Colleges see a rise in small-scale enterprises on campus

From starting a late-night cake delivery venture to self-publishing notes, students are looking for business opportunities in the problems they face.

What do you do when you see your batch mates celebrating a birthday with instant noodles instead of cake, because there is no bakery near your college? Or if you have forgotten your pen, and the nearest stationery store is quite a way away?

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For the enterprising student, these present the perfect first-business opportunity.

“The boom in apps and start-ups has encouraged students and colleges to start early in their endeavours to become entrepreneurs,” says Shirish Kotmire, head of the start-up incubation centre at the city’s SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR). “It doesn’t have to be a big idea; small, finite projects tell them what works, what doesn’t and even if they want to continue with business in the future.”

Small businesses set up on campus, for the campus, are teaching students things like how to balance inventory, price and consumer needs; customisation and demand; growth and sustainability. Best of all, there is room to fail, start over, stumble and reinvent.

“We would rather they make all their mistakes here,” as Kotmire puts it, “and then move on from them when they step into the real world.”

On the right note

For some students, it’s a chance to learn how to build a personal brand. When Bhanu Pratap was studying for his law entrance exam in 2013, he realised that good notes for subjects such as legal reasoning and logic were hard to find on a student’s budget.

“The coaching classes charge thousands of rupees for basic notes,” says the 23-year-old, now an advocate at the Delhi high court. So, in 2015, he created the webpage LLB Entrance Exam Delhi University, as an online subscription service to bridge this gap.

“My friends and I put together about 200 pages of notes,” he says. Subscription rates start at Rs 200. The little revenue made would go on costs incurred to operate the page, such as buying data packs.

“We started with the aim of helping students. But this project also helped me become co-convenor of the law society in college,” says Pratap, who graduated in 2016. “It made me a recognised face on campus, and we realised that a simple yet helpful project can have significant impact.”

Similarly, Vrushti Oza, 22, a student of cyber law at Government Law College, and Aanchal Narang, 23, an MA student at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, both in Mumbai, got together to write a psychology guide for Class 11 and 12 students of the Indian School Certificate (ISC) Board.

“The textbooks were full of cumbersome paragraphs, so we felt there would be a market for a guide,” says Oza. The self-published text has sold about 100 copies since 2015.

“One store in Vile Parle stocks it, and calls us every June. Based on the demand we print copies,” Oza says. “Each book earns us a profit of Rs 80, but it’s good to feel like we’re helping.”

The project was a reality check too, Oza admits. “We had assumed we would make a lot of money, but it is difficult to promote guides, as they are often looked down upon. Publishers didn’t want to invest,” she says.

Filling in the blanks

How to market a niche, seasonal product to a small but captive audience was one of the main lessons Maheeja Kanamaneni learnt from her campus venture, Dial-a-Cake.

She started it as a course project while studying management at SPJIMR in April 2017. Seeing classmates sing the birthday song over steaming noodles — because most were new to town and birthday celebrations tended to be impromptu affairs — gave her the idea.

“We identified a home baker close to our college,” says the 33-year-old. “From the programme heads, we got the list of students’ birthdays.” Then she and her teammate, Deepika Jangid, 30, began to stock one to three cakes in their dorm fridge.

“We would send reminders to the common email ids for each batch, which are used for announcements and promotions,” Kanamaneni says. The project was supposed to last a month. But demand kept growing and, three months in, they were getting two to three orders on a good day, and making a profit of Rs 3,000 per month.

“Our hectic schedule didn’t allow it, but we would’ve loved to continue it,” she adds. “Those three months, our academic learning got a much-needed practical foundation.”

At St Xavier’s College in Marine Lines, the student council set up a small vending service for stationery in 2016 because the nearest supply store is an eight-minute walk away.

“We decided to use a small space in the council room, and tied up with a vendor to buy supplies such as pens, files and notebooks in bulk,” says Jennifer Francis, 21, then general secretary of the council. Profits were put into a fund that helped underprivileged students pay for workshops, plays and farewell parties.

Agnelo Menezes, associate professor of economics at St Xavier’s, says the college encourages enterprise, but with a social angle. “This not only helps students understand the practicalities of trade, but also how to add a social element to it,” he says.