Ashneer Grover spoke about his entrepreneurial journey, life experiences, and shared his views on the Indian startup ecosystem
Vadodara-based institute of higher learning, Parul University, one of the leading institutes in the country, recently hosted an exclusive session with Ashneer Grover, the renowned entrepreneur, the former Managing Director and Co-founder of Bharat Pe and a judge of the first season of the popular reality television show, Shark Tank for PU Talks. PU Talks is a motivational platform for students to inspire them through the life stories of prominent personalities from different walks of life.
During this interactive session, he candidly answered all the questions asked by the students. He talked about his entrepreneurial journey, life experiences, and views on the Indian startup ecosystem. He went on to say how much he admires entrepreneurs who build their businesses without the help of any investors. Additionally, in the context of what constitutes promising entrepreneurs, Grover also shared with the students his admiration for entrepreneurs such as Nikhil Kamath, the Co-founder of Zerodha and Divyank Turakhia, the reputed serial entrepreneur and investor.
During the course of the engaging session, Ashneer, on being asked how he decided to be an entrepreneur, replied, “I come from a service class family. All my family members were having a job, and I myself have had a job for nine long years of my life. When I was working at Kotak, my job was to deal with entrepreneurs, and that gave me a lot of exposure. You can never learn entrepreneurship. All that exposure came in use for me when I jumped into entrepreneurship.”
Elated by the enterprising spirit imbued in Grover’s talk, Dr Devanshu Patel, Vice President, Parul University said, “We are delighted to host Grover at the campus to share his insightful thoughts with us. The entrepreneurial zeal that the session imparted to the student complements the industry-focused, innovation-oriented education the institution seeks to offer.”
At the event, Grover reminisced about his experience visiting Meta (Facebook)’s San Francisco headquarters, saying, “I saw three Indian restaurants in that one office only, so you can imagine how many Indians must be working there. We have the best engineering brains. The next two decades are going to be dominated by Indians, and our economy is going to witness phenomenal growth.” He continued stressing the role of India and Indians in the future of business.
Further, the session shed light on Grover’s entrepreneurial journey, where he also talked about his other startups, such as PostPe and 12 per cent Club. Finally, the one-hour talk session ended with Dr Geetika Patel, the Medical Director & Governing Body Member of Parul University, presenting Grover with a memento as the university’s token of gratitude.
The exciting session with Grover about entrepreneurship in India reflected the philosophy of Parul University, which is about fostering disruptive ideas that will take the industry and academia to the next step. Aligned with the innovation-related learning outcomes, the university implements a multi-faceted skill and personality development strategy.
In addition to its advanced pedagogy, Parul University has a dedicated Entrepreneurship Development Cell (EDC), which facilitates aspiring entrepreneurs to incubate their ideas with extensive guidance from leading academics as well as industry experts. The EDC is a guiding force for business counseling, industrial exposure, investment guidance and leadership grooming for student-led ventures; the university body also conducts entrepreneurship talks and innovation challenges. The university also has supported and nurtured over 150 startups as well as received more than 12 crores in Innovation Grants.
Towards preparing future leaders, Parul University offers several advanced courses on various streams of engineering, applied sciences, commerce, computer applications, pharmacy, agriculture, commerce, business administration, arts, fine arts, library science, health administration, public health, vocational studies, physiotherapy, Ayurved, homeopathy, nursing, architecture, social work, design, and law. Also, the institution gives global exposure to its cohort with international exchange programmes.
