Alumni Name: Preeti Hariharan
Batch: MBA-IT (2009 - 2011)
Founder of Company: U-Town
P: College life is always fun!! Considering PG is mostly the last degree most of us enroll for, you do have to maximize your fun and balance learning. I do feel the current batch is missing on human interactions ( peer to peer; teacher to students) which in most cases is the highlights of studying but things have changed and this is the new normal so the students will find new ways to learn n live!!
P: U-Town was born out of a business plan competition organized within the college. It basically was to be a 'one stop shop' for all college related merchandise.
P: I think core blocks of running any business are the functions you mention. The success of the business is how you manage and interact with these parties. For me customers, was college students so didn't have to do a whole lot of advertising to create pull. Choosing vendors, negotiating with them and getting the students to like the product was the challenging part.
P: I honestly don't remember the financials now but I don't quite remember making any profits...but again it's been almost a decade so excuse my memory..
P: I won't lie.. it was stressful at times.. initially was smooth but as students are a finicky bunch and have different likes, it got a bit stressful to have many different designs and sell it. As we didn't have money to scale, have more designs and still keep a competitive price point.
Conducted by,
Manan Agarwal
BBA-IT (2020-2023)