A decade ago when I was handling the product development and support of a Learning Management System (LMS), I came across the abbreviation BTS, which expands as ‘Back to School’. It is the period in which students (and their parents) purchase school supplies and apparel for the upcoming school year.

It was a kind of BTS moment, when we registered to attend the Indic Way – Series 7 titled “𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐩𝐬” with the first session on “What Else Have You Started?” by TiE Chennai hosted at IIT Madras Research Park (IITMRP). While it is tempting to believe that we know all we need to know and that we are already running startups, two things counted very much – First is that “Learning never stops’ and Second and even more important is the profiles of Krishnan of Unimity Solutions Private Limited and Ramaraj R, the stalwarts in entrepreneurship anchoring this series is charismatic and brings back repeat audience as well 👏

Considering that a significant portion of the attendees were first time participants, a brief but intense overview of the Indic Wisdom was given along with thoughts on questions such as – “Is there only one way or approach?”, “Does the way remain constant at all time?”, “Is it guaranteed that an earlier successful way, will work well now?”

The curtain raiser also emphasized that 𝐒𝐭-𝐚𝐫𝐭-𝐠𝐢𝐞𝐬 was not a spelling mistake but an intentional coinage! The entire series will be adopting the Gurukul methodology, with four quarters of learning constituting a holistic assimilation.

The participants were encouraged to think and respond to the question – Is there a difference between ‘Starting a business’ and ‘Running a business’. For ease of understanding, the analogy of a Car (as business) and Driver (as entrepreneur). The participants enthusiastically walked up to the whiteboard and wrote their ideas on what is to be done for either of the categories. The corpus of thoughts would be taken for discussion, dissection and dissemination in future sessions.

Another vibrant component of the session was a Strategic Debate – Does the size of market (business) determine success? As in an ideological debate where there are opposite views wide off the centre, it was interesting to see a lively debate exploring many definitions and point of views.

Thirumoolar in his amazing work (in Tamil) Thirumandhiram says “Yaam Petra Inbam peruga Ivvayagam” which means “the pleasure I got, let this be available for everyone in the world”. And that is how I would be concluding this post 😊

Akhila Rajeshwar
Aadharsh R