Pranav Bhasin
...graduated from NSIT in 2000, joining Trilogy in its first 20 member team. At Trilogy, he got the chance to head various projects, but eventually decided that entrepreneurship was the field for him. In 2007, he started Lifeblob, a social timeline service.

1.What do you think are the qualities of a successful entrepreneur, and do you consider an .MBA degree is necessary for becoming a leading entrepreneur?
Don’t think of an MBA as a qualification. I believe doing an MBA makes you more risk averse. It induces fear, makes it harder to think out of the box. One of the things about successful entrepreneurs is that they don’t know what’s on the other side. You have a vision, a big idea, you have a team that’s passionate about it, and you’ll just go out and do it. If you do an MBA, you go into the depths of various subjects, that curbs your ability to think out of the box. You think “I know what’s going to be the outcome, so why even bother trying?”. Two qualities which I believe an entrepreneur requires are:
Ability to take a risk. There is no substitute for it.
Ability to execute fast. You need to listen to people, discuss ideas with them, but don’t get too attached to those ideas. Feel free to change or drop ideas if the need arises.

Nalin Savara is an alumnus of the 1999 batch. After working in Aricent and EscoSoft, he took the plunge into entrepreneurship, and opened his own company, DSTech. However, that’s not the only place he’s well known, he’s also one of the most familiar and active faces in the NSIT Alumni circuit. Here’s his advice to the students.

1. What mothered your invention…In other words what embarked your interest towards starting up your own venture?
I see an engineer as a problem-solver. A venture was always on the cards. The idea of Aspiring Minds (www.aspiringminds.in) germinated, when I found out that out of more than four lac engineers in India, only one lac end up getting a job. On the other hand, the industry continues to struggle to search for talent across such a large country. This called for a GRE/SAT like exam for jobs, through which talented candidates can highlight themselves and companies can easily spot them. This needs some very efficient large scale assessment, which is where an artificial intelligence engine with advanced statistical pattern recognition comes in. At Aspiring Minds, we are experts at employability assessment: identifying talent and pointing out areas of improvement.

Ishan Gupta graduated from N.S.I.T. in 2004, but had started his foray into entrepreneurship even earlier, during his second year itself! Having already played the roles of Director and Marketing president, he is currently pursuing his MBA from Standford University!