HOW TO START AN E-CELL ON YOUR CAMPUS

Launching the entrepreneurship club was like a start-up experience- building a team, creating awareness, getting others involved and doing things we'd never thought of.

- Farha Bano, Founder of Pracint, E-Cell at IBAB, Bangalore

What is an Entrepreneurship Cell (E- Cell)? An entrepreneurship Cell or E- Cell is a group of students who get together to practice and promote entrepreneurship in their campus communities. They are committed and driven to thinking and acting entrepreneurially and to explore entrepreneurship as a career option and a way of life. How to use this module This module provides a summary of experiences and best practices drawn from successful student run & led entrepreneurship organizations in India, like IIT Bombays E- Cell, IBABs Pracint, the Center for Entrepreneurial Learning (CEL) at BITS, Pilani, and SP Jain Institutes Entrecom. Please visit their websites and other resources for concrete examples. While the ideas and examples outlined here are aimed at providing all the generic information deemed necessary to define, design and start an E- Cell on any campus in general, the specific structure of the campus community must be taken into account to design a Cell that best suits local needs. What does an E- Cell do? The big idea behind an E- Cell is to foster an environment that enables students to: Think creatively Learn about innovation and new ideas Build knowledge and skills to translate ideas into opportunities Apply these skills and training in the programs organized by the E- Cell in the workplace Be motivated to start their own companies after graduation or after a few years of gaining industry experience

Primarily the E- Cell has three distinct functions: Organization Network Experiential learning programs and activities

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THE ORGANIZATION Depending on the institution, an E- Cell can be set-up in several ways: 1. A collection of motivated students who want to get together informally and organize events on campus 2. A student-led Cell, run independently with on-going faculty support. 3. An organization or committee (more common in business schools) set up with the help of faculty and administration and run jointly by the students, faculty and administration. While all three structures are potentially viable, it is more likely that an organization with institutional support will continue successfully even after a particular group of motivated students moves out. The Mission Before launching different programs and activities, a set of goals and objectives for the E- Cell may be defined. This does not mean flowery mission statements but rather a set of achievable goals and tasks necessary to make the objectives a reality, and provide a sense of direction. An organized group with a well thought-out purpose well will find it easier to get buy-in and support from faculty and administration to set up the E- Cell. This will make it easier to use campus resources and infrastructure, and also enable access to a broader network of people outside the campus community. The Benefits It is important to highlight the benefits of joining an entrepreneurial organization on campus in order to recruit a core team and attract participation in events. These benefits might be selfevident to the founding team, but to motivate others and make it desirable to join, there is a need to highlight incentives like the opportunity to: 1. Become a leader- manage a student organization, illustrate abilities in planning, logistics, marketing, and advertising, create visibility for future employers. 2. Build a network- make contacts with entrepreneurs, professionals and academics who can help with recommendations, network and start a venture with peers. 3. Initiate innovative activities- invite business leaders to campus, plan new and exciting events for students to kick-start learning about new industries and different aspects of business planning.

The Organizational Model Student-led organizations can be set up in three basic ways: 1. Traditional hierarchical model with an elected President, Vice-President, Treasurer and others. 2. Event-based model with decentralized leadership on an event-by-event basis. 3. Functional model with an overall coordinator who oversees the E- Cell and other managers are responsible for particular functions such as events, marketing, public relations, and website maintenance, among others.

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Though the first two models exist, the functional model has elements that will suit most institutions. This model has been explained in detail below. The functional model In this model, each person is responsible for different tasks with a central point of coordination. It allows for independent decision-making and distributes accountability across the team. While the list of functional leaders depends on the number of activities and programs initiated by the E- Cell, certain functions are deemed essential. For instance: 1. Overall coordinator 2. Events manager 3. Marketing manager 4. Media and Public relations manager 5. Web development manager 6. Sponsorship manager* 7. Corporate relations manager* *E- Cells will always need to raise sponsorship for their events and invite various speakers to campus. These tasks can be assigned to managers within the basic organization structure or additional managers can be specifically elected. (You could take a look at IIT Bombays E- Cell website for the organization structure at www.iitbecell.org) THE NETWORK An E- Cell is, most importantly, a group of people organized around the common interest of entrepreneurship. As a student group, resources are limited and success depends in large part on the Cells ability to bring in entrepreneurs, business leaders and professionals as an extended community that shares an interest in seeing the creation of new businesses. Even non-profit and business organizations can provide assistance. Stakeholders A typical E- Cell usually engages at three levels with different stakeholders: 1. On-campus- students, faculty, administration, business incubators, other student groups, placement office/cell 2. Off-campus- alumni 3. Other resource people- entrepreneurs, business leaders, professionals like lawyers and accountants, venture development groups, angel investors, venture capital firms, nonprofit foundations, faculty from other institutions and organizations such as NEN.

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Faculty: The First Link While students remain the primary focus of the E- Cell activities, faculty involvement is also essential to build innovative entrepreneurship programs in an institution. Even as few as one or two interested faculty may be enough to get started. From there expand to the administration who will put you in touch with alumni and other off- campus contacts. Mentors- Alumni and others Active recruiting of mentors is key to the E- Cells success. These may come in the form of faculty members (from any discipline), faculty from other institutions, alumni who have started companies, or other business leaders and professionals. Alumni, and especially alumni entrepreneurs, can inject vigor and vitality to the E- Cell initiatives on campus. They are the readymade link that the institution has to the business and corporate world outside. Many alumni are looking to give back to their alma mater in ways other than just funding. With the special sense of loyalty they have to the institution, they are willing to engage as role models, speakers and team mentors. (See the Programs and Activities section below). Formalizing the involvement of mentors in the E- Cell by forming a body such as an Advisory Board of mentors will enable the E- Cell to bring in other resource people besides alumni mentors. Professionals like lawyers, accountants, angel investors and others may also be coopted to provide domain expertise. Mentors can be engaged with the E- Cell in several ways, including (but not limited to) involvement in E- Cell events and activities, providing advice on ideas for new programs, sponsorship for events, and networking and connections with other business leaders and entrepreneurs. Other resource people It helps to be open and entrepreneurial in the quest to sniff out and recruit people who can serve as resources for the E- Cell. Campus-initiated new ventures will need the advice of accountants, legal experts, lawyers and other financial support from angel investors, banks, venture capital and other sources of funding. Building this network of professionals and services will make the E- Cell activities robust and current with industry trends. Over the years, the E- Cell may expand the scope of their activities beyond students to formally include working professionals and young executives. A broad base of resource people is required to establish new and innovative programs to suit the needs of different stakeholders. Close the loop Keeping resource people informed of the activities of the E- Cell through emails and regular updates will develop a sense of community and help them stay involved with and committed to the E- Cell.

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PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES Experiential learning activities including lectures/talks, workshops, games, events and competitions play a very important role to make entrepreneurship education relevant and holistic. These help students to: Increase their awareness of and interest in entrepreneurship Develop basic knowledge and skills for entrepreneurial success while they are on campus Be inspired to consider entrepreneurship as a possible career option In order to have maximum impact- attract a large number of students to events and create a general level of excitement - a range of activities from low to high intensity need to be planned. High-intensity activities like business plan competitions require a certain level of preparedness at the student level while guest lectures and workshops that deal with idea generation and opportunity evaluation might have broader appeal, are easier to organize and can be tackled first. Outlined below are a representative set of experiential learning activities presented according to the different stages of the entrepreneurial process - from the basic introduction, idea generation, to business planning and actually starting a company. Introduction to Entrepreneurship Activities General inspiration talks/guest lectures/seminars Role models are a good way to introduce the concept of entrepreneurship. Students always relate to real-life examples. For instance, today in India the success of Biocon, Infosys, and Pantaloon is common knowledge to most students, whether or not they are interested in starting their own companies. Successful entrepreneurs can be invited to the campus to share their stories. Sharing experiences about their personal challenges, risks and rewards will give students a good idea about the various facets of entrepreneurship, including (but not limited to) the success/failure of a venture. As mentioned above, alumni, who are usually looking to return to their alma mater for events such as these should also be actively sought. Seminars to complement entrepreneurship curriculum As the general awareness in entrepreneurship on campus increases, the talks and lectures can be structured to enhance the students knowledge and understanding of specific concepts. These lectures would require faculty moderation to ensure proper synthesis of the key messages. Inviting entrepreneurs from different industries (e.g. Biotech, Pharma, IT, Retail, Auto component manufacturing etc.) would draw attention to new opportunities and challenges in different industry spaces. Market orientation workshop Before coming up with a business idea, the first step is to understand the market context. The aim of this workshop would be to show how to identify an opportunity based on gaps in the

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market, with a view to exposing students to a needs-based approach, rather than allow for products/services to be created in isolation. People from research labs associated with large companies and multi-nationals can be invited to showcase examples of how they find and launch new products based on customer and market needs. Idea evaluation workshop An idea evaluation workshop would show students how to determine a real business opportunity. This workshop would showcase, with examples from entrepreneurs life, how they got the idea, why they pursued it and the process they went through to evaluate the business opportunity. In some cases, to tie the entrepreneurs presentation with course offerings, a faculty member can layout the theoretical framework to maximize the key learning. Business ideas competition An easy way for students to get started is to enter a business ideas competition. Initiating this thinking process competitively would be a great incentive to attract large numbers of students and get them excited about entrepreneurship. Inviting a successful entrepreneur and other panelists for the final event would be an added incentive. Business Planning Activities After the inspiration and orientation to entrepreneurship, the programs and activities can become more specific to the requirements of planning a business. General business planning workshop A workshop that brings out the different aspects of planning a business will orient the students to various issues like market viability of a product/service in the context of existing competition, how to find customers, identify human, financial and technological resources, build a financial model and draw up an execution plan. It would also touch upon business plan writing and presentation skills. Workshops on different aspects of business planning This can be a series of workshops that will highlight critical aspects of new venture creation like fundraising, intellectual property issues, legal and accounting practices, recruiting a team, leadership, building a financial model, marketing, understanding the risks etc. Resource people for all the sessions above can be a combination of faculty, professional experts like lawyers, human resource firms, angel investors, bankers, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and other practitioners. Depending upon the demand from the students (and other stakeholders like the alumni), some of these topics can be handled more in-depth through more workshops.

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Business Plan Competition After students get inspired and interested towards entrepreneurship through the lectures and workshops, students could develop a business plan to put their business planning skills to test. The business plan competition would encourage new ideas to take shape not just on your, but also provide an opportunity to engage with students and faculty from other institutions, community leaders, business professionals and others.

Keeping Track of Participation Finally, it is critical to keeping track of student involvement and attendance in the E- Cell and its programs and activities. It is ideal to ask attendees to fill out a feedback questionnaire with their contact information and demographic data for your own research. Having information such as how participants heard about the event, their interests and other such pertinent data can help plan and determine the success of the E- Cells advertising and awareness campaigns. A door prize drawn from the list of completed registrations/ filled-up questionnaires may be announced as an incentive! At the very least, however, on-the -spot registration, with names and email ids, might be easier to handle and should be done on at every E- Cell event. For other events and competitions that require business ideas and plans submissions, it may be beneficial to track the progress of winners and see how many of these plans turn into real companies in the future. In closing NEN may be contacted directly for more specific help and ideas on the day-to-day functioning of a campus E- Cell. They may be able to provide information on a host of related issues such as 1. How to use an email introduction 2. Examples of activities from U.S. universities 3. Article on 14 ways to evaluate a business idea 4. Module on how to organize and run a Business Ideas competition 5. Module on how to organize and run a Business Plan competition.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: To find out what other E-Cell communities are doing, log on to www.nenonline.org and view the section on Communities. You can also contact the NEN Consulting Team in your city or write to outreach@nenonline.org or info@nenonline.org. All contact information is available on NEN Online.

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