Two IIM-Calcutta students opt out of placements; here is why

Ipsita Sarkar Gupta | shiksha.com

Placement season is the most awaited time in the life of an IIM student. What is the package? What is the company? How is the profile? These questions are foremost on their as mind as they appear for interviews after interviews.

But we found two Post Graduate Programme students at Indian Institute Management (IIM), Calcutta, who thought otherwise.

‘Looking for a job’ was not what they were looking for. They wanted to create jobs – by setting up their own companies. It did not matter, if their entrepreneurship ideas were tried and tested or new and risky venture.

Here are the stories of Prakhar Bindal and Alosies George.

Prakhar Bindal

Venture: Axsiom

“Axsiom is India’s first and only private open-ended alternative investment fund that invests in domains: the Internet´s real estate. Just as real estate prices increase as top locations are snapped up, so it is for the values of premium domain names,” explains Prakhar.

This final year PGP student is quick to point out famous examples. “Some of the best generic domain names have been acquired by Fortune 100 companies: Bank of America bought loans.com; CNN owns money.com; Barnes & Noble acquired books.com; Nestle owns meals.com.”

The role of Axsiom is like an internet property broker, who BUY/ SELL/ AUCTION/ BROKER premium domain names. “With a portfolio worth over $10 Million and a diverse clientele boasting of 150+ companies in 40+ countries, Axsiom is now India’s #1 player in the B2B secondary domains market,” proudly adds Prakhar.

But what led to this unique entrepreneurial idea? “It all started with a course on entrepreneurship (called CLEO) I had taken during my undergrad at BITS Pilani. Taught by Professor Arya Kumar, it just awakened the latent passion for entrepreneurship - to build things that could have a larger impact on the borderless world created by the internet. After a couple of failed start-ups, I finally hit gold with Axsiom. Opting out of placements was easy. By the time placements arrived, I was already making more money than what most companies offered,” says Prakhar.

On questioning about the capital investment, he candidly admits, “Bootstrapped it. Friends and family invested in the fund. Never raised any external funding, despite receiving invitations from funds like Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP). Didn’t need to as Axsiom started doing well and then we just kept re-investing our profits back into the business.

What’s in the future? “We are now looking to take Axsiom to the next level and might be raising funds for the first time. We shall expand into fresh domain registrations, web hosting, automated website development, SEP, and an array for services. We would be directly competing with GoDaddy & BigRock on all fronts. Apart from this, we are incubating a couple of small projects in-house, which, if successful, could be multi-million dollar ventures as well,” says Prakhar.

Looks like Axsiom has some big plans in the pipeline.

Alosies George

Venture: George Prep

George Prep is a Test Prep Company. It aims to impart top quality training to students involving the latest technological advances in the education industry.

Test prep firm is not exactly an out of the box thinking. So what led Alosies to develop this venture and opt out of placements? “The most important reason is my passion for teaching. I saw a huge potential in transforming the way students learn today. I believe that with a good teacher and mentor any student could achieve his/her dream in education.”

But what about the seed capital? “Fortunately, the industry where I have started my start up doesn’t require a huge initial capital. Revenues start from the very first enrolment. Hence, not much of an investment is required to roll out operations. But we have been running the institute lean. A few of our projects would require capital. We have plans of pooling the money from family and friends,” saya Alosies.

For now, George Prep is only training students for CAT. The firm is looking forward to branch out to many other competitive exams.