Entrepreneur 21/10/08

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    How is it that a 158 year old company, the

    5th biggest investment bank in the world, went bank-

    rupt overnight? Why have the TV channels reduced

    their obsession with Sarah Palin and are now hanging

    on every word Hank Paulson, US Treasury Secretary,

    says?

    Well, first of all while there has been much

    publicity about Lehman Brothers

    going bankrupt overnight. The

    real cause can be traced back by achain of events that started off as

    early as 2002, with the US sub-

    prime mortgage crisis. The causes

    for the

    m o r t g a g e

    crisis are numerous, ranging from

    poor scrutiny by lenders, lack of

    regulation, to possibility of in-

    sider trading in credit derivatives.

    This mortgage crisis led to the

    housing bubble burst in 2006 and

    also triggered off the global fi-

    nancial crisis. Lehman was greatly

    affected by this credit crisis due

    to its large investment in BNC

    Mortgage, its subprime lender

    and also its investment in other

    low rated mortgage securities.

    Failure to raise further capital

    and its tumultuous losses, led to

    its filing for bankruptcy on Sep-

    tember 15th

    .

    The Lehman Bankruptcy set in a train of

    damaging events. The $3500bn US money market

    fund, that banks and companies use for their short

    term financing got locked. Many Hedge funds that

    were using Lehman as their prime broker, suddenlyfound their collateral frozen due the complicated

    structure of Lehmans bankruptcy filing.

    About a week before the Lehman bank-

    ruptcy case, the Federal government had announced

    the takeover (or placing into conservatorship) of two

    of its biggest government sector enterprises Freddie

    Mac (Federal Home Loan mortgage corporation) and

    Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association).

    Two companies considered to be too big to fail.

    A day following the bankruptcy filing of Leh-

    man Brothers, came the Federal Banks $85 billion

    rescue package for AIG, the worlds biggest insurer. If

    AIG had failed, it was said that the average citizens

    savings and checking accounts could be in jeopardy. To

    19 Oct, 2008

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    gauge the magnitude of the issue, just try to imagine a

    situation where, as an ordinary citizen you are not sure if

    your money is safe in a bank!

    Other than Merrill Lynch, which was bought

    over by Bank of America, the next victim of the financial

    crisis was Washington mutual, the largest US savings and

    loans association. The banks home loan department

    took a big hit; a hit big enough to affect the $307bn

    bank. Within 10 days customers pulled out $16.7bn,

    increasing the urgency for some sort of a rescue act. Thiswas the first case of direct government intervention,

    where the Federal Reserve put pressure on WaMu to

    find a buyer, and even went forward to hold a secret

    auction where JP Morgan was an-

    nounced the highest bidder.

    The next step by the US

    government was the much publi-

    cised $700 bn bailout a.k.a the Paul-

    son plan. Most of the $700 billion

    was to be used by the Federal Re-

    serve and the Treasury to buy out

    liquid mortgage backed securities.

    This increased the almost non-

    existent liquidity in the market.

    Let us stop here for a

    moment. Within two weeks two of

    the five largest investment banks,

    two of the biggest GSEs (govt. sec-

    tor enterprises) seized to exist and

    the biggest insurer was saved by

    last minute government interven-

    tion. This is excluding all the activities going on with Wa-

    chovia, Britain and Iceland.

    There is no doubt that the catalyst for the sud-

    den crisis was the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Unlike

    Bear Stearns which got a lifeline about six months ago

    from the Federal Reserve, Lehman got no such lifeline. Inever once considered it appropriate to put taxpayer

    money on the line in resolving Lehman Brothers, Hank

    Paulson, Treasury secretary, said the day after Lehmans

    demise. Of course it is arguable as to if things would be a

    lot better were Lehman Brothers still present.

    There has been quite some criticism that the

    government intervention came a little too late. There is

    also another sect of people who are against Hank Paul-

    son assuming the role of God, with tax payers money.

    Only time will tell if Paulson plan is indeed sufficient to

    avert a bigger disaster.

    Next issue: How the US financial crisis affects India di-

    rectly and indirectly.

    Without the strength to endure the

    crisis, one will not see the opportu-

    nity within. It is within the process

    of endurance that opportunity re-

    veals itself.

    - Chin-Ning Chu

    Making Sense of the Financial Crisis

    Turn to Page 2 for the

    second article of the Vision

    India 2020 seriesUrja.

