Project -1

Imagine that Arjun, the founder of a start-up, is looking to raise capital from Private Equity funds and investors.

Below, we have mentioned four distinct profiles of Arjun:

 He is an Engineer with an MBA degree, and has previous experience of working in Information Technology.
 He is an Economics graduate with an MBA degree, and has previous experience of working in Management Consulting.
 He is a Chartered Accountant, and has previous experience of working at a financial advisory firm.
 He is a Commerce graduate with no prior working experience but is extremely passionate about his idea.

We will now be mentioning three distinct start-up ideas that Arjun could be working on:

 Arjun has been extremely passionate about Food and is hence working on a health foods company. The company that he has formed
has combines taste and health and is into snack bars, cereals and juices. He has already launched his product but is yet to find the
correct product market fit for his offerings. He is looking at various distribution channels through which he can push his products to get
to his consumers, and is conscious about the resources that this will take up.
 Arjun is an avid lover of street foods and has created a Zomato type application that lets consumers order through safe and hygienic
street food vendors. Currently, the application is operative only in the city of Mumbai. Though he knows that he is targeting a mass
market, he knows how competition can be massive. Other key challenges that Arjun is facing in this company are that of onboarding
more street food vendors, hiring more delivery executives; while keeping costs low.
 Arjun has built an international transfer remittance system that reduces the cost and time to make an international transfer. A
breakthrough software, Arjun’s product needs to go over a lot of compliance requirements in order to be launched commercially. Along
with compliance, Arjun has to ensure safety and security of the software as it would be dealing with payments.

As guidelines of your first project, you have to pick a profile of Arjun and the start-up idea that he would be most successful with.

 In about 400 – 500 words, you have to mention the reasons for picking such a profile – idea combination. Your answer has to include
the benefits that you feel such a profile brings to the idea that you have picked. You can also include previous examples of other real-
life start up founders in India or outside, who had similar profiles and were successful with similar (not necessarily same) ideas.
 Imagine that Arjun is looking to raise funds in the profile – idea combination that you have picked. Given the conditions, please pick
among which of the four benefits; the stamp of quality, network driven benefits, advisory benefits or financial benefits, would Arjun be
emphasizing the most, while looking at investors. (300 – 400 words)

Please note that you may exceed the word count by a maximum of up to 50%.