Simply put, the Program simulates a start-up founder’s journey. We ensure that aspiring founders are realistic in terms of the viability of their ideas. After assessing the plan, we bridge the gap wherever required. Through the Program you will understand the best practices to build a start-up and how to go about it.

• We focus on the Vidyashilp philosophy of personalized and experiential learning. 
• The Program provides a simulated environment of a founder’s journey. It also gives aspiring founders a realistic understanding of the start-up ecosystem and the process of founding your start-up.
• It opens closed doors to mentors and investors in the start-up ecosystem.
• At the end of the Program, if your idea is impressive, you can pitch your idea and get noticed by stalwarts in the start-up industry.

We do both! Although we believe that India needs more high-quality entrepreneurs and that’s what we’d like to prepare you for, we also recognize that some students may prefer to get placed in a good start-up. Moreover, start-ups prefer to recruit people who understand the intricacies of the start-up ecosystem and embrace the start-up culture. Our curriculum (theory & practice) is designed to help you pursue both objectives.

We are very hopeful that you will! Our admissions process ensures that we bring in students who are super-excited about being entrepreneurs. Once students come to campus, we’ll have ‘dating’ mechanisms to help you find the right co-founder(s). Co-founders who have complementary skills and are aligned on their value systems.

You will have plenty of interactions with entrepreneurs and investors during the program itself. In fact, many of our classroom and mentoring sessions will be run by these people. That itself will give you access to a great network. Beyond that, we’ll also schedule a formal ‘Demo Day’ at the end of the program where you can put your best foot forward and formally pitch your business idea and venture to investors.

You really don’t have to worry about “losing” ten months. This is not going to be a stagnant period where you merely sit in a classroom. The program is very different from conventional courses! You’ll receive concepts, experiences & case studies from experienced faculty and guest speakers (all successful entrepreneurs), which will comprise 30% of the program. The other 70% of your time will revolve around practical work with like-minded team members to develop and give shape to your own start-up idea. At the end of ten months, you’ll have a successful MVP of your start-up venture, with a platform to pitch your business plan.

We firmly believe that entrepreneurs are made, and not born. Our curriculum for the program is designed in such a manner that everyone gets to absorb the spirit and essence of entrepreneurship in full measure. We are confident that this stimulating environment will develop and enhance every student’s entrepreneurial skill and prepare them to take the plunge into the start-up ecosystem. At the end of the program, if a student believes that he or she does not have the aptitude to create a start-up, the option of taking up a job at a good start-up will always be available.

It’s likely that you and your parents are worried about the risks involved in building a start-up, and how it may impact your career in the long-term. Many start-ups do fail, but that does not mean your career will be at risk. 

The Start-up Management Program will not just endow you with the right skills, but also boost your learning through high-quality mentoring, and access to investors & experts. They’ll train you on how to maximize your chances of success. 

Even after all this preparation, if your start-up fails, you would have picked up invaluable business lessons that will be treasured by other start-ups and bigger companies. Many start-ups actually look to hire founders of failed start-ups because they believe such people have the right traits and skills. In keeping with this need in the start-up ecosystem, we have a round of placements where start-ups meet with our aspiring founders and recruit them based on their requirements. 

Things are changing even at bigger companies where agile innovation is now the buzzword; these companies want to hire young innovators and entrepreneurs to bring about transformation within their slow-moving companies.

We’d like to support our students in whatever domain they’d like their start-up to be. We recognize that there are many socially-relevant problems (e.g., affordable education or health; pollution; financial inclusion) that start-ups can solve in India, and we’d encourage you to do so. The only thing we’d like to strongly recommend is that you leverage technology to solve these problems innovatively, and at scale.

The basic skills and approach towards building a successful start-up are the same irrespective of the tech focus. That being said, we recognize that you’ll need domain-specific advice for these specialized technologies. That’s where our network of mentors and domain experts come into play. We ensure that participants forge the right connections with experts to learn from their experience. Our vast connect with the Bangalore start-up and tech community enables us to find the right mentors for each start-up.

This is a robust ten-month program that combines theory and practice to prepare students to become entrepreneurs or work in start-ups. You get a strong grounding in concepts that are relevant to entrepreneurship, while simultaneously developing your own start-up idea as part of a team. We don’t just give you snappy nuggets of information that enable you to crack a few interviews in the initial stage. Instead, we provide you with life-long skills designed to make you a great entrepreneur.

Unfortunately, not! Becoming an entrepreneur is serious business. We pack a lot into our ten-month-long program: concepts, experiences & case studies from experienced faculty and guest speakers (all successful entrepreneurs), and practical work with like-minded team members to develop and give shape to your own start-up idea. At the end of the program, you’ll have a successful MVP of your start-up venture, which can be pitched to investors. Alternatively, if you like, you’ll be thoroughly equipped to join a good start-up. It’s hard to do all of this on a part-time basis.