IIITH’s Student Alumni Connect Cell (SACC) successfully hosted a career insights event on 31 January. The event featured industry leaders Sateesh Polishetty, 2nd Batch of IIITH, and a Managing Partner at Top Shelf Equity Partners; Sugandh Rakhaa, 4th Batch of IIITH, A Principal Manager at ServiceNow, and the founder of IIIT’s Alumni Angels; and Priyanka Kamath, Founder of WorkBucks.io provided valuable insights and advice to students and alumni. The speakers emphasised the importance of finding mentors, being flexible and adaptable, and going the extra mile to solve challenges. They advised the students to focus on the problem rather than the product or organisation, and to validate their ideas by approaching the problem from first principles, crunching numbers, and asking fundamental questions before starting a startup. In response to a question about whether the emphasis on scale and total addressable market size stifles innovation in startups, the alumni suggested that students should focus on their ideas rather than total addressable market ( TAM) and scale for at least the first ten years of their careers. The speakers advised the students on how to analyse the viability of an idea, suggesting that students should discuss their ideas with others to identify loopholes and plausible solutions. They were opposed to the concept of fear of intellectual theft and encouraged students to talk to as many people as possible, emphasising that no one would be as passionate about the idea as the person who came up with it.
Finally, the speakers spoke about how to hire in a startup. They suggested that students should look for passionate and persistent people who resonate with the startup’s ideas and encouraged students to discuss their ideas with prospective hires.
The event was a great success, with the Student Alumni Connect Cell (SACC) sharing valuable insights and advice with IIITH students. The SACC plans to host more such events in the future and hopes to continue to provide valuable guidance and support to the students and alumni of IIIT.
