Entrepreneurship Track — Slide Viewer
Slides 31–40 · rebuilt from the original orientation deck
Entrepreneurship Track:
Founder Development & Venture Building
Stop Theorizing. Start Executing.
Slide 31 · 1 / 12
Entrepreneurship Track:
Founder Development & Venture Building
Stop Theorizing. Start Executing.
This is Not a Weekend Club. This is an Execution Engine.
The Entrepreneurship Track
The Myth
“Seniors said this track is just random guest lectures and no exams.”
The New Reality
“Startup theater” is over. Completely restructured into a 100% In-House, Intensive Minor.
The Commitment
5 dedicated hours every single week (Theory + Venture Labs).
The Bottom Line
Want to play with pitch decks? Don’t take this. Serious about building? Welcome.
Meet Your Track Lead
NITISH
KRISHNA
GANESAN
VENKATRAMAN
KRISHNA
GANESAN
VENKATRAMAN
About The Track Director
- Professor & Track Director: Spearheading the in-house venture studio model at NST.
- Global Pedigree: Deep operational experience from the European startup ecosystem and top-tier VC forums.
- Proven Scale: Has advised, scaled and helped 200+ startups navigate early-stage growth and venture capital landscapes.
- The Goal: Bringing global, Y-Combinator / HBS-level startup execution standards directly into the NST curriculum.
World-Class Guidance, Every Single Friday
Mandatory Mentor Sessions: Every Friday you face an external jury and mentor panel on a rotating basis to audit your progress.
The Core Mentors:
Krishna Kumar
Consult with Krishna
Rohit Kachroo
Mentor
Jacob
CEO, Grasshopper Air Mobility
Umesh
CEO, Loverto
Special Interventions: Masterclasses and strategic audits by Siddharth (CTO, Microsoft) and Udit (NST Alumni).
The 70-20-10 Venture Studio Model
Split
What it means in practice
70% — Real Execution
Physical fieldwork, recorded customer interviews, and building actual products.
20% — Mentorship & Review
Defending your data every Friday against our external mentor panel.
10% — Theory
High-impact frameworks: The Mom Test, Lean Startup, ICP Mapping.
The Objective
Identify real problems, validate them with data (not opinions), and build MVPs using No-Code / Low-Code platforms.
Semester 3 Roadmap (Track Semester 1)
Founder Discovery & Problem Understanding
Description
1. Friction Mapping
Documenting everyday inefficiencies and isolating root-cause problems.
2. Customer Discovery
Building Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) and learning non-leading interview techniques.
3. Field Execution
15+ mandatory, audio-recorded customer interviews gathering verified validation insights.
4. The Final Gate
Defending a data-backed problem statement to an external jury to pass the semester.
Semester 4 Roadmap: Validation & MVP Execution
- Assumption Testing: Running “Fake Door” landing page experiments and strict MVP scoping.
- The Manual MVP: Acting as a “concierge” to solve problems manually before writing any backend code.
- Rapid Prototyping: Using no-code tools (Framer, Supabase, Zapier) to build functional MVPs.
- The Final Gate: An MVP Defense where teams present a live, usable product backed by a 14-day cohort retention graph.
What Happens Next? Scaling the Venture
The Road Ahead: Year 3 (Track Sem 3 & 4)
- Semester 5 (Track Sem 3) — GTM & Operations: Transitioning from building to distributing. You will launch publicly, execute customer acquisition campaigns, run pricing experiments, and analyze real product telemetry.
- Semester 6 (Track Sem 4) — Scale & Founder Leadership: Transitioning from operator to strategic founder. You will focus on organizational design, scaling systems, investor communication (due diligence & data rooms), and a final Capstone Venture Defense.
Express Tracks & Campus Incubation
The Ultimate Payoff:
- Direct to Foundry: Teams that demonstrate relentless execution, pristine telemetry, and real market validation get an Express Track directly into the NST Foundry.
- Newton Venture Startup: Elite founders will have exclusive access to incubation, resources, and funding readiness through the newly launched campus initiative spearheaded by Vivek and Nitish Krishna.
The Ultimate Payoff: Express Tracks & Campus Incubation
Relentless execution does not end with a grade — it compounds:
- Direct to Foundry: Teams that demonstrate relentless execution, pristine telemetry and real market validation get an Express Track directly into the NST Foundry.
- Newton Venture Startup: Elite founders get exclusive access to incubation, resources and funding readiness through the newly launched campus initiative spearheaded by Vivek and Nitish Krishna.
Are You Ready to Build?
Anyone can choose this track, but it is built for:
- Do choose this if you have a high risk appetite, an ownership mentality, and are ready to dedicate 5 rigorous hours a week to your business.
- Do choose this if you want to solve problems in public and build a legitimate portfolio of failed and successful experiments.
- Do NOT choose this if you want an easy grade, dislike talking to strangers, or prefer passive lectures over active building.
If you’ve raised your hand for entrepreneurship
FEAR IS NOT
AN OPTION.
AN OPTION.
Identify the friction. Validate the pain. Build the solution.
Learn better,
Achieve better,
Build a better India!
Scan to pick your track
Track preference intake form
Track preference intake form