Entrepreneur Program for Colleges, Professors & Students

Job market is not lucrative. Entrepreneurship is compelling

There are four worrying trends affecting employment of freshers.  As quoted by Mohandas Pai, former CFO of Infosys, they are

1. Deflation of Salaries: Salaries have only marginally increased for freshers in the last two decades from 2.25 lakh to 3.5 lakh per annum.  This suggests a massive decrease in real wages from an inflation-adjusted perspective – Businessline Feb 21, 2017  
2. Education inflation: “in near future, IT companies might ‘cold shoulder’ engineers with BE or B.Tech degrees and may recruit only those with postgraduate degree” – Economic Times June 07 2017
3. Loss of Jobs due to Automation: Automation will make 20 crore young Indians jobless in next 9 years – Economic Times Dec 02 2016
4. Demographic Disaster:” India Is In The Midst Of A Demographic Disaster” There are too many people coming into job market and not enough jobs – Bloomberg Jan 11, 2017

Developing entrepreneurship will soon become a core offering of educational institutions.  It will start supplementing campus recruitment in next couple of years and will become the mainstay down the line.   

Ideation to revenues & profits in 18 months

PeerMentor entrepreneurship program is a 12-18 month opt-in for students and professors.  Here, we follow PeerMentor approach and principles for incubation.  In all the startups, as a peer, we will work as co-founders. Post the program, we will be mentors to these organizations.  

We will take 5% of equity of the companies incubated as the fee for the program.  

Professors and students jointly make teams and work as teams. On incubation, all members will be co-founders.  Equity distribution will be as mutually agreed between team members.

In 18 months, all startups will have revenues and profits.

Our youngest entrepreneurs are still in high school!

We come with over 10 years of low-cost low-risk innovation. We have incubated startups successfully. We have with participants as young as 8-12-year-old kids and helped them invent products. These school kids have ideated, build products and earned revenues and profits.

Peer-Mentor has a unique model where we take part as co-founders in all start-ups. Peer-Mentors fee is 5% of equity. There are no other fees. The structure of this program ensures that Peer-Mentor succeeds only when participants succeed.

Our program is a low cost – zero risk model for colleges and students.

the outcomes

• • Ideation to Revenues in 12-18 months
  • This is a low-cost low-risk lean-startup model. Colleges, Professor, and Students don’t lose anything if the start-ups fail.
  • Professors get to Practice what they Preach.
  • Students are now makers and innovators.
  • Students apply their academic learning directly in their startups. This makes learning deeper.  
  • Syllabus like approach. So there are fixed schedules and expected outcomes.
  • Participants Learn and Apply PeerMentor thinking models and culture that fosters innovation and execution.
  • Absolutely hands-on. An approach that empowers students and professors alike.
  • This is incubation, product development, customer acquisition, revenues and profits for REAL.
  • At the end of 18-months, all teams will
    • Have incubated companies.
    • Have Paying customers/consumers.
    • Be Earning revenues and profits
    • Taking salaries from their profits.
  • Ideally, in 24 months, the team will take home a salary from profits that will be comparable to industry average freshers pay.
  • “0 fees” – we take 5% of equity from the startups. Our salary will be 5% of participants salary. Even this is paid out from profits.

“how and when” of our program

We will go through the PeerMentor execution model over the course of 18 months.

Month 1:

• Orientation
• Line up participants passion and interests to a larger purpose.
• Chart out a profitable path.
• Articulate the Direction statement.
• Create an asset map.

Month 2:

• Use the PeerMentor thinking models to structure a low cost, low risk , sustainable at every scale model.
• Startup should be profitable in unit level.

Month 3:

• Define a startup model that will be profitable in unit level. Define roles, responsibilities and reporting structure.  
• Validate market need using pretotypes.

Month 4:

• Build Prototype. Sell.

Month 5:

• Deliver. Collect cash.

Month 6:

• Pilot with new customers
• We incubate the company here
• All participants are directors
• We freeze on the equity structure

Month 7-12:

• Iterate on pricing and positioning

Month 13-18:

• Pivot or polish

Month 19-24:

• Start taking salaries from profits

This is a typical flow and timelines. The exact details may change based on type of business and go to market strategy.

Win-win-win for colleges, professors, and students

For Colleges:

• Create a compelling differentiator  
• Build products that increase brand building and mindshare in ecosystem
• Get on par with leading colleges in developed countries where colleges create new technologies and commercialize it.
• Use this to augment campus replacement
• Build a pool of industry proven professors
• Attract the most talented students to join colleges.

For Professors:

• Practice what you preach
• Sharpen your teaching with real product development expertise.
• Build a portfolio of companies where you will be an advisor and augment your income

For Students:

• Sharpen your skills 360 degrees
• Opportunity to explore your passion
• Practice what you learn in your other subjects.
• Get empowered.
• Be the thought leader in your student community
• Play the real game. Be part of the adventure

Sign a MoU, Advertise, shortlist and kick off

Step 1: College and PeerMentor Sign off

• College initiates engagement and identifies a SPoC
• SPoC and PeerMentor define the success criteria for Year 1 and define further engagement based on success criteria.
• SPoC creates an asset map that this activity can use
• College approves and signs off on the NoC for professors and students to start up private limited entities
• PeerMentor and College signs up MoU

Step 2: Shortlist teams

• Entrepreneurship development cell invites applicants
• We shortlist the applicants for a face to face interview
• We select 4-5 teams.
• We walk through the terms of engagement
  • 5% equity till series B + 5% salary
  • Exit terms
  • Related party transactions, liabilities and IP
  • Mutually agreed scrum based executing with Promises, fines, and penalties

Step 3: Kick off

• We walk through the terms of engagement with the selected teams.
• 2 teams sign up
• We start the program with an orientation program.
• XP process starts

Print on letterhead, sign, scan, email

Download the proposal here. Download the confirmation form here.

Print the confirmation form on college letterhead, get it signed by authorized personnel, scan and email us the to rohithkn@gmail.com