1.
Personal
Entrepreneurial
Competencies
&
BioTech Entrepreneurship
K. Rajaraman
Director, Entrepreneurship Development Institute
www.editn.in

2.
Entrepreneurship as a Competency set
 Entrepreneurship as “the dynamic, interaction
between entrepreneurial attitudes,
Entrepreneurial abilities, and entrepreneurial
aspirations by individuals, which drives the
allocation of resources through the creation
and operation of new ventures.”
 In short, entrepreneurship is a competency
set that can be felt, measured and grown!

3.
Is Entrepreneurship for everybody ?
 95% will go as managers
 PECs help you become intrapreneurs – think and act
like the owner of your company
 PECs help you see, seek and grab the best
opportunities
 PECs help you take risks ad manage them

 5% will become entrepreneurs
 We will see as to how PECs help business owners

4.
Opportunity Seeking and Initiative
• Does things before being asked by customers or
forced by events or competitors
• Acts to extend the business into new areas,
products or services
• Seizes unusual opportunities to start a new
business, obtain financing, equipment, land work
space or assistance

5.
Highlighting the importance of
preserving the local varieties, Dr. S.
Uma, Principal Scientist of the Crop
Improvement Division states the
example of the manoranjitham
banana. The variety, is native to the
Kolli Hills, and is immune to leaf-spot,
a disease that takes at least 40 sprays
of insecticide to be quelled. “When we
went back to get a sample, we
realised that it had vanished from
cultivation,” says Dr. Uma. “So we
developed a tissue culture for that
variety with the help of the
Department of Biotechnology and are
perpetuating it once more among the
local farmers in Kolli Hills. Many
varieties have been given back to the
farmers in this way.”

6.
Opportunities
 Look local – think Global
 Connect with local problems
 AYUSH validation, certification, new discoveries
 Restoring biodiversity
 Rediscover validity of ancient practices
 Modern branches of BT like Regenerative
Medicine, Biopharma, etc

7.
Risk Taking
• Deliberately calculates risks and evaluates
alternatives
• Takes action to reduce risks or control outcomes
• Places self in situations involving a challenge or
moderate risk
• Support required in Technology landscaping etc.

8.
Risks Taken by
Biotech-Entrepreneurs
 Research risks
 IPR risks
 Financial risks
 Regulatory risks
 Market risk
 Political risks (in

9.
Innovation, Efficiency and Quality
• Finds ways to do things better, faster, or cheaper
• Acts to do things that meet or exceed standards of
excellence
• Develops or uses procedures to ensure work is
completed on time or that work meets agreed
upon standards of quality

10.
Persistence
• Takes action in the face of a significant obstacle
• Takes repeated actions or switches to an alternative
strategy to meet a challenge or overcome an
obstacle
• Takes personal responsibility for the performance
necessary to achieve goals and objectives
• Ability to take into account long gestation period in
BT businesses (5 - 10years)
• Accept failures : Learn from them !

11.
Persistence : Thomas Alva Edison
“I have not failed. I've
just found 10,000 ways
that won't work.”
“Genius is one percent
inspiration and ninety-
nine percent
perspiration.

12.
Customer-centricity
• Makes a personal sacrifice or expends
extraordinary effort to complete a job
• Pitches in with workers or in their place to get a job
done
• Strives to keep customers satisfied and places long
term good will over short term gain
• As far as possible, FOCUS RIGHT FROM
BEGINNING OF YOUR RESEARCH ON THE VALUE TO
END CUSTOMER

13.
Profit & Wealth Will be Created
When Product Delivers
Value to Consumers!
• Technologies do not create big wins unless they
become a breakthrough consumer technology.
• Design thinking in mind : empathy for customer and
end-user
• Selling stuff to each others moves the money but
doesn’t create a vibrant, growing and sustainable
industry.
• Only when the technology creates real value for
customers (end-users) so that sustainable revenues
are generated and wealth is created.

14.
Information Seeking
• Personally seeks information from clients, suppliers
or competitors
• Does personal research on how to provide a
product or service (internet, journals, papers..)
• Consults experts for business or technical advice

15.
Goal setting/ Targets
• Sets goals and objectives that are personally
meaningful and challenging
• Articulates clear and specific long range goals
• Sets measurable short term objectives

16.
Systematic Planning and
Monitoring
• Plans by breaking large tasks down into time-
constrained sub-tasks
• Revises plans in light of feedback on performance
or changing circumstances
• Keeps financial records and uses them to make
business decisions

17.
People Skills :
Persuasion and Networking
• Uses deliberate strategies to influence or persuade
others
• Uses key people as agents to accomplish own
objectives
• Acts to develop and maintain business contracts
• Network with successful biotech CEOs and
entrepreneurs, BT consultants, BT VC/Afs, IP
experts, Regulatory authorities regularly
• Can you start a Chennai BT startup weekend
network meets @ UIC : UIC can provide space….

18.
People Skills :
Persuasion and Networking
• Good scientists are capable of becoming good
CEOs.
• For the Scientist: Things vs. People : Need to
develop reasonably good people skills
• For the Businessperson: Communication with
Scientists

19.
Independence and self-confidence
• Seeks autonomy from the rules or control of others
• Sticks with own judgement in the face of
opposition or early lack of success
• Expresses confidence in own ability to complete a
difficult task or meet a challenge

20.
The route to doing business
Support students to :
• Understand your customer & competitors
• Finetune your business model
• prepare a business plan;
• Study intellectual property and patenting strategy;
• Understand raising and managing finance;
• Learn commercial and marketing strategies;
• Great clarity on regulation and compliance
• Network with people and learn from company
case histories (don’t reinvent the wheel).

21.
Read → Ideate → Pitch →
Launch
• Get students trained in areas of weakness :
Finance, marketing, Negotiation
• Run relevant MOOCs : NEN Learnwise
• Supply good reading materials: BioTech
Entrepreneurship by Craig Shimasaki, Frugal
Innovation by Radjou , Sharing Economy by Arun
Sundararajan, How to win friends & Influence
people by Dale Carnegie
• Organise ideation contests with user groups
• Organise pitching contests for student ideas at
AF/VCs – will help sharpen business models

22.
Faculty→ GEI : The Indian Ecosystem
Source: Global Entrepreneurship Index 2016

23.
Faculty → Ecosystem Enhancement Process
1)Reinventing education: Top management
E&I Vision
2)Throwing open doors: Building partnerships
with E&I stakeholders
3)Breaking internal silos: Creating cross
functional faculty teams
4)Incentivising E&I: Defining Institutional
Entrepreneurship & Innovation policies
5)Walking the Talk: Committing faculty, space,
funds, equipment

24.
Faculty → Ecosystem Enhancement Process
1) Building an Alumni network: Survey, Connect
& Tap
2)Training the Trainers: Building a breed of
entrepreneurial teachers
3)Creating E&I beehives in Campus: Incubators
and Accelerators
4)Hiring Top Guns: Attracting PIO Innovators &
Scientists as faculty or atleast as advisors
5)Stop re-inventing the wheel: Learn from Best
Practices
6)Entrepreneurial University : A Learning
Organisation

25.
Faculty → Startup Steps
 College E&I Council
 Intra College E&I FDPs
 E&I Development Centre (EDC/E-cell)
 Active Student E&I Club
 E&I Electives / MOOCs (NEN-EDI program)
 Strong Industrial R&D program
 Tech or Business Incubator

26.
College E&I
Council
ALL FACULTY
Banks
Angels
VCs
Successful
Entrepreneurs
Local
Alumni
R&D Labs
CSIR
ICAR
ICMR
Local
Industry
MSMEs &
Large
Industry
Mentors
Retired
Entrepreneurs,
Researchers
bankers
Tech Transfer
Office (TTO)
IP Advisors
BIRAC
GITA
NSTEDB
DEITY
College E&I
Council
ALL FACULTY
R&D Labs/COE
Incubator
Students
E&I Club

27.
Thank You!
dir@editn.in
http://www.editn.in/
References:
1. Global Entrepreneurship Monitoring Report 2015
2. Global Innovation Report 2015
3. Tamil nadu Vision 2023 Document
4. EDI Strategic Plan 2016-21
5. EMPRETEC, UNCTAD Entrepreneurship Handbook
6. EU Action Plan for Entrepreneurship & Training 2014
7. MIT SkolTech Report 2014
8. OECD Report on University Entrepreneurial Ecosystems