Start-Up Heads Inspire Budding Entrepreneurs at “Xavion 2016”

“Xavion 2016”, the Annual Entrepreneurship Summit organized by X-SEED, the Idea and Initiative cell of XIMB, XUB took place at Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar on Sunday. The event aims at bringing out the talent, passion and challenges in the world of entrepreneurship. The speakers at the event were Mr. Jonathon Bill, Co-founder Venture Foundry, Mr. Chinmoy Panda, CEO, Mindfire Solutions and Rana Atheya, CEO, DogSpot.in, all of whom are successful entrepreneurs.

The first speaker of the morning was Mr. Jonathon Bill who spoke about his professional journey. He encouraged budding entrepreneurs to first do a job for a while before starting their own venture. He also advised them to bootstrap for as long as possible and study liquidation preference options. [bctt tweet=” I believe there are massive opportunities in sectors that we really haven’t touched” username=”ideasmakemarket”] he said, referring to entrepreneurship options apart from the regular IT and app software based ones. He said that the top 4 reasons why 80% businesses fail are, making a product no one really wants, hiring badly, lack of focus and the inability to sell or market.

The second speaker of the event was Mr. Chinmoy Panda. He emphasized on the fact that there are a lot of ventures that  really don’t need a lot of capital. “If you do what you are interested in and you are helping people, somewhere, someway or the other things will come back” he said, talking about his personal experience in business. He encouraged people to talk to others as that will lead to the opening of doors. He also said that when you are pushed against the wall you begin to do things you never expected to do. He spoke about his fashion start up, which he will soon launch from Bhubaneswar.

The third speaker of the day was Mr. Rana Atheya.  He motivated the students to dream and be obsessed about it. He cautioned the audience that “entrepreneurship is very very hard” and is all about holding on. “Entrepreneurship is not about leaving jobs, it is not about leaving your MBA and starting something which puts you at an outlier side of the world” he stressed. He advised everyone to know what they are good at and what their true passions are, since as a founder, one needs to truly believe in something they are passionate about.

The speeches were followed by an interactive question and answer session with the audience. The event concluded with a vote of thanks by the Coordinator of X-SEED, Mr. Abid Hossain.X-SEED, Idea and initiative cell of XIMB, XUB is a non-profit voluntary club formed by XIMB students to encourage and promote entrepreneurship activities.The title sponsor of the event was Mindfire Solutions, the official Media partner was The Telegraph (Calcutta) , digital media partner was Inc42 and technology partner was Server Dial. The conclave was preceded by start-up workshops and interactive sessions with funding companies on Friday and Saturday.