Using your university entrepreneurs society to ignite your entrepreneurial spark can be key to your journey as an entrepreneur and today I interview Rousseau Dasgupta as part of my NEF interview series.

Rousseau was the former Vice-President of Oxford Entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial society at Oxford and helped bring in over £27,000 of sponsorship to run the society, a record for any year of its operation and was also the UK Vice President of the Kairos Society.

Rousseau is currently working at SHL, a global leader in talent management where he works as an intern to the Operating Committee, equivalent to their C-suite to help forge the strategy of the firm going forward as part of the NEF program.

Hi Rousseau, thanks for doing this with me today.

No problem, Joseph, glad to be here!

Could you quickly give us some background information about yourself?

Yeah, sure. I started on the New Entrepreneurs Foundation straight after university, and as part of the programme, I work at SHL, a global leader in talent management, meaning the measurement and management of people both within and applying to organisations to create the best outcomes for those organisations. My role there is as an intern to the Operating Committee, equivalent to their C-suite, working with them to forge the strategy of the firm going forward.

So were you the entrepreneurial type or more academic focused growing up?

Haha, definitely the academic type! I was (and still am) a huge science nerd, and this is probably what led to me pursuing a degree in Physics at university. I always wanted to be Tony Stark from Iron Man when I grew up – I just thought that’s what scientists did! It wasn’t until I got to university that I even thought about business as a career path, really.

You recently graduated from Oxford University, tell me about your experience and some of the key things you took away from that experience?

My four years at Oxford were truly incredible, but I have to say there just isn’t enough time to do everything! The opportunities are endless – drama, sport, societies, student politics, debating – it’s just not possible to take full advantage of everything alongside a degree. I think, though, just being surrounded by ambitious and interesting young people for that amount of time was the best thing about it – you really get a buzz from that and they really drive you to think about what you want to achieve, how you want to do it, and most importantly, the people you want to do that with. It’s a really similar buzz I get to whenever our NEF cohort gets together for one of our events, actually!

Did you get involved in anything entrepreneurial?

Actually, the first entrepreneurial experience I had was at school on a week-long business game we had called The Challenge of Management. We were split into teams of 5-7 people and spent a couple of days running a mock business and then the final day coming up with a product and pitching it to a panel of investors. As CEO of my team, I had a really great time! At university, I helped run and improve my College Bar, which was on the verge of closing (unusual for a student bar!). On a shoestring budget that I raised, I introduced a host of new initiatives and ran some bar nights that brought it back from the brink to being profitable again. I also briefly ran one man graphic design and careers agencies for other students, though to be honest these were just for a bit of extra income as a student!

You were also very involved in Oxford Entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial society at Oxford, becoming Vice-President. You helped bring in over £27,000 of sponsorship to run the society, a record for any year of its operation – how did that happen, tell me about your experience co-running the society and what benefits and opportunities that experience has added to your life?

Oxford Entrepreneurs is really what convinced me that entrepreneurship was a viable, and indeed compelling, career path. OE is Oxford’s largest free society, and has gained quite a lot of publicity in the national press over the years for being a stalwart of youth entrepreneurship. I think what I brought to the table that year was the realisation that we were pretty big and had been around for a while, and so we had to act a little more professionally than other societies when seeking to create relationships with sponsors, speakers and partners, and correspondingly formalised our process using a lot of the things I learned on the internships I had done previously. It was also really helpful that the VP of Finance the previous year had stayed on so we were able to work together and leverage a lot of her relationships from the previous year.

Running OE was an amazing experience, and it really got me talking to a lot of entrepreneurs and investors, gave me a chance to help run our incubator and to be involved in the organisation of events like Tata Idea Idol, one of the biggest student pitching competitions in the country, and a format that we helped roll out to a lot of other universities through organisations like NACUE.

You were also the UK Vice President of the Kairos Society, what role did you have to perform and what did you learn from the experience?

Kairos is a huge international student entrepreneurship society, but that year my friend, Melvin Chen, the then UK President, and I decided to plant the flag here and start the UK chapter, so in many ways it was very much the opposite of OE. The biggest challenge was recruiting the UK Fellows – having used our connections at GroupSpaces to put the word out, we were inundated with CVs and phone interviews, an extremely positive and enthusiastic response! Having painstakingly chosen around 50 Fellows to represent the UK, the job of organising them and their activities during the Kairos Global Summit in New York was the next challenge. It was through this that I actually met Mike [Bandar] and Ushma [Soneji], who are now both on the NEF programme!

