Today's learnings from the class of Entrepreneurship...........

Today, we had a session on entrepreneurship with Satya at IWSB. Every Thursday, we have a session on entrepreneurship in our college. We are four who attend these sessions as students of entrepreneurship. This session starts at 8:30 AM every Thursday. Somehow I reached late in the class, finally session started. We started with discussions about our businesses. Satya started discussing with individuals one by one. Jaydeep and Amit discussed about their work first, Diksha discussed after these guys. Finally my turn came, I and Satya discussed pits and falls of my business and what kind of growth has happened over a period of time. It’s around fourth month of my business and I am facing very difficult issues as it was severe drought just before some time in Aligarh and I am into a business which is related to agriculture. This drought put me down on my knees; it was time of no sales. I discussed each and every in and out of the scenario of my business.

Because of continuous challenges, few negative feelings started coming into my mind. Sometimes I felt that my passion for my business is reducing slowly, my passion is most valuable asset for my business. I and Satya discussed about such issues, he shared his experience about his early stage when he just started Career Launcher education foundation.

Then we discussed about the operations of my business. We discussed about the main three areas of any new start up 1) Research, 2) Strategy formulation and 3) Ground work (Implementation of your idea). There should be a balance in all three. Once you have idea ready in hand, you need to do enough research work about various issues of your business. On the basis of results of these researches, you need to prepare plans and strategy which will provide you growth in your business. If research work has not been done properly, planning and strategy comes from instincts and beliefs an individual can have. But these instincts and personal beliefs don’t work most of the time and entrepreneurs put themselves in the problems. If research work has been done carefully then chances of success for your plans/ideas become much more. Once you are through with formulation of strategy then it comes to implementation part. If implementation is following a deep research and thoughtful plan and strategy then it becomes very easy for entrepreneurs to handle their businesses. Most of the entrepreneurs make the mistake of jumping directly to the implementation of their idea on ground and it’s where problem starts. Some are lucky to succeed in such scenario but most are not. Entrepreneurs do it because of many reasons e.g. they are passionate about their idea so don’t look at downside of their idea and directly go for implementation, research and strategy formulation is very boring kind of work. At the time when you too much excited about your idea it’s really hard to sit relax and give it a deep thought, there are many other reasons as well.

When things go wrong, entrepreneurs realize that something has gone wrong, but it’s better to look your idea from other’s perspective. You must have to be open for suggestions which generally don’t happen with all the people. These are few issues when your passion becomes your negative part. So you must need a balance in all these things and always start with research which will avoid future difficulties.

Shodhyatra................ journey of knowledge

I started the preparation of Shodhyatra before around one month. I was organizing this event create awareness about organic farming in the village so my prior aim was to get more and more people to interact with in the villages. I got the support of agriculture dept. We filled almost all the walls in almost all the villages with the posters conveying the massages of Shodhyatra. Before Shodhyatra in every villages, we arranged meetings in all villages with farmers and more importantly we took all the opinion leaders in our support before the Shodhyatra and their support became very good tool to get large number of audiences in the village meetings during the Shodhyatra. Before Shodhyatra we gave samples of organic agro products to some farmers to use on their crops and these farmers were supposed to present in the respective meetings in their villages during shodhyatra. It was really hard for me to manage studies during this time; I attend my college for 4 days in a week and come back to my work for rest of the week. I put my all efforts to make this event successful.

After a rigor of around one month, we were ready to organize the Shodhaytra on its scheduled time 29-30^th Aug. 09. It was a two days program in which we had to cover 10 villages. We had to start the event early in the morning so we decided to reach the starting point one day before. In the evening of 28^th August 09 almost all the people who were going to join Shodhyatra reached Madrak (The Starting point). We planned to stay for night in that village so we could get in touch with more farmers during the night. This village is situated on a high way which connects two big cities and Aligarh City is not much far from this village. This village is having very good connectivity with the other places. In this village, a meeting with farmers was scheduled at 7:30 AM, It was a starting point and we expected a large number of farmers to attend the meeting but we could get very less number of farmers in the meeting. I was also expecting media people at this spot as I informed almost all the media person in the area about the event. None of the media person reached on time, I had disappointment for their delay. The perception of this village meeting was much below the expectations. I am sure all the people in this village were aware of the event, all the farmers knew that the event is related to agriculture even after that we got very less number of audience in that village which has population more than 4000. Somehow, we could interact around 300 students of different schools. I was thinking about the reasons for low response from the people, was it time we had this meeting at 7:30 AM or it was something else.

