In the first module of CARMaShala^TM, we talk about the first step in your entrepreneurial journey – understanding why you want to become an entrepreneur. Here we explore the many reasons people use to become entrepreneurs – right or wrong! We also discuss the excuses people use to not become entrepreneurs. By the end of this module, we are hopeful that you have understood that the best and only reason to become an entrepreneur is to create meaning in society and transform lives.

After convincing yourself of your decision to become an entrepreneur comes the next step, and the harder step – to convince people around you, in your ecosystem, of your decision. To show them that your decision to become an entrepreneur is the right one! We have brought in three entrepreneurs – from different domains and different phases in their business – to share and discuss this challenge. They will share with you how to avoid getting bogged down by the fear of failure and how you should be prepared to face the brickbats just the way you were prepared for the accolades.

We shatter the biggest myth – that there is this wonderful depository called an Idea Bank and that you can make withdrawals as and when you feel like! 10 entrepreneurs – some famous ones like the founders of RedBus, Hungry Hogs, RangaShankara and India Plaza and others on their way to building famous enterprises – will share their experiences and their insights about where to get your ideas from. They will talk about how you should capitalize on the opportunities around you. On how pain-points, pleasure-points, culture, newspapers or even serendipity can lead to path-breaking ideas!

Who is a Mentor? How do you find him? What can or will he add to you and your business? All those answers, and so much more about that brand new species – a mentor! We cover it all here! We’ve brought in entrepreneurs who have their own reasons for adopting a mentor! One of them is a seasoned corporate professional and a seasoned entrepreneur; the other with a business in the growth stage; the third is a second generation entrepreneur and the last is a young girl who needs mentoring to give shape and structure to her dream!

We’ve always heard that entrepreneurship is a lonely journey. So is the best way to get rid of that loneliness bringing in a co-founder? Even if he adds nothing to your organization? Three entrepreneurs – each with a different experience with their co-founders – will share their stories and their learnings, so when you’re looking out for a co-founder or multiple co-founders, you know exactly what to look for!

Expenses come easy to all of us. Revenues that much harder! But when it comes down to it, do we know how to accurately estimate our inflow and outflow? We’ve brought in an expert to explain, in detail, how to breakdown the different financial aspects of your business. We promise it’s a useful segment, because only when the inflow is ten times more than the outflow, have you well and truly arrived!

The first six steps have been seemingly easy ones. It was like you joined college and enjoyed the sessions but dreaded the exams. That, is unfortunately how most entrepreneurs view writing their business plan. But we ask you, if it’s already there in your head, how much harder can it be to pen it? Isn’t it easier then to go back to it and refer to it every now and then and even tweak it as your business evolves? We show you how your business plan should be your wish-list. How you should not be constrained by the resources you have in-hand.

We are yet to meet one entrepreneur who proudly tells us that they don’t need a VC to back their vision and fund their business. But if VCs funded an entrepreneur’s vision on paper, wouldn’t there be a million entrepreneurs in India already? We understand that money is important to your business, and we show you the easy and simple ways raise money. Without begging and grovelling with a VC just to willingly part with your prized equity.

Easily the most important step once you’ve got your business plan in place and raised money from the resources around you – how do you give your business a legal form? What type of legal entity (Proprietorship, Partnership, Private Limited Company etc) is apt and right for your business? We will explore the pros and cons of each and every one of these so you can identify your legal form by the end of this segment. Most entrepreneurs are cagey about sharing their business idea. Their biggest fear is that if they do, it will be stolen and duplicated. So how do safeguard your intellectual property? What is intellectual property? We’ll help you protect, what is rightfully yours!

An entrepreneur cannot make his vision a reality all alone. He needs the right team to back him and support him. He needs a team that thinks and feels for the enterprise as if it were their own. In this segment we will cover how to handpick your team; how to not part with equity simply because it shows faith and how not to get swayed by false promises.

It’s a common belief amongst many old-school entrepreneurs that new age technology can’t be of much help to them. That their business idea does not need any technology to support it – right from development till going-to-market. In today’s day and age, how untrue is that? We uncover how you can use appropriate technology well to benefit your business.

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.Three of the most popular words in our dictionary today. We use it to ‘like’, ‘poke’ and ‘tag’ and ‘share’. It’s such an effective medium and it’s free. Use them well so your customer can ‘like’ ‘poke’ and ‘tag’ and ‘share’ your product. To others in his universe. What can be more viral than that?

Extending from the previous segment, only one question arises. If your idea is so easily replicable, then how will you build a sustainable and successful enterprise? In this segment we’ll cover the need to build a differentiated product in today’s marketplace. We’ll use case studies from businesses around the world who’ve either successfully created a value differentiator or have shut shop because they got complacent and failed to do so.

Most businesses shut down in the startup phase due to lack of money. True. But why didn’t they make money? Because they failed to identify who would put their hands into their pockets and ‘pay’ to use that product/service. Imperative to every single business, irrespective of your domain, is to know exactly who your customer is. You should be able to pick them out of a line-up. Flip it on its head. You should even be able to pick out who is not your customer. Why and how, is what we’ll cover here.

Your product is ready. You’ve sketched out your customer. But you failed to inform them that you had a solution for them. You failed to market your product.

Let’s say you did market your product. It’s out there on the shelves. One year goes by, and no one buys it. You failed to brand your product.

Let’s say you did brand it. Your customer knows your jingle by-heart. But quickly, your sales drop. You failed to live up to the promise of your product.

We’ll help you cover all those bases, before you go to market.

We’ve brought in Innovation Evangelist PavanSoni to talk about his and our favourite subject. Now, innovation is the most abused word in an entrepreneur’s dictionary. Even a me-too idea, is an innovative one. If your business has hit a growth plateau, it’s because you stopped being an innovative company soon after you hit the market. When you made your business plan, did you take this ever-changing marketplace into consideration? When you did, did you ensure your innovation pipeline was full and ready to explode at least for the next 10 years? Let’s make innovation that much used word.

This topic spans over two modules as we take you through some of the characteristics we think that can hone you into an intrapreneur. We explain who is an intrapreneur and bring to your case studies to highlight our points.

Here is a review of this brilliant block buster, with a twist. We walk you through all the decisions the protagonists take in this movie and highlight just how important each one of those are in an entrepreneurs journey. We truly believe that if there ever was an anthem for entrepreneurs, it is this, this is it!

We summarize all that we’ve talked about so far. And we hope we’ve inspired you enough to either take the plunge and become an entrepreneur, or if you’re already one, dream bigger, scale up better and fly as high as you possibly could!

These are critical steps in building your business. Yet, until now, in India, you have not had access to one source that can provide the answers to all these questions.

CARMaShala^TM is not a hear-and-forget course. It is like a map that you can keep coming back to, every time you want to know the next turn in your business.