How did you find out about the NEF programme and what made you decide this was the next step for you?

NEF actually approached OE to publicise the scheme amongst our members. I was actually sending out the newsletter that week and thought about how great the opportunity sounded, and how unique it would be to get such exposure to the senior people running a growth business. It was a really different prospect to the very hierarchical, corporate environments in which I had worked before.

Why SHL?

After the interviews with NEF and a couple of the placement companies, I was left with a choice of a couple of them, but what really got me about SHL was the fact that although it was growing fast, it had a global presence, and this international aspect really got me excited about working there. Moreover, the CEO, David Leigh, was someone I saw as an excellent potential mentor as he had had a similar background to me and could really advise me on my own future.

What have been some of the key things that you’ve learnt from the experience so far?

After things like how to build professional relationships and the value of effective communication, I have to say the biggest thing I have learned this year is that no matter how new you are to an organisation, your voice still matters. You bring fresh thinking to the table, so learning not to be afraid of “the big dogs” and voicing my ideas is probably my biggest takeaway.

What has been your most memorable moment so far?

Staring down partners from top private equity firms and a strategy consulting house across a board room table with the CEO turning to me to settle the argument with some sweet, sweet analysis.

What advice would you give to anyone contemplating of joining this year’s NEF programme?

If you ever even think you want to become an entrepreneur, do it. You will not get another chance to have this kind of responsibility, independence and guidance! Even if you have a great grad job waiting for you, defer it and try this first! I did, and I don’t regret it.

You have a place secured for you on the McKinsey’s Business Analyst Programme starting October 2012, what are you looking to learn from the programme and most importantly why did you decide this is the next step for you after NEF?

I think that while NEF gives me in-depth exposure to running a business in a particular industry, McKinsey will give me a similar, if slightly more withdrawn, impression of numerous companies and industries across many countries, while still staying at that senior level of exposure, and for someone like me that variety and international experience is a big thing and vital for deciding where you want to play in the modern, connected, multi-polar world. I am also really interested in the business of renewable energy (science nerd side coming out!) and McKinsey are one of the world’s foremost organisations when it comes to sustainability and renewables strategy.

What advice would you give to 1st year students at university, especially in Oxford?

University is really short, especially at Oxford where the average course is only (3 x 8 x 3 =)72 weeks long! Your degree is going to be hard, but unless you want to do a PhD or be a barrister, or it’s something you really, really want, don’t worry about getting a First, but make the most of the time you have. Especially in first year, utilise some of that Fresher stamina to throw yourself into as much as possible – go on an international exchange, try dancesport, be in a play, maybe even do an Enternship (you’re welcome, Raj…). Find your niche and discover your passions and then just go for it – “If you shoot for the moon and miss, you’ll still land among the stars”.

Robert Noyce, The Father of Silicon Valley

Robert Noyce was the co founder of Fairchild Semiconductor back in 1957 & Intel in 1968. He is credited as one of the inventors of the microchip, the visionary & natural leader founded two companies that would go on to shape the computer industry.

He was the “Mayor of Silicon Valley,” (well before Foursquare came around) that is what they nicknamed Robert Noyce, he grew up Iowa & was hooked to the field when he first saw two of the first transistors ever. It was his Physics teacher at college that showed them to his class and encouraged Robert to study Physics at MIT. At MIT his fellow graduates would call him ‘Rapid Robert’, his mind was so quick!

After MIT he started work at an electronics firm called Philco where he created transistors. But he had a vision of where he wanted to be and that was in Mountain View, California, working at Shockley Semiconductor. He was determined to get the job and went as far as moving his wife and kids to California, buying a house, and then going to Shockley to ask for a job, which he got.

Robert Noyce was a brave, determined, confident man that knew what he wanted and was determined to get it & Shockley saw that. After a while at Shockley Semiconductors Robert Noyce and a few other researchers at Shockley Semiconductors were disillusioned by the managements goal and focus. Noyce had already had a few altercations with Shockley & being full of ideas, ambition and confidence it’s not surprising the two clashed.

