Alternatives
This is a fictional case prepared for class discussion by Prof Radha Iyer of SIMSR, Mumbai. She has found that this case can be used in an Entrepreneurship course to illustrate various concepts such as Opportunity recognition, Team composition, and Creating value through a product that solves a customer problem/need.
Nitesh Ranganathan (24) was an engineer with a specialization in Telecommunications from an engineering college in Bangalore. He was absorbed via the campus placement process at one of the Indian top Information technology giants in Bangalore. He joined them as an IT professional in networks. All along he had dreamt of pursuing a Business management programme from a good B school in India. The media coverage on handsome salaries enticed him too.
Nitesh’s family consisted of his mother Ashwini who taught pottery, painting and other art forms to children in the neighborhood. Mr. Ranganathan, his father was a retired senior Government official. His older sister Nandini was an architect and currently pursuing a town planning course in the US. His family lived in Chennai. Nitesh was a bachelor.
While working in Bangalore, he lived in a shared accommodation with Ranjan Patel (27) who hailed from Gujarat and an alumnus of IIT & one of the top B schools in India. His other room mate was Srinivas Raju (28) an alumnus of BITS Pilani. Srinivas belonged to Andhra Pradesh. Nitesh, Ranjan and Srinivas worked with different IT organizations in developing technology for the telecommunications vertical.
Their morning routine would begin with discussing various areas of dissatisfaction that customers face and end up with talking on technology. Three of them together over the last two years had bonded well.
They designed a new product to ease congestion in mobile networks. Working tirelessly every evening, over dinner and into late the wee hours in the morning a prototype was made at their residence. Initially Nitesh had showcased...