My Tryst with Entrepreneurship at Ashoka: Pivoting isn’t the plan B, it’s part of the process

I started my journey of Entrepreneurship as a computer science student who didn’t have much clarity on what options were available to me or what I truly enjoyed. I had been told by a friend to take an ENT class at the end of my 2nd year and I decided to opt for Dr. Priyank’s Creativity & Design Thinking. And I was nothing less than awed. The vigor and energy those interactive 3-hour lectures brought out in me were unlike anything my regular 1.5-hour lectures could do. I had never experienced a class driven so much by discussions and ideas and this course brought out a creative side to me that I didn’t know existed. It was this feeling that led me to dive deeper into the ENT courses and what enabled me to eventually find something that I was truly passionate about.

It was the course “Fundamentals of Marketing” that proved to be the most instrumental to me and was even partially responsible for helping me get placed! Taught by Sushil Jhangiani (Strategic Consultant & Visiting Faculty, IIMA), this is one of the few courses I can say that I stayed up all night to work on and I didn’t regret it for even a second! It was here that I truly discovered and fell in love with the world of marketing. Throughout the course, we were tasked with creating a brand extension and presenting the idea once every month, after which we refined the idea with feedback from both fellow students and the professor. This facet of the course was the most instructive one of all. In fact, I would say it helped me prepare well for a consulting internship I went on to have at Tata Strategic Management Group.

It was then that I received my second most instrumental help in the form of Shridhar Sethuram (Partner and MD, Suyash Advisors) and his ‘Craft Your Life’ workshop. It started in a classroom with him asking about who are “customers in life” and ended up with me and him walking in the streets of Bandra discussing the value of mistakes in someone’s life. With just a 5-session workshop, he managed to flip my view on what my life should look like and prompted me to think in ways I could’ve never considered before.

If someone had asked me two years ago what I wanted to do, I would’ve said I don’t know. However, through the courses I took at CFE, I was able to experiment with different fields and realize my interests. I wasn’t 100% sure about my decision to go into marketing, so I sought the advice of professors at Ashoka who had careers in the field. And this was where I saw the sheer kindness of the faculty. Shantanu Bhanja (Operating Partner, The Convergence Foundation), Gaurav Rastogi (Founder, DoLoop Digital), and even Prakash Dharmarajan (Consultant and Founder, Thoughtflo; whose course I wasn’t even taking) happily took out time from their extremely hectic schedules to meet with me and help me make my decision for the same.

I was also grateful to have the opportunity to TA for two courses in my final year, one of which was the first course I took, Creativity & Design Thinking under Dr. Priyank Narayan. His guidance and advice proved invaluable to me. As a TA helping all the students in their presentations, grading, and giving them feedback was also a new experience from which I learned a lot (and it was especially fun finally being on the other side of grades!). It also allowed me to work closely with other members of the Entrepreneurship team, which is filled with stellar individuals. With Ekanto in particular, I was able to convince him to become the advisor to the Rotaract Club of Ashoka of which I was president. His help and mentoring allowed us to conduct many community service events both in & outside of Ashoka ranging from cloth and stationery donations to teaching children of various underprivileged communities across Sonipat & Delhi.

All in all, the CFE has crafted a transformative environment where students are empowered to explore, innovate, and evolve into leaders and discerning critical thinkers. I started at a time when I was unsure about my path ahead, but with the endless help and learning from the CFE, I was truly able to “pivot” my path and forge a career ahead in something I am passionate about.

Author: Sanskar Das – ASP’24, sanskar.das@alumni.ashoka.edu.in