The document provides advice for student entrepreneurs who are preparing to graduate and start their own businesses. It recommends that students (1) clarify their business idea and plan how it will end before starting, (2) build a strong founding team and mentor network while still in school, and (3) work to complete an initial product, get into an accelerator, and raise capital all before graduating so they are well positioned to succeed after leaving campus. It also warns against waiting until the last semester to start a business or becoming too focused on attending conferences rather than customers.

1. Pack Your Bag Before
Sailing
Checklist of things to do before graduating if you are Student Entrepreneur
For: Campus Entrepreneurs
By: Utkarsh Shukla
On: 08-12-2013
At: Google Hangout

2. About Me
• Started as Student Entrepreneur while in 3rd year (2009) in Gaming Sector
in India
• Comes from a Job and Service Family, worked with first startup in First year.
• Started up, Co-founded, Mentored, Consulted, Worked with nearly a two
dozen startups across multiple domains from Gaming, Music, E-Commerce,
Travel, Arts, Medical, Religion, Politics, Software to Agriculture.
• Worked with a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds with a lot
of different kinds of perspectives
• Still to make a 100 Million Dollar Company. 

3. Some Advice
• Before Starting up, see all ends from Job, R&D, Startup and then
decide. Startup is hard and you need to be clear with no chance of
regret or doubt. Once you are clear, burn all the other bridges. 
• Get hold of Business Models as soon as possible. You should be able
to look through any Business Models and instantly identify gaps, risks,
possibilities, feasibility, potential customers, possible pivots, possible
revenue models, flaws, issues, cash balance and many other things.
• Understand Failure and be friends with it. Great Advocate of Fail
Fast. Plan the End before starting. Set up short Empirical Milestones.
Pivot if needed, or realize failure and act upon it.

4. Before Starting Anything
• Clarity of what you are doing. Be clear what a startup is. Clarity of
your plan, who your customer is, how will you make money
everything is important. Mission and Vision are important things.
• Plan the End before the Start. Before starting anything, plan how will
it end. Example: If you are getting a business partner, plan that in case
one wants to leave what will happen.
• Self-Realization and Self-Awareness. Spend a lot of time thinking,
reading philosophy, answering abstract questions like why you are
born, what is god, how religion works, what is belief system, how can
you tinker with belief system. These almost change your perspective.

5. Things to do while in Campus
• Build a Great Team. Campus is the best time for you to understand people.
You will find people who share your passion, but they must be as
committed. These are people who can change the world. Also it’s a great
idea to get people from other domain. An great 5 people team is a Tech
Guy, Design Guy, Operations Guy, Marketing Guy and Fundraising Guy.
• Build a Great Mentor Board. Build a great Mentor board. These are the
people that can mentor you guide you. Again a rounded board of Industry
leaders and people who can regularly mentor you.
• Finalize the Idea. The Idea/Business Plan must be Crystal clear and can be
made to understand to everyone. Example: Disney is in the business of
“Making people happy” and they do it by “Movies, and many other things”

6. Things to do while in Campus
• Complete the POC/MVP/Initial Customer Stage. Complete the Proof of
Concept, Minimum Viable Product and Initial Customer Stage as soon as
possible. Fail, Iterate and re-Iterate until you are sure of the viability of
concept.
• Get in an Accelerator/Incubator. While in College, try to get into an
accelerator/incubator so that instead of renting a garage, you have
somewhere to go, especially in Indian Context where social matters, plus
motivationally it will help you and your team.
• Get to the point of Raising Capital. Try to raise capital as soon as possible,
especially before/just after you leave college. The exact amount does not
matters. It proves the idea is fundable and exciting for the team.

7. Pitfalls to be Avoided
• Avoid Last Semester Entrepreneurs. In the Last semester, the number
of “Budding Entrepreneurs” rises dramatically. These are set of
confused people who have a job in hand, and want to do a startup as
it sounds cool. These are the exact same people who will leave for Job
the moment they get their joining date. Avoid them.
• Avoid Running behind Investors or Excess Going to Conferences. It’s
a good reason to go to a conference to network with people, but be
sure if it makes sense. Target the Customers First, Start the Business,
get Traction and Revenue, everything else including Investors will
automatically follow you.

8. Some Advice
• Learn to Understand People. Business especially startups is all about
People. Great People can make great things. People are shaped by
their aspirations, situations, conditions, capabilities, nature, virtues
and many other things. Try to be a great judge of People.
• Manage your PR effectively. Startups is more about the founder and
the founding team. Be sure that you realize what your impression is
going to people. People love clarity. If you are clear what you are
doing and communicate effectively, you get a good network effect.

9. Thank You For your Patience.
Utkarsh Shukla
Utk.shukla@gmail.com
9936339580, 9044990909