Two undergraduates of Christ University Bangalore, Shreyans Jain and Anto Philip started the Under25 Club in 2013. It is a network to connect new ideas and Entrepreneurial startups for those aged 25 and below. They started working on this idea when they were still in first year of their college. Jain was studying Business Management and Philip was pursuing a degree in Commerce. With India being considered the home of the fastest startup ecosystems in the world, it is a fact that about 50% of the Indian population is under the age of 25. With a motive to connect the like minded entrepreneurial ideas they created this network and slowly started gaining huge response from all over the country.
The duo got the initial success of the club when they decided to hold their first Under25 Summit in 2014. With about 100 attendees in the first year of the summit, the number was geared up to 1200 in the next summit held at the Bangalore World Trade Centre. And the numbers boosting up every year. Today the summit has grown into five categories: food, music, technology, design and young achievers. The cofounders mark that it enables young entrepreneurial stories to be heard and is a great way to boost up their ideas.
In Conversation with co-founder Anto Philip:
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How did Under 25 club start? With what aim was this started?
Shreyans Jain and Anto Philip started the Under 25 Club with the primary goal of creating a platform for youngsters where creative folks from all walks of life could come and network, get inspired and have a good time while they were at it. We wanted to create something that youngsters could call their own with the intention of bringing the country’s potential to the forefront.
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Tell us about the first Under 25 start-up summit.
It was the best learning experience we have had till date, it was one thing that helped us get there. The amount of mistakes we made helped us so much in the future and it still is our most memorable summit. We had 100 people but everyone went back home with a smile on their face.
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What led you to launch your first media platform, Under 25 Club? How many members are there in your team at present?
We figured that Media is very important considering that we will have to be in constant engagement with the youth to build anything substantial and that led us to the launch of www.under25.club. We are team of 12 people now and it’s growing as we speak.
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You were still students when you first started the Under 25 Club? What challenges did you face? Who were your mentors in this journey?
The challenges are also the biggest blessings you have when you start while you are in college because you will be implementing almost all your skills by starting in college and you have the massive community of friends and college mates to back you up on almost everything. We have some amazing people who mentor us to name a few are Girish Raj, Gaurav Vaz, Prathibha Sastry, Oum Pradutt, Vincent Samuel etc..
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How was the increase in the number of people in the 2015th and 2016th edition of the summit?
We grew from a 100 people event to 850 in our second year, 3000 in our third and 10000 people in the 4th year which happened in Bangalore from the 5th to 8th of January 2017. The community has constantly believed in us and hence we are extremely grateful to all the people who make it our summits.
Also read “Confused Between Choosing An MNC Or A Startup? Here’s The Answer“
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What new are you guys planning for the 2017th edition? What kind of people can have entry into it?
This year we will be doing 29 cities of the summit and will be working with multiple colleges to enable this. Apart from this the media platform will take a lot more focus and content will play a very vital role in the growth of our organization.
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How was the transition of the Under 25 club since its start? What are the achievements? What are your future plans?
Looking at expanding the reach of the Under 25 Club into tier 2 and 3 cities where youngsters need this platform more than ever. The Summit is going to 29 cities this year to increase this very footprint. The idea is to eventually create a global platform for creative youngsters in every format and channel that they consume information in. Lots more confidential, ambitious and game-changing projects in the pipeline. You’ll know about them as and when we release it. But you’ll be sure that it was Shreyans and Anto behind launching something that crazy. More on that soon. The journey is always the best part about what we do, it has many ups and down but that what makes it all worth it.
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What would be your messages to the aspiring entrepreneurs?
Stay focused and give it time, with time everything will fall in place one by one.
Under25 Club Official Website