Why did I start this substack?

and what is it 👀

From a corner store which sells Vada Pao in central Mumbai to the headquarters of Substack in San Francisco. Would you happen to know what the two have in common? It is pretty straightforward - both are entrepreneurial ventures. They are more similar than you think; both want to maximise profitability, improve the consumer experience, and be the best in their industry. Entrepreneurship is a beautiful leveller globally and teaches us no business is too big or too small.

I come from a family background where every adult I know is an entrepreneur, but oddly my passion for this world of start-ups started from a movie, The Big Short. Sitting in front of a television, my 15-year-old self thought my only passion was Theatre and Model UN (clearly popular in school) until The Big Short opened my eyes to the world of business and finance (and Margot Robbie!). The impact of 2 hours of engaging financial jargon altered my life trajectory to wanting to be the next Michael J Burry.

During my first year of university, I began to understand that the realities of becoming an investment banker are far different. However, the excitement of seeing the JP Morgan stand at the University of St. Andrews Open Day reinforced that by 18, I had begun to find my path. Nevertheless, along with the rest of the world, things were put on hold in March 2020, when I flew back to Mumbai because of the Covid 19 outbreak. In the 15 months spent at home, I came out a different person.

My journey with entrepreneurship

UnivConnect

In 2O20 April, I founded UnivConnect with two friends based in Mumbai. The idea was simple. We connected school students with university students studying at their dream universities. When I was talking to a cousin who was planning to go to the US for their undergraduate degree, it struck me they had no connections at their dream institution for even casual conversation. This was my “Aha” moment, and I got the ball rolling. We onboarded University student advisors from 150+ universities globally, from UCLA to HKU and had over 1000 applicants for the student advisor roles. After interviews, we confirmed 200 advisors who advised 1000+ clients over eight months.

Due to my Tier 4 visa status, unfortunately, I could not monetise this or register it as a company. This was quite a learning experience. The best challenge for us was growing the business on a lean budget. We spent $10 on UnivConnect in those months and didn’t spend a single penny on marketing. Instead, we used a simple strategy to market the brand - we called it the “HOT PERSON THEORY”.

Definition: HOT PERSON THEORY - The theory states that the hot individual at a party never goes and flirts with others and waits for others to come.

We positioned UnivConnect on social media such that the brand was the “HOT PERSON” everyone wanted to be with, regardless of whether they hoped to be an advisor, intern, or client. Building UnivConnect was one of the best decisions we have ever made. Although it did not work out due to my Visa, it set me on this new path of start-ups and entrepreneurship.

Link to the platform:- UnivConnect website

University of St Andrews and Building an Entrepreneurial Culture

I returned to the University of St Andrew’s after 16 months at home in Mumbai during the pandemic. We finished UnivConnect as a project and shut it down. I was feeling bogged down; the thing I truly loved with such a passion, and what got me out of bed was no more. But, I soon realised I did not love the idea; I loved entrepreneurship and the thrill of advising and working with other entrepreneurial ventures and individuals. The passion was there, but the environment wasn’t; at my university, there has never been conversation about what we can build, but instead about where we can work. TBF, nothing is wrong with that, but the niche for entrepreneurially driven individuals did not exist. So I decided to take this challenge into my own hands to create the Entrepreneurial culture at St Andrew’s.

Alternative Investments St Andrews

That is how I built the platform Alternative Investments St Andrews (AISA); the main aim was to build conversation regarding entrepreneurship and hopefully foster a culture of entrepreneurship at this university, which I call my 2nd home. It started as a one-person team, I was doing every role possible, from marketing to scouting for the start-ups. It was like being a young VC without the ability to invest. Finally, we found our first client in SPOT, a Prop-Tech start-up in St Andrews founded by Oliver Grimes, a good friend and a great entrepreneurial mind. I will write a piece on his start-up soon, and he will definitely be one of the first few guests on the Podcast. For the first event, the strategy was to help him find a CTO/Co-Founder, so we partnered with St Andrews computing society and hosted it. Guess what? He found one, and SPOT is now in an accelerator programme.

From there, we took off and have advised three St Andrews-based start-ups in music tech, health-tech and prop-tech. This is just the beginning, and the platform now has a team of 11 associates who are first and second years at St Andrews who will help host events, and guide and scout start-ups at this university.

No shade to Stanford at all; I created this slide to motivate the audience at our first event. I am in awe of what Stanford has done with the entrepreneurship scene at their university, but we at St Andrew’s can give it our best, and someday, maybe we will do at least 10% of what they did with our start-ups. We need to get the conversation going, and once it starts, the passion won’t stop.

So why did I start this

I have a passion, and substack has given me a medium to share it. I have a dream to work with and help build the largest companies in the world from the ground up, and in my eyes, this is my first step in doing so. See you guys on Saturday, with the exciting first article!

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