HAPPENINGS

08 Apr 2021-|Mumbai

Amity University Mumbai Organizes Shark Tank Competition

 The Shark Tank was a competition organised by the Entrepreneurship Cell of Amity University, Mumbai under the Start-up Week 20021 on April 08th, 2021 from 11 am onwards, attended by 33 participants.

 
The esteemed panel for the event had three judges, whom we referred to as “the sharks”. The first shark was Mr. Anansh Prasad, founder of Skillspere (Asia’s largest soft-skill development organisation), Ms. Bhavna Pandey, Assistant professor at Amity University, Mumbai and an entrepreneur, and Mr. Sahil Chopra, Business Outreach Specialist with Lawyered. The competition was hosted by Ms. Ojaswita Dhale, a member of the Entrepreneurial Cell. The event had a total of four teams. The teams presented their start- up ideas followed by questions and suggestions from the panel.
 
The first team presented the idea of a healthy food start-up. The team felt that healthy food, especially for college students, is not affordable and accessible. With their suggested start-up, GreenLine, they intend to solve the problem. The team members were - Bhanu Singhal, CA Pawan Singla and Utkarsh Bhatt. The panellists asked questions related to its establishment system (rental or sold), how the labour costs be managed used for operating and refilling the machines, what the revenue model, among others. They also gave feedback regarding the start-up idea and what the team needs to work more on.
 
The next team, consisting of a single participant, Arpita Pandey, presented the idea of bringing up a sustainable event management firm. The participant pointed out how at various big and small levels can we replace our existing products with more sustainable, yet equally beautiful, options. The panellists asked questions about how the idea is different from existing green event management companies, how do they plan for virtual events due to the pandemic, how do they make it more viable financially, details on allocation of marketing funds. The panellists also gave some solutions as to how the participant can work on the existing issues with the model.
 
GymTrainers was the next team. The members of the team were Nikhil Pawar, Vishal Kumar and Sahil Verma. The start-up basically focuses on hiring pocket friendly, certified trainers/personal trainers without promised time-packages. The participants plan to extend the company as a supply market in future. The panellists were impressed with the pitching skills and asked questions related to how will the team ensure trainer retention, how they plan to make it gender inclusive, how will they will guarantee a fixed number of clients, among others.
 
The last idea of the event was that of a start-up called U-Quest, which focuses on testing, counselling and providing resources for students trying to pursue creative careers. The team members were: Ritika Tyagi, Aditi Mandlik, Rounak Jain and Lubaina Surury. The panellists asked questions regarding customer retention and the establishment of metrics at B2C level, along with others, and offered a few suggestions.
 
The event was extremely captivating as the audience got to watch young entrepreneurs coming up with path breaking ideas and pitching them, while figuring out the intricate technicalities. One important lesson that all our young entrepreneurs learnt was the difference between an idea and an implementable plan. The judges were very humble and insightful throughout the event, offering personal insights and suggestions to every team. The event ended with a gratitude note to all judges, participants and members for making this event a success.