    Give in your valuable com-

    ments at editor. theentre-

    [email protected]

    www.ecell.iitkgp.ernet.in

    - Abhilash B.N

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    For many years, I had traveled around India andwondered how to take advantage of the tremendouscraftsmanship that exists in the depths of India. Whether itis in Nagaland or Gujarat, Kashmir or Bengal, Indias heri-tage has been rich with artisans.

    Yet, for all its creativity, the sophistication of designand quality of finish were always elusive. Indian designswere always too complex, too busy. Thus, the potential fora strong international brand that could transcend culturesand appeal to a wide audience somehow eluded India.

    The answer came to me gradually, and received apropulsion during a vacation in Italy in the Spring of 2007.We were staying with Carol and Ginou in the Tuscan villageof San Giovanni dAsso. One evening, their friend Alessan-dro came for dinner. Alessandro had been a top executiveat Giorgio Armani in Milan, and had traveled widely in In-dia.The question I was asking was also on his mind.And that evening, under the Tuscan moon, Urja was born.Urja, by the way, means born out of creative energyin San-skrit.

    Over the next two years, we simply kicked aroundthe ideas, talked with people, and worked on recruiting acore team that could pilot our concept. Our core hypothe-

    sis was that if Italian designers were made to work with theartisans in India in various communities, design sophistica-tion could be achieved.

    We tested this with Lucknow Chikan as part of thepilot. Our Italian designer team in Milan and our Chikanteam in Lucknow worked together to exchange designideas. When the first set of designs came out of this pilot,we were delighted to see the simplification that the Italianteam had been able to achieve, without losing the beauty,intricacy, and charm of the original art form.

    A simple set of the most elegant dress shirts hadbeen created.

    Alessandro and I were primarily concerned with thefact that Indian designs were too complex for global taste,

    so this was a major milestone for us to reach to convinceourselves that sophisticated design was, indeed, possiblethrough this cross-cultural exchange.The next two big issues were cut and quality control.

    Indian designers had very little experience of what Icall design for manufacturability that is essential for ascalable ready-to-wear industry to come together. Theyhad experience in designing salwar-kameez, ghagra-choli,or saris, but very little in western clothing.

    The industry had to be trained in cut and manufac-turing to spec. For this, we turned to Alessandros contactsin the Italian fashion industry, and recruited a top-notchteam of manufacturing experts. Even on the Quality Con-

    trol issue, we had the Italians train our teams in India.

    With those 3 legs of our plan in place, we wentand raised money. I convinced Alessandro to forget hisretirement ideas, and take the CEO role. French BillionaireFrancois Pinault, who also owns Gucci among other fash-ion brands, funded the concept, and his company becameour long term investor through the next 11 years of Urjasevolution.

    We created the Urja brand using the Internet, aswell as retail channels. Today, we have flagship stores onChamps-lyses in Paris, Via Condotti in Rome, Fifth Ave-

    nue in New York, among others.Our advertising campaign was very Web 3.0. Sev-eral of our Italian designers and Indian artisans becamecelebrities on the internet, since we encouraged them toengage with the customers on social media and theGlam.com network.

    The side-effect was that we carefully monitoredcustomer feedback, and in fact, engaged customers withour designers almost as pre-design focus groups, online.We learned so much through these interactions, andevery time we were about to launch a new concept, wecould go back to our core customer base and check theassumptions.

    One by one, we incorporated Tassar silk from

    Bengal, Rajasthani Block Print techniques, Dhakai Jamdanifabrics, Gujarati mirror and bnadhni work, Kashmirishawls, even tribal artisans work, into our collections.

    We paid attention to every detail from buttonsto draw-strings. We had artisans who specialized in mak-ing the most unique collections of buttons and cuff-links!

    Our Italian-Indian fusion brand became a sensa-tion, injecting a sense of novelty and creativity into theglobal fashion world that had, by and large, become bor-ing.

    And most importantly, we were able to build afinancially sound, compelling business that is now sup-porting the livelihood of 100,000 artisans across India.

    Urja, indeed, was born out of creative energy.However, the business was chiseled and sculpted care-fully, keeping in mind the core nuggets of our vision: sim-plicity, detail, sophistication and quality.

    And with that, we seduced the fashion world.

    Vision India 2020: Urja

    "Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming."

    - Richard Branson

    THE ENTREPRENEURPage 2

    The author is a well known Silicon Valley entrepreneur

    who has founded 3 companies, is a strategy consultant for

    over 70 companies, including SAP and Cadence among

    others, and the content from her popular strategy blog at

    www.sramanamitra.com is syndicated by Yahoo! Finance,

    Indian Daily, etc. She also writes a weekly column forForbes.

