Shantanu Naidu is a 27-year-old MBA holder from Cornell University and has been assisting the chairman of the Tata Group of companies, Ratan Tata, for two years. Now, he has started his own startup talk ‘On Your Sparks’ where he delivers entrepreneurial lessons based on the lessons learned by him.
How ‘On Your Spark’ startup came into existence?
Last winter, Shantanu shared Ratan Tata’s startup pitch deck template on his Instagram handle, which had a huge response. Interestingly, he received a 97% vote in the Instagram poll from his 1 million followers. On this, Tata Trusts was asked if they would like him to put together a basic startup pitch deck template.
For the past seven months, Tata’s office has been receiving thousands of queries and calls. It is mainly for the help from young entrepreneurs asking how to helm ideas into entrepreneurial paths. Helping Ratan Tata in addressing all these queries, an idea about how to address queries clicked in his mind. This is how ‘On Your Sparks’ came into existence.
Every Sunday, Shantanu comes live with ‘On Your Sparks’ on his Instagram handle and there are always limited attendees i.e. not more than 30 in one session. Till now, he has conducted 7 sessions.
However, the charges per person for ‘On Your Sparks’ webinar are Rs 500, the proceeds which then go towards Motopaws. Motopaws designs and produces dog collars that shine in the dark. They are designed to protect the lives of dogs from being run over. Today, Motopaws has expanded in 20 cities and 4 countries.
Shantanu published a post on his Facebook where he informed that he had made collars with reflectors for stray dogs, this will help drivers to spot them on the roads of Mumbai. After reading about this innovation, Ratan Tata called him for a meeting.For this opportunity, Shantanu overwhelmingly wrote, “Word spread and our work got featured in the Tata newsletter.” Though he left India for further education, once he came back, Ratan Tata called him again and offered him a job in his office.