At this point, Robert Noyce, aged 30, went on to found Fairchild Semiconductor taking the seven disgruntled researchers with him. Together they grew Fairchild into one of the biggest & most innovative in it’s industry. During this time Noyce invented the integrated chip, a chip of silicon with many transistors all etched into it at once. He revolutionized the industry with the use of silicon. He ingrained a casual working atmosphere, letting ideas and creativity flourish, and this has stayed to this day, he defined the working style associated with the tech companies of Silicon Valley.

In 1968 he left Fairchild to start Intel along with one of the researchers he took from Shockley’s, Gordon Moore. This is where he yet again revolutionized an industry with the invention of the Microprocessor. Intel would go on to become a household name with revenues of over $40 billion & close to 100,000 employees.

A true pioneer, Robert Noyce had the ambition and determination to bring his passion to life and continue to innovate and build without fear, even in the face of adversity.

In his last interview before he passed away in June 1990, Robert Noyce was asked ‘what would you do if you were “emperor” of the United States?’ He said that he would, among other things, “make sure we are preparing our next generation to flourish in a high-tech age. And that means education of the lowest and the poorest, as well as at the graduate school level.”

In 1991 his family set up The Noyce Foundation, which is dedicated to improving public education in mathematics and science in grades K-12.

Noyce was a mentor and father-figure to an entire generation of entrepreneurs.

Today, December 12th 2011, marks what would have been Robert Noyce, the ‘Mayor of Silicon Valleys’ 84th birthday.

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Check out this interview from Robert Noyce from 1981, where he talks about the future technology in the workplace:

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Chamath Palihapitiya is the founder of the venture fund Social+Capital Partners. But he says “I’m trying to be as un-VC as possible.” The young investor wants to shake up what he believes is a broken system, which is crippled by short term thinking and a lack of transparency.

“Venture capital firms tend to focus on having large amounts of assets under management and collecting fixed fees,” says Chamath. “That creates perverse incentives because you’re focused on deploying as much capital as fast as possible. I want to be antithetical to all of that.”

Having founded the firm in June, after leaving his role as Vice President of User Growth, Mobile and International Expansion at Facebook, the first fund for the Social Capital Partnership has raised over $300million with around $60million put in from Mr Palihapitiya himself. Chamath started putting that money to good use by investing $17million in popular enterprise social network company Yammer Social+Capital has also recently invested in another rising firm, SecondMarket, a platform which allows shares in private companies can be exchanged.

His salary is fixed and he earns no bonus, all to insure that his annual pay does not depend on the amount of capital accumulated, like in other firms. That is the typical structure and Chamath wants to change that as it encourages fund managers into chasing big fund-raising rounds and to only look for deals with quick exits.

The present outlook “is too tilted towards current compensation versus long-term capital gains,” explains Mr Palihapitiya.

The current investing environment is very competitive and every VC is hungry to find the next Facebook or Google and with startup founders hungry for investment many VC’s can try and get away with financing terms which don’t make sense for the founders.

Trying to get away from the old and bring in the new he has replaced the usual look of pressed khakis and button-down shirt, with a more casual jeans and flip flops. A small change that expresses his goal of changing a old stale industry and it’s unwritten rules with new ones. It is happening in many industries now as the next generation come through and enter senior management roles or start their own businesses. If you’re at the forefront of that change you can be very successful.

Although a tough mission his investors have faith in him, “I trust his vision and his expertise,” said Mr. Hewitt, the founder of Firefox. “There’s a lot of fluff out there, and Chamath is good at rooting out the bull.”

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Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011

The founder of Apple Steve Jobs once said “We’re here to put a dent in the universe.” He certainly did that by changing the world.

A true innovator, Steve Jobs, revolutionized personal computing for the masses, changing the way we listen to music and brought about the evolution of mobile.

His vision, passion and determination led to countless innovations that have changed our world for the better, changing the way we go about our daily lives. Even if you don’t have an Apple product you most probably have a product that was inspired or created in response to an Apple innovation. Even the layout of the computer today came about thanks to Steve Jobs, the mouse & keyboard came from his mind. Even fonts were an innovation of his.

The billionaire wasn’t obsessed with money, instead he was obsessed with quality and design.

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful … that’s what matters to me.”

Thanks Steve!

Steve Jobs

17 year old Aussie entrepreneur Lachy Groom is on his 4th startup, that’s right his 4th.

His startup is called  iPad Case Finder, and it does exactly what is says on the tin, help you find the perfect iPad case. The site stocks a number of cases from multiple manufacturers to ensure that you get the best choice.

