Want to be the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg? Kick off your entrepreneurial journey in university

by Tan Zi Jie & Kenny Chee

📍Innovation Port at Gaia (L3)

As teenagers, NTU mechanical engineering undergrad Ian Tan and his secondary school classmate Lucas Lim wanted to start a business together and had a list of technological and engineering venture ideas they wanted to try out.

Earlier this year, they stumbled on a potential innovation. They realised that the showers in some overseas student dormitories are not heated and existing portable heating solutions are bulky. But what if there’s a simpler and more compact way to get hot water?

This sparked an idea for a portable hybrid water heater powered by turbines and batteries that works with different types of shower heads.

The duo further developed their idea with NTU’s help and are tapping resources at its new Innovation Port to create a proof of concept before bringing their idea to market.

The Innovation Port, launched earlier this year at The Arc and Gaia, aims to be the go-to hub for helping students realise their venture goals, from developing their burgeoning ideas to prototyping and seeking funding for them.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how students can jumpstart their entrepreneurship journey at NTU.

STEP 1: DISCUSS IDEAS WITH PROS AND PEERS

For students with startup ideas, where do they even begin? Is there even a market for their venture plans? And what are the next steps?

In Ian’s and Lucas’ case, discussions with NTU innovation pros helped them realise that their portable water heater idea has a much bigger scope. Beyond students in dormitories, their concept could benefit people affected by war, poverty and limited infrastructure.

Students can now get help on their ideas by speaking with innovation gurus at NTU’s new Innovation Port.

No question is too big or small for them. Students can walk into the ports during office hours for a casual chat, even if they’re just curious about innovation or entrepreneurship.

The experts are ready to offer guidance every step of the way – from discussing how feasible ideas are, to finetuning prototypes.

If you have an idea or project in mind, give the experts a clear description of it and the problem you’re trying to solve, plus the challenges you’re facing – whether technical, funding-related, team building or something else.

And it’s not just the pros who can help. Students can share their ideas on the interactive Venture Link board at the Innovation Port in Gaia, and see their ideas evolve with suggestions from fellow student innovators.

📍Innovation Port at The Arc (B1) 

STEP 2. PICK UP ENTREPRENEURSHIP SKILLS 

Even if you have a big idea, there’s still the question of how it can actually become a business and if it can be scaled up.

To navigate the realities of business, one way students can level up is with a minor or a second major in entrepreneurship at NTU.

This is what Alisha Wadkar, a third-year Electrical & Electronic Engineering student, did. She didn’t know how to launch an idea she had with schoolmate Kritika Seth from Mathematical Sciences. They initially wanted to start a “Grab for grooming” service that allows customers to quickly find and get beauty services at their doorstep.

Alisha decided to do a minor in entrepreneurship to learn the basics in six months. Kritika and Alisha also went through NTU’s Entrepreneurship & Startup Training bootcamp twice to finetune their final solution. 

Says Alisha: “The entrepreneurship classes connected us to essential resources to kickstart our idea. As part of the bootcamp, we interviewed salon owners and customers to gain insights about their needs. With this and advice from NTU’s business pros, we refined our startup concept and are now building a B2B platform that automates salon bookings – the owners’ biggest pain point – while streamlining operations and managing accounting and financial analytics.”

Pro tip: Needy students who want to do a minor or second major in entrepreneurship can apply for the Chua Thian Poh Scholarship, worth $5,000, to help fund their studies. 

STEP 3. TEST IDEAS WITH INITIAL FUNDING

To take things to the next level, students can find out if their venture ideas can withstand the scrutiny of experienced industry leaders and experts by joining hackathons and competitions organised in NTU or elsewhere. 

If their ideas are really good, they could win cash prizes to help kick off their startup efforts too. For example, this year’s Port63 Challenge pushed students to tackle Web3, public safety and social issues with a $10,000 prize for the top winners in each category, while the upcoming Kumar Sustainability & Innovation Prize offers $50,000 for the most impactful green solution. 

Third-year Mechanical Engineering major Daniel Foo and his team won $20,000 at the Hungry for Change Challenge in February.

The challenge led them to develop a new idea to turn leftover potato peels into biodegradable coffee cups, which can be composted into fertiliser.

Whatever the outcome, students will gain from the expert advice and hands-on workshops, and maybe even land a dream internship to get relevant experience when they take part in these events.

Another avenue for students to get some startup capital is to apply for NTU’s array of funds with a convincing business case. They might just secure funding, plus hands-on mentorship, incubation support and additional resources, to bring their plans to life.

STEP 4. CREATE A PROTOTYPE

After securing initial funds, students can use them to create a prototype of their product or service to test that it works. The prototype will also be useful in later pitches to get additional funding for its refinement and commercialisation.

A quick check with the concierges at the ports will connect students with product design pros who can open doors to a suitable makerspace or lab at NTU to tinker and experiment with their proofs of concept.

Ian (below) and Lucas are doing just that at The Arc’s Makerspace and NTU’s Open Innovation Lab.

Using the funds they got from NTU, they’re now working on a prototype of their portable water heater concept by finetuning its turbine design and 3D-printing each version of the turbine.

Ian (left) is finetuning his water heater prototype with support from lead technologist Lim Shengen at The Makerspace.

STEP 5. SEEK HELP FROM MENTORS

Despite the best-laid plans, when challenges arise, students can turn to NTU’s industry mentors for guidance.

These advisers’ deep industry connections and experiences can also give students the boost they need to advance their startup ideas, be it sharing market expertise or introducing them to the right people.

Students can choose a mentor that best suits their needs from a list of over 30 experts when they sign up for NTU’s mentorship clinic sessions that are designed as chat consults to help them gain clarity or unlock new opportunities.

While Mechanical Engineering graduate Mohammed Adnan Azam’s first venture idea of a voice-based dementia detection device – conceived as a second-year student – didn’t succeed, it introduced him to invaluable mentors.

His NTU adviser guided him through roadblocks and connected him to a medical innovation expert and a venture-building pro, who ultimately linked him to Assoc Prof Nagaendran Kandiah at NTU’s Dementia Research Centre.

Together, Adnan and Assoc Prof Kandiah have developed and are now marketing a clinically-backed games app that helps neurologists detect pre-dementia in patients.

Ridhwaan and his schoolmates’ halal investment platform sprouted from an idea in an NTU entrepreneurship module. 

STEP 6. GET EVEN MORE FUNDS TO GO TO MARKET

With a working prototype in hand, students can improve it further to get it ready for commercialisation, such as pitching to prospective investors.

Taking this big step requires additional funding, but students can turn to the Innovation Port to seek out and identify relevant funds that they can apply for through NTU, ranging from $50,000 to $250,000. The funds can, for instance, help innovators better understand their customers’ needs and finetune their prototypes accordingly.

Such