    Sramana Mitra

    www.ecell.iitkgp.ernet.in

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    How free software makes money

    The world is more malleable than you think and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape.

    - Bono

    THE ENTREPRENEURPage 3

    www.ecell.iitkgp.ernet.in

    RedHat offers RHEL, or RedHat Enterprise Linux

    which they build by gluing together various free software

    components and charge for the service of maintaining it.

    They capitalize on the fact that they are familiar with

    exactly what they built.MySQL and Trolltech Qt follow a

    double-license model. Why would people choose the

    proprietary license? The proprietary license offers some

    additional rights over the software over and above the

    fundamental free software license rights. Yes, it works.

    The proprietary license is available at a price.

    Many companies also tend to maintain two ver-

    sions of their software: a free software community

    version that the community continually improves and a

    proprietary version that can be purchased at a cost. Zim-

    bra, the email client, is one significant example. Their

    desktop edition is free software but their network edi-

    tion for large enterprises comes at a cost. RHEL/ Fedora

    is another example- RedHat constantly use ideas and

    code from Fedora, the community edition, to maintain

    RHEL (No, RHEL isnt proprietary, but either is it devel-

    oped by the community).

    Many free software projects are funded by com-

    panies interested in seeing the project come up. SuSe,

    for example, sponsors a project called OpenSync because

    they want to see certain features in it that they probablywouldnt see otherwise. They additionally get some good

    publicity and a major say in any crucial decision. Instead

    of creating their own synchronization solution for their

    operating system, why not sponsor an already ongoing

    project? Its far cheaper and they get additional program-

    mer passionate about the software to work on it for free

    (yes, I worked on it for a while too because I liked it). Just

    like Google pays Firefox (yes, firefox is free software) to

    get their homepage opened at startup by default, several

    companies might have interests in different popular free

    software. For example, if OpenSync becomes really

    popular and supports synchronization with Nokia and

    Sony phones, Motorola will immediately jump in and

    help OpenSync support their phones by funding the pro-

    ject. Zimbra did so well that it was acquired by Yahoo! in

    September 2007.

    Ever wondered why a perfectly respectable sys-

    tem like Ubuntu Linux ships completely free of cost all

    the way from Africa? While many people focus on this

    point, it is actually just a consequence of something else-

    Ubuntu is only incidentally free of cost. Good people

    donate to it and sponsor its shipping costs because they

    like it. Ubuntu is free software or software libre. Free

    as in freedom, not cost, means 4 fundamental rights:

    1. The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.

    2. The freedom to study how the program works, and

    adapt it to your needs. Access to the source code is a

    precondition for this.

    3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help

    your neighbor.

    4. The freedom to improve the program, and release

    your improvements to the public, so that the whole com-

    munity benefits. Access to the source code is a precondi-

    tion for this.

    There are many other free software products

    that arent necessarily free of cost- Ubuntu Linux is only

    one of them. How do these other companies manage to

    make money?

    Traditional software companies create some-

    thing, package it, and sell it, the same way a vegetable

    vendor sells vegetables on the street- price per piece.Simple revenue model. How do I sell free software

    though? Certainly not like vegetables on the street, be-

    cause everyone has the right to redistribute it. So whos

    actually going to come to me and pay for it? Well, it turns

    out that there are many other creative ways to make

    money. Since the models tend to be complicated hybrids,

    Ill illustrate with examples:

    SpikeSource is an example of a very successful

    company that follows a pure service model. They special-

    ize in maintenance, certification, and integration of free

    software into large workstations. They capitalize on the

    fact that they have the power to study the source code

    (modifying it when necessary) and pinpoint exactly what

    went wrong during tech support. Free software typically

    comes with no warranty of any kind. SpikeSource fills this

    void for large corporations.

    - Ramkumar. R

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    The economic situation is apparently so grim that

    some experts fear we may be in for a stretch as bad as the

    mid seventies.

    When Microsoft and Apple were founded.

    As those examples suggest, a recession may not be such a

    bad time to start a startup. I'm not claiming it's a particu-

    larly good time either. The truth is more boring: the state

    of the economy doesn't matter much either way.

    If we've learned one thing from funding so many

    startups, it's that they succeed or fail based on the qualities

    of the founders. The economy has some effect, certainly,

    but as a predictor of success it's rounding error comparedto the founders.

    Which means that what matters is who you are, not

    when you do it. If you're the right sort of person, you'll win

    even in a bad economy. And if you're not, a good economy

    won't save you. Someone who thinks "I better not start a

    startup now, because the economy is so bad" is making the

    same mistake as the people who thought during the Bubble

    "all I have to do is start a startup, and I'll be rich."

    So if you want to improve your chances, you should think

    far more about who you can recruit as a cofounder than

    the state of the economy. And if you're worried about

    threats to the survival of your company, don't look for

    them in the news. Look in the mirror.

    But for any given team of founders, would it not

    pay to wait till the economy is better before taking the

    leap? If you're starting a restaurant, maybe, but not if

    you're working on technology. Technology progresses more

    or less independently of the stock market. So for any given

    idea, the payoff for acting fast in a bad economy will be

    higher than for waiting. Microsoft's first product was a

    Basic interpreter for the Altair. That was exactly what the

    world needed in 1975, but if Gates and Allen had decided

    to wait a few years, it would have been too late.

    Of course, the idea you have now won't be the last

    you have. There are always new ideas. But if you have a

    specific idea you want to act on, act now.

    That doesn't mean you can ignore the economy.Both customers and investors will be feeling pinched. It's

    not necessarily a problem if customers feel pinched: you

    may even be able to benefit from it, by making things that

    save money. Startups often make things cheaper, so in that

    respect they're better positioned to prosper in a recession

    than big companies.

    Investors are more of a problem. Startups generally

    need to raise some amount of external funding, and inves-

    tors tend to be less willing to invest in bad times. They

    shouldn't be. Everyone knows you're supposed to buy

    when times are bad and sell when times are good. But of

    course what makes investing so counterintuitive is that in

    equity markets, good times are defined as everyone think-

    ing it's time to buy. You have to be a contrarian to be

    correct, and by definition only a minority of investors can

    be.

    So just as investors in 1999 were tripping over one

    another trying to buy into lousy startups, investors in

    2009 will presumably be reluctant to invest even in good

    ones.

    You'll have to adapt to this. But that's nothing

    new: startups always have to adapt to the whims of inves-

    tors. Ask any founder in any economy if they'd describe

    investors as fickle, and watch the face they make. Last

    year you had to be prepared to explain how your startupwas viral. Next year you'll have to explain how it's reces-

    sion-proof.

    (Those are both good things to be. The mistake

    investors make is not the criteria they use but that they

    always tend to focus on one to the exclusion of the rest).

    Fortunately the way to make a startup recession-

    proof is to do exactly what you should do anyway: run it

    as cheaply as possible. For years I've been telling founders

    that the surest route to success is to be the cockroaches

    of the corporate world. The immediate cause of death in a

    startup is always running out of money. The cheaper your

    company is to operate, the harder it is to kill. Fortunately

    it has gotten very cheap to run a startup, and a recession

    will if anything make it cheaper still.

    If nuclear winter really is here, it may be safer to

    be a cockroach even than to keep your job. Customers

    may drop off individually if they can no longer afford you,

    but you're not going to lose them all at once; markets

    don't "reduce headcount."

    What if you quit your job to start a startup that

    fails, and you can't find another? That could be a problem

    if you work in sales or marketing. In those fields it can

    take months to find a new job in a bad economy. But

    hackers seem to be more liquid. Good hackers can always

    get some kind of job. It might not be your dream job, but

    you're not going to starve.

    Another advantage of bad times is that there'sless competition. Technology trains leave the station at

    regular intervals. If everyone else is cowering in a corner,

    you may have a whole car to yourself.

    You're an investor too. As a founder, you're buy-

    ing stock with work: the reason Larry and Sergey are so

    rich is not so much that they've done work worth tens of

    billions of dollars, but that they were the first investors in

    Google. And like any investor you should buy when times

    are bad.

    Were you nodding in agreement, thinking "stupid

    investors" a few paragraphs ago when I was talking about

    how investors are reluctant to put money into startups in

    - Contd. on Page 6

    Why have a start-up in a bad economy

    "I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others... I find out what

    the world needs, then I proceed to invent."