At around 9:00 AM, Shodhyatra left Madrak and left towards the next point Nagla Pooran which is around 1 KM away from the first point. This village is comparatively much smaller than the first one even than we got large number farmers as our audiences in comparison to Madrak.

At around 11:30 AM, Shodhyatra reached a village called Nhoti, in this village we got some herbal practitioners who heel the people by the use of natural resources. In this village, I was expecting a good number of people to attend our meeting and we got fairly good number of audiences in this meeting. After it Day 1 of shodhyatra was according to our expectations, after Nhoti Shodhyatra covered Keeratpur and Mainath. In both these villages we got fairly good response from the people. After Mainath, Shodhyatra approached towards a school where we planned for night stay. This school is not in any village but is near to two villages. People in both these villages were known about the night stay of Shodhyatra in this school. We stayed in this school, so we could meet the people from those two villages. People in both these villages were very much interested in coming to that place for a night meet. We also arranged a musical program for the evening where few Lokgeet were presented. But all our planning got failed because of heavy rain in the evening; this rain started at around 7:00 PM and didn’t stop till mid night, so no people from any of the villages could reach us.

Second day Shodhyatra reached Manoharpur, it was around 7:45 AM. When we reached at the venue of meeting in this village there were hardly 10-15 people but within just 10 minutes, more than 400 people were there. Hundreds of women, hundreds of children and hundreds of farmers were there to meet us. After getting this kind of response from a comparatively small village I thought if early time was the reason for low response from people in Madrak than how have we got this huge crowd in this village. But I realized that mobility in this village in much less against Madrak. This village is in very much interior, no public transport is available to this place.

After a great response in Manoharpur, Shodhyatra proceeded towards Bhakraula. In this village we got some very good herbal practitioners. In the second day of Shodhyatra, we covered three more villages Dolra, Khadia and Badhauli.

In this Shodhyatra we met around 3000 people and shared our ideology with them. We encouraged farmers towards organic farming. My teams are still in touch with all villages and will be there to provide support to farmers for organic farming.

My experience in team building.............

During the initial stage of my business, I started my work with visiting villages and direct interactions with farmers. I went to the areas which are in deep interiors; I used to visit 2-3 villages a day. After working for around 15 days, I realized that it will take very long to cover a small region for my products. I was not in condition to hire people. Then I thought about how I can include some more people in my work without paying them. After sometime, one of friend asked me to arrange a summer internship in any company for one of his relatives. I thought why can’t I have interns working on my venture. I went to some local B-schools and asked them for some interns on they agreed. In the month of April, I conducted interviews of applicants for summer training on my venture. In two days, I interviewed 56 people and after matching them with my requirements I selected 32 MBA students as interns on my venture. All selected interns were supposed to join me the last week of May 09. The period between their selection and joining, I did a lot of ground work to provide them work during their summer training. Finally 20 out of selected interns joined me for their summer training.

I was well aware about the nature of job given to them, they had to visit villages which followed by village meetings. They had to use public transport for their visit to the villages and in most of the cases they had to go on feet to reach the villages which are away from main roads. It was hot summers and it burns in Aligarh during summers. The work was very difficult for them and it became more difficult because I was not paying any stipend to them. I was paying only TA to them, no other incentive was provided to interns from my side.

On the one hand, they had to face above difficulties and on the other they had to deal with typical mindset of farmers. People in villages don’t get convinced easily and when it is about agriculture, they hardly listen to strangers. For interns, the work was very difficult and there was no motivation in the work.

Just after first 2-3 days, most of them realized about the hardness of the job. Even few of them decided to leave their training in between. I was able to read their faces because I had worked in same fields, I was well aware of the hardness of the work. When they used to come back from fields, they were very much tired. Generally they used to go early in the morning and used to come back in afternoon or so, sometimes they were without lunch.

