There’s an exciting event that is on the cards this weekend. It’s called the Startup Lunch. It’s an event that aims to act as a bridge between entrepreneurs and young job aspirants who seek the challenge of working in a startup. It’s a much needed event, especially when interest in entrepreneurship is on the increase.
However, there is one problem that exists. Job seekers don’t know where to look for good startups to join. And entrepreneurs who run the startups are finding it difficult to get like-minded youngsters.
That’s where events like startup lunch will play an important role. The event in itself is quite simple. Entrepreneurs and job seekers meet up in the speed-geeking model. The startup founders sit on one side and the job aspirants spends five minutes with each of them. The entrepreneur explains about his company, his services, his vision and possibly the pay package. The job seeker gets to tell a bit about himself. Once the five minutes are over, the job aspirant moves to the next founder and the process is repeated.
Within two hours, the job aspirant would have met every startup company and then he gets to choose which startup he would like to work for. Similarly, the entrepreneurs can choose to pick up candidates that they are impressed with. In most cases, job offers and hand-shakes happen right in the meet itself.
A very important role that this event plays is that it gets in job seekers who would like to work in the challenging startup environment. These are people who don’t want to work in big companies, out of choice. It’s never as cushy as the mainstream jobs but there is a lot more one can learn from the startup companies. For youngsters who harbor the dream of starting their own firm one day, joining a startup is an excellent idea for they get to learn a lot from it firsthand.
The event is an initiative of The Knowledge Foundation, and is an extension of Proto.in, a successful entrepreneurship event, spearheaded by Vijay Anand.
Chennai will get to have its first event this Saturday, 26 April at the Amethyst Café with about 1 startup companies participating. The Bangalore event took place at IIM Bangalore last week and turned out to be quite successful. Startup Lunches are also planned at Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and Hyderabad. You can get more information at www.startuplunch.proto.in