    - Thomas Edison

    THE ENTREPRENEURPage 4

    www.ecell.iitkgp.ernet.in

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    Even before you start thinking on that path-

    breaking idea of yours, you need to think on the area in

    which your idea lies. It might seem very lucrative in your

    head, but there might be other factors not related to your

    enterprise which might drain out all your returns. A

    golden rule for bootstrapping, according to Seth Godin, is

    Avoid great ideas. A great idea is one which causes an

    entire paradigm shift and can give rise to an entire indus-

    try based on it. This certainly seems to be like an odd

    piece of advice. Why should anyone avoid going after apath-breaking idea? Remember, you are a bootstrapper;

    your basic motto is to start from nothing and make it big.

    In fact, Inc.com lists seven entrepreneurs who made it big

    after starting in less than $1000. The problem with having

    a really big idea is its instant universal appeal and the

    competition which is ready to jump in.

    A few characteristics of a bootstrappers business

    model are listed below: Profitability, protectibility, self-

    priming, adjustability and an optional exit strategy. Other

    than these basic guidelines, there is no rigid business

    model to be followed. Once you get that idea, you need to

    start analyzing your value chain before making your busi-

    ness model. Lets start with understanding the value chain.

    Working our way backwards, the elements of the chain

    are:

    The end user : Identify who is going to be the con-

    sumer.

    Product/Service value assessment: Analyse theworth of the product/service you are offering.

    Distribution: Where consumers can find your prod-

    uct or avail of your services.

    Cost of a sale: This helps tell you whether what you

    are selling is worth it.

    Next Issue: Start bootstrapping ! Lessons in Marketing

    and Raising Capital

    Financial Bootstrapping Part 2: Bootstrappersbusiness model

    "Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it's about trading: buying and selling."

    - Anita Roddick

    THE ENTREPRENEURPage 5

    Need Money? Consider these

    Owner financing Credit cards

    Second mortgages

    Personal savings

    "Friends, fools and

    family"

    Joint utilization

    Share office, supplies,

    equipment

    Share employees

    Delaying payment Negotiate terms

    Lease equipment

    Selling by commission in-

    stead of wages

    Subsidy finance

    Governmental grants

    Research grants

    Minimizing inventory

    Using formal routines

    to minimize inventory

    needed

    Minimization of accounts re-

    ceivable

    Factoring

    Reward fast payment

    Terminate relationship with

    slow paying customers

    - Vaibhav Sinha

    The Entrepreneur team invites readers articles for subsequent issues, comments and feedback on the current issue, and

    suggestions for improvement of The Entrepreneur at:

    [email protected]

    www.ecell.iitkgp.ernet.in

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    Concipio, the Business Ideas competition organized annu-

    ally by IIT Kharagpur has come a long way in its endeavor

    to transform great ideas into successful start-ups. The

    past years have witnessed start-ups like P2 Power Solu-

    tions (P) Ltd. and Intinno Technologies Pvt. Ltd. leave a

    strong impression in the field of entrepreneurship. This

    Year, Concipio08 was launched with an aim to continue

    the competitions successful run on a much larger scale.

    The year 2008 has witnessed as many as 43 submissions

    in the competition. There has also been participation

    from the

    alumni and

    professors

    of IIT

    Kharagpur.

    The first

    round of

    the com-

    p e t i t i o n

    i n v o l v e d

    i d e a t i o n ,

    with the

    p a r t i c i -

    pants submitting the executive summaries of their ideas.

    The results of the first round submission were declared

    on October 1, 2008. 11 teams have made the cut for thefinal round.

    The selected entries are undergoing a mentoring process

    "Entrepreneurs are risk takers, willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea

    or enterprise.

    - Victor Kiam

    THE ENTREPRENEURPage 6

    Concipio: Business Ideas competitionunder the professors of the institute, venture capitalists

    and distinguished personalities from the business institu-

    tions and corporate world. The number of submissions

    has increased, but the overall quality of submissions still

    requires some improvement if having more than one

    start-up a year is what this competition aims at. One of

    the mentors of the competition has sent the following

    message across to the students:

    The quality of ideas is amazing, but the candidates need

    to get acquainted with the various facets of business

    models. I sincerely believe that major steps need to be

    taken round the year for students to get acquainted with

    the entrepreneurship process. Various facets of startups

    need to be evangelized to the students so that they are

    better aware and prepared.

    This year, E-Cell organized two workshops specifically for

    Concipio participants: one by Concipio 07 winners, Team

    Intinno and Concipio05 winner, Mr. Shwetank Jain ( CEO

    of the P2 Power Solutions (P) Ltd. ) and another on Busi-

    ness Plan writing by the associate members of the Entre-

    preneurship Cell. E-Cell is also planning to develop a

    concrete program devoted to the development of the

    elements of entrepreneurship so as to help the partici-

    pants give a refining touch to their business ideas.

    The final round judging of Concipio08 will take place on

    November 13, 2008.The winners get an opportunity to

    opt for Technology Incubation and Entrepreneurship

    Training Society (TIETS) funding up to I.N.R 15 Lakhs.

    One of the primary objectives of Entrepreneurship

    Cell is to encourage students, not just from IIT Kharagpur,

    but all over the country, to develop a positive outlook

    towards entrepreneurship. To this end, E-Cell conducted

    several workshops in different parts of the country, be-sides lectures and Knowledge Camps in Kharagpur itself.

    The first of these workshops was conducted at

    Jaypee Noida on 5th

    October 2008. Other similar work-

    shops were held at Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Bhopal, Visak-

    hapatnam and Hyderabad. There, the members of E-Cell

    explained the meaning of entrepreneurship to the uniniti-

    ated. Students were informed about what one needs to

    keep in mind before venturing into entrepreneurship,

    such as the SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Op-

    portunities and Threats) of ones idea. They were briefed

    on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), an important facet

    any prospective entrepreneur should be aware of. Vari-

    ous methods of procuring funds for a start-up, such as

    Taking Entrepreneurship beyond KGP

    Venture Capital, were also discussed.

    An idea doesnt execute itself. One needs a plan

    to take it to the next level. And this is where a B-Plan

    comes into picture. Students were told in detail, of the

    various nuances of preparing a B-Plan and its importance,not only while approaching a Venture Capitalist, but also

    to envision the future growth of your company.

    The workshops were concluded with an overview

    on the activities of the Entrepreneurship Cell. The stu-

    dents were informed about the various events of E-

    Summit '09, such as, Envision, Pensez and Eclairez, and

    were given an idea of how one can participate in them.

    The response to these workshops was over-

    whelming, with packed auditoriums and attentive listen-

    ers. This indicates changes in the mindsets of the student

    community, who are more open to forgo the security of

    regular jobs and dare to become an entrepreneur.

    www.ecell.iitkgp.ernet.in

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    I liked it so much, I bought the company"

    - Victor Kiams ad for Remington electric shavers

    THE ENTREPRENEURPage 7

    Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur is a student body which has been started

    under the vision and guidance of the Sponsored Research and Industrial Consul-

    tancy (SRIC) of IIT Kharagpur. In an institution of students with the potential ofbecoming tomorrows leaders in innovation for the country, it is essential to

    groom these young individuals while they have the time and resources to be-

    come capable of handling the pressures, responsibilities and risks associated

    with entrepreneurship. The basic aim of E-Cell is to provide students with the

    resources and guidance to be able to be job-makers for the future through effec-

    tive innovation and sound fundamentals.The primary activities of E-Cell are

    1. Organising workshops and lectures periodically for students to create aware-

    ness about entrepreneurship.

    2. Function as a guide for students with creative ideas which can be transformed

    into successful companies.

    3. Provide mentorship through individuals for students launching their start-ups.

    About Us

    bad markets, even though that's the time they should

    rationally be most willing to buy? Well, founders aren't

    much better. When times get bad, hackers go to grad

    school. And no doubt that will happen this time too. In

    fact, what makes the preceding paragraph true is that

    most readers won't believe itat least to the extent of

    acting on it.

    So maybe a recession is a good time to start a

    startup. It's hard to say whether advantages like lack of

    competition outweigh disadvantages like reluctant in-vestors. But it doesn't matter much either way. It's the

    people that matter. And for a given set of people work-

    ing on a given technology, the time to act is always now.

    Why have a start-up in a bad economy- Contd. from page 3...

    Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/

    badeconomy.html

    CROSSWORD

    Across:

    1: Indian Premier League

    4:Current liability of comapany > Britain's GDP

    6: Naresh Goyal

    7:Titan, Taj Hotels

    8:Jawed Karim, Steven Chen, Chad hurley

    10: The less famous Steve of Apple

    Down:

    2: Regular publisher of researched and ranked list

    3:Originally Bachraj Trading Corporation

    4: Putting news first

    5:Saif's got beard. No problem.

    9: Former name of AXIS Bank

    Answers:[Across](1)DLF(4)Barclays(6)Jet(7)TATA(8)Youtube(10)Wozniak

    [Down](2)Fortune(3)Bajaj(4)BBC(5)Lenovo(9)UTI

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