It was a very big challenge for me to retain my team effective. Initially my perception about these guys was not as good. I used to compare my knowledge with their knowledge because I am also a management student; I and my interns were in the same position academically.Some of them were so intellect and creative.

I gave it a deep thought and came up with some cultural changes within the organization of 33 (including 20 interns, 10 agents and 2 employees)people. I made them free to take leaves; they just had informed me 2 days prior to their leave so I could manage accordingly. Every Saturday was called as ‘Fun day’, every Saturday all of us used to go for some picnic or used to enjoy at office but in any case all of us together. At least once in a week, I used to give a motivational lecture kind of thing to encourage them, so I could get them back on track if required. All interns were free to invite anyone from outside to join us on Fun day. Every Monday, there was a review meeting about our work in the last week and plans for next week. We used to review our approach during the last week and were always open for suggestion to improve. There was no senior or junior in the office to the extent possible. I gave them a feeling of ownership, each one of them was asked to come with a plan for next week if he owns the business every Monday in the review meeting. This feeling of ownership made them think out of box and they started coming up with very good plans. I asked few of them to implement their plans on ground and they did. Open culture and feeling of ownership made them so affectionate about the work.

This team was highly mobilized, conducted on an average more than 3 meetings a day at different places. Every individual in this team became a valuable asset for me. Each individual gave his best and made things happen in realistic manner. Most of the members of this team including me were completely fresher’s. None of us was having any expertise in any field of management except our study of one year at our respective B-schools.

Even after getting a very difficult and challenging job with no motivation, all of them worked so well. Isn’t it very strange?

Yes, it is strange but realistic as well. The ownership feeling and open culture motivated them in such a way that when their tenure ended with me, most of them asked to continue work with me. It is something which I have learnt at IWSB. When I joined IWSB and saw an open culture it was very surprising for me. At IWSB, everyone calls others by their first name, whoever he/she is. We (students) call our director by his first name. Actually not just that we can share whatever we feel like or we want to share with our mentors. All such things were completely new for me, initially I couldn’t relate these things with my learning’s but it was easy to learn with such norms. While creating and formulating my team I tried to implement the same thing which gave me above expectation returns.

I am really thankful to IWSB for such education which is helping me while setting up my business.

Route and Activities Of Shodhyatra

Route and Schedule of Mini Shodhyatra (Aligarh)

Mini Shodhyatra will start from Madrak, Lodha Block on 29^th August 09 and will end at Badauli, Lodha Block on 30^th August09. In total 10 villages ( approximately 14 KM distance) will be covered in the shodhyatra’s two days program. Route with activities is explained below.

Shodhyatris from outside Aligarh and SRISTI team will reach Madrak on 28^th August 09 and will do a night stay.

Day 1 (29th august 09)

7:30 AM Madrak:- Shodhyatra will start from this place in the morning of 29th august09. Village meeting and various competitions at school level will be organized in this village. In the meeting farmers will get the knowledge about the organic farming and we will also look after other challenges faced by the problems and your innovation. Various competition among the children will be organized to make them aware about the correct use of nature for good.

9:30 AM Nagla Pooran :- Village meeting and Competition at the school level among the children.

11:30 AM `Nhoti :- Village meeting and competions at school level among the childen.

Lunch after Nhoti

02:30 PM Keeeratpur :- Village meeting and Competition at the school level among the children.

04:30PM Mainath :- Village meeting and Competition at the school level among the children.

Night stay in Manoharpur.

Day 2 (30th August 09)

07:30 AM Manoharpur :- Village meeting and Competition at the school level among the children.

09:30 AM Bhakraula :- Village meeting and Competition at the school level among the children.

11:30 AM Dolra :- Village meeting and Competition at the school level among the children.

Lunch after Dolra

02:30 PM Khadia :- Village meeting and Competition at the school level among the children.

04:30 PM Badhauli :- Village meeting and Competition at the school level among the children.

At this place Shodhyatra will end.