“Basically, I had an iPad and my friend smashed the screen (accidentally). And that weekend my dad told me I should start making some passive income. So I set it up in a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. From that I’ve been promoting it and adding features like crazy,” says Lachy.

So he just set up a site in a few hours one afternoon, great if you can do that isn’t it?

He says he has been promoting like crazy and it seems to have been working, as after only a few weeks the site going live, Lachy saw the site receive over 400,000 hits.

Lachy wants to be more than just a provider of a product and wants to be able to offer all the details such as texture, colour, material and features to ensure that you find the perfect iPad case online. The in depth level of detail provided helps consumers know exactly what they are buying before hand and makes sure that there are no unwelcome surprises when your new iPad case is delivered to the door.

Lachy’s other startup is Cardnap, a secondary market for gift cards. According to the Australian Consumers’ Association 1 in 3 gift cards in Australia where expiring before they were being used so Lachy set up Cardnap to ensure that people across Australia were not losing out.

“We initially launched this as a Cardpool like company for Australia, but it failed due to lack of profitability and how intense it was. So we looked at our options, and looked at the pains of these sorts of sites. We found it was impossible to find the best discount, or all the available cards easily. So we fixed that problem,” says the young entrepreneur.

At the age of 16 he saw that his company was in a market where there was a lot of competition and it was not profitable, but instead of giving up he instead looked at opportunities abroad. Remarkable! Yes at 16 he took his company international, at 15 he was already travelling the world on business trips. In fact on his 15th birthday he sold his first startup, an online design company, to a US firm.

So what is Lachy Groom’s advice to other teen entrepreneurs?

“Network! I think the word teenage is irrelevant, and that advice is the same for any entrepreneur. I like the saying, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” I think that’s really true. But if I was to give advice straight to teens, it would be to have a good work/life balance. Make sure you enjoy yourself, that’s all that matters.”

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High School Teenpreneur Shahed Khan has spent his summer networking with everyone and pitching to Venture Capitalists. Why? Because he has ambitions to see his business idea be successful. While he is only 16, he has already got a team of 4 people for his company Viatask.

Viatask is a social errand running platform. It connects people who need errands done, but are too busy to carry them out themselves, with people who have some free time to carry out these errands and gives them a chance to make some cash.

Shahed separates these people into ‘Posters’ & ‘Runners’, I think you can guess which is which. He got the idea after watching ‘Million Dollar Listing’ where a rich business man paid his concierge to travel to America and buy him a house for his family.

He realised there are many people who may have the time to accommodate doing errands in their spare time and getting paid, while their are many people who don’t have the time to run errands due to work commitments and are able to pay others to complete these simple tasks.

Whilst many people come up with business ideas, Shahed went through with it and started up Viatask and has been pitching for investment during his summer holidays. The 16 year old businessman looks at the positives of being a young entrepreneur, “My age alone is a great marketing strategy for the company. Not a lot of entrepreneurs meet young entrepreneurs like me, so I get a lot of their attention.” he says.

Although people tend to remember him and give more attention, he does find attending many networking events impossible as they are held in over 21 bars! He is also due to head back to school soon but is determined to make it work. He has a good sized team who can all contribute, he says ”Without a great team you can’t build a startup.”

The number of teen entrepreneurs is on the rise and as barriers to entry are low and more successful young entrepreneurs start to garner media attention, I’m we will see more and more teenpreneurs. Good luck to Shahed on building his startup.

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These days, you never quite know what works anymore. What is that million dollar idea? What business you should go into? I just say whatever works really.

I’m sure you would probably have stumbled across FRED on youtube since his video is always on the FrontPage.

Lucas Cruikshank is the 17 years old behind the whole FRED “Fred Figglehorn” youtube phenomenon. His videos on youtube are created around a character named Fred Figglehorn, a fictional 6-year-old who has “anger management issues” and a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic mom, a father in prison and a rabid cat named Dolly.

Lucas is the fourth of eight children in his family said he was influenced by the characters of his little brothers which he called as “crazy little kids” inspired the whole FRED character.

Lucas who is a Nebraska-raised high school junior initially starting posting videos on youtube with his cousins Katie and jon smet in a JKL Productions but later left the group to start up his individual youtube channel called FRED.

Since creating his own youtube channel he has steadily built his fanbase with over 602 million video views. He won a Teen Choice Award for Favorite Online Celebrity and appeared on hit teen television shows, iCarly and Hannah Montana.

Fred also has his movie backed by nickelodeon debut last week and has already become a hit ranking over 7.6 viewers so far.

He is also releasing an album called “who’s ready to party” which includes track like “Don’t forget to brush”.

You never know what the internet can bring these days.

Joe (Jonatas) Penna who most of you probably know by the name mysteryguitarman is a 23 years old guitarist, animator and filmmaker originally from sao Paulo, brazil but now lives in los angeles, California.

He is popular on youtube for his quirky animated, musical youtube creations and he manages twoTube channels: MysteryGuitarMan and jp. In September 2010, he became the most subscribed Brazilian and the 7th most subscribed user on YouTube, with over one million subscribers. His videos have been viewed over 140 million times.

When his mother needed help getting more customers to come to her yard sale, Joe used the family computer to design signs that he then posted around town. It was his first taste of business.

His first experience of business came when his mother needed help in getting more customers to come to her yard sale, Joe decided to use the family computer to design signs he then posted around the town.

When he was 12, his family decided to move to the U.S. he attended university of Massachusetts studying cardiothoracic before dropping out to focus on his passion for making videos on youtube.

After dropping out of university, he decided to lock himself in his rooms for days creating a video to put on youtube; he spent the days learning different techniques in creating videos.

He also tries to mix his video with some element of creative interactivity, i guess those days locked up in his room really paid off with every click on his video, he makes a tenth of a hundredth of a penny considering he has had over 140 million views on his youtube videos together i guess that’s not bad for doing what you love..You just do the math.

He currently features a new video every Tuesday and Thursday, usually wearing black sunglasses.
He said he has a supportive family, so supportive that his dad calls him up at 3:00am in the morning to ask him to delete nasty comments from his videos on youtube and his mum regularly checks up on his work especially interviews and articles about him sharing it with her friends.

Penna has continued to receive major press for his work on youtube. Starting from 2007 when his video puzzle was featured on the front page of youtube to him already being featured on msn.com.
He has also had his video featured on CNN’s morning show morning express. He was selected as one of the top 10 new directors of 2010 at the 20th Cannes Lions Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase with “T-Shirt War.

His ever-growing popularity has continued to create opportunities for him, with opportunites to work with big companies such as coca-cola and mcdonalds and was also being selected as ford’s fiesta agent for the 2011 ford fiesta movement.

P.S – Did i mention that he is just only 23 years old

Shane dawson is a 22 years old youtube comedian and actor. Shane makes funny videos on youtube and does impersonation of celebrities and spoofs of music videos.

His main YouTube channel is the fourth most subscribed channel of all time with over 1.96 million subscribers.

Shane who started off just posting videos with friends in high school, they started bringing in videos to school rather than homework and that’s how it all began. Teachers then began to trade tapes with the students, and ask for personal copies of what was filmed.

After graduating high-school, he decided to pursue his career as an actor and after finding out that he couldn’t get an acting job. he decided to start posting videos on youtube.

I started Youtube, kind of playing around with it, I was making videos like once a month, I wasn’t really thinking too much about it, and then I lost my job, because of Youtube video I made, me my mom, my brother and like 5 other people lost their jobs – it was all my fault. And I went through this crazy stage of depression and suicide thoughts and it was really really bad, and I said: “You know what, I’m going to really focus on Youtube and make a video every single week, and like make it my own TV show. You know, f*** it, I’m going to have my own TV show on the internet and do whatever I want, and if nobody watches, who cares, it’s for me, and people started watching”. And it gave me a purpose and at that point in my life I really felt worthless.

He said “Youtube has just given me this feeling of; I have a reason of being alive”.

Shane uses his main channel, shanedawsontv to post videos every Saturday, while he uses his second channel shanedawsontv2 to post vlogs every Saturday where he has a web series answering questions from viewers.

He also has another channel called shane where he posts unedited videos directly from his iphone.

Mr. Dawson, who once weighed 340 pounds, says he lost 150 pounds in nine months

He also moved out of his mother’s house into an apartment in the North Hollywood section of Los Angeles that he shares with his older brother.

He even has a line of self-branded merchandise sold at shanedawson.spreadshirt.com

According to tubemogul, He currently makes £200,000 every year through his partnership with youtube.
In 2010, Forbes magazine named him their 25th most famous web celebrity