”
Once upon a time not so far away back to Dehradun, few college friends Suyash Jain, Kritika Navetia & Raghav Sarpal took were busy with their college lives. Suddenly on facebook Suyash saw about a Business Plan competition organized by Entrepreneurship Cell of University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, Dehradun. This competition had brought a change in their thinking. The further story is being described by Kritika in her words.
Kritika Navetia ,Suyash Jain & Raghav Sarpal
Suyash just discussed about the competition with friends & filled the competition form. It was all done in a jolly manner; no one took the competition seriously. But when the date came to submit the business idea then day before in night suddenly a whats app group has been created and all of the sudden everyone started sending their new ideas because the idea has to be submitted next day. Finally after a bundle of options like a multipurpose suitcase or multipurpose pen, we came up with totally different idea. We came up with the idea of Hi-Tech Notebook. We submitted our idea with around more than 350+ teams, we had a strong feeling to get out in the first round, but luckily as the list came out our team was selected for the first round.
NEW STARTUP IDEA
The concepts talked about how you can reduce your books load, by making one time investment in a simple light gadget, with some good features like your whole online course books for the semester, barrier of any games, social media sites or music to make you focused. Tie up with exam preparation institutions. Your one gadget which you just need to update after a year to get a new course plan that’s it. We had the selling networks through tie ups with various educational institutions or online sale. We didn’t plan for any physical layout of stores. With the tie- ups we even tried combining it with their library and some online courses. With this idea we kept on adding something or the other which enhanced it importance in the eyes of consumers, or maybe you can say increase its utility. We are planning to launch a personalised student gadget for studies.
The first round consisting of a presentation of your plan, in any form verbal and pictorial or may be only verbal. When we went in for our presentation, among all the competitors we sensed a feeling of being an underdog in this game. Our presentation was fine, it didn’t go something brilliant because some cross questioning were there we are able to answer some points but there are faults too in it, but we managed to make a clear picture in the mind of our first judge’s panel. With no hopes and grief we went back and expected to get it over now, only Suyash had a feeling that we will surely be shortlisted for the finals. We didn’t have any hopes making to finals, and we also didn’t check that the results.After a week one night when I was been texted by my friend Suyash “we got qualified”. I couldn’t believe him. He has a habit of often making pranks, so I didn’t believe. But when he send the results screenshot in the whats app group, it was true out of around 150+ teams we were in top 30 for finals. We are totally surprised and happy for it.
Final List of Teams by E-Cell, We are on 18th Number Team
Totally unexpected, we ourselves were not sure regarding the execution of our own start up, because we were far away from technology stuff and to manage the cost with its demand is the very first important step in any project. Now we needed help of some technical person to know the faults and loop holes in our project. Because this time it’s not only a competition, it’s a real platform to launch the startup; we had to showcase ourselves in front of real investors who got to invest in our business plan, if they liked our plan. So we went to our teachers, family and friends tried sealing help from every possible corner we could. Dr. Ajit Nigam Sir, the head of E-Cell Department of UPES also took keen interest in our plan, he suggested us to talk to Mr.Saurabh Shanu, an excellent MTECH student with innovative skills and one of the participant of this competition. It sounds a bit weird as to one participant helping the other. But this is true spirit he showed by helping us. Since he had a bit shortage of time so we had a talk with him, he called us in his home, where he promised to help us in our business plan. We went to his home and worked whole night & came to know many of our flaws like the type of application we have to put in, or the applications it is possible to put in with the available budget per gadget, as it was Rs 3000 to 4000/- per gadget. We worked hard preparing all the things from gadget to the future balance sheet of the company.
FINAL DAY INFRONT OF INVESTORS PANEL
Finally the day came for presentation, we were bit excited and also little scared we were excited because we had worked hard on the plan and scared because we have to present our idea now infront of investors, who all are industry leaders. We were only two members left in the team I & Suyash, who worked day and night for this plan. I tried presenting my idea to every possible person I met. Quite confident with the hi-tech notebook which could do almost everything for a student requires giving parents a sense of security to handle it, as it has almost no distraction and this is the very reason as to why today a concept like kindle is working in India. If you see, it cannot do anything apart from giving you a good screen to read novels with you can do that in your mobile or laptop too. But it’s only that today parents don’t hesitate giving their kids a personal kindle. But unfortunately this again was although realistic but not put one step, if talked about practicality & this trapped us in our conversation with investors on the main day too. We still didn’t go to any practical dealer or school to go up for tie work. Without experience how could we say that if investors invested we would crack it out easily. The ending was sad; we really worked hard for it. Even went to technical work, we knew we didn’t belonged to, working nights with Saurabh Shanu sir, going across teachers all around the campus all came to a sudden end.
All those words which every teacher said after we left there office...”Kids keep on working ….it has that potential.”I guess but this question which we this time stuck in was difficult to get through, plus we were totally broken from that point now. But presenting our idea in-front of investors and all the faults we get, we were able to learn many things from it. Further we had our exams on head and we were so much lost in this competition that we forgot almost everything, but we manage everything in exams. Though we fail in this but we would like to thanks each and everyone who helped us in this Business Model especially our mentors Dr.Ajit Nigam Sir & Mr.Saurabh Shanu Sir and also Saumya Shukla Mam for their constant help.
ONE DAY IT WILL TURN INTO A BIG SUCCESS
Now whenever we sit the first question we battle with within our brain is only how to make it reach the practical ground. What are the sources? We still need to work on. No doubt, how many times we need to go back, either in that competition, get a bit embarrassed by failing at the last step or search about the dealers or their appointments. We will surely check there way of thinking and get into a conversation with them. I know it’s not a small game but we are not the one who would leave this plan, and wait for others to execute. Even Mark’s Zuckerburg, had to face failure with his idea in its initial days. But today it’s blowing off the records with the maximum number of people connecting together on a social platform. As we say where there is a will there has to be a way. And so as we are doing.
"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new"
E-CELL Finalist Participation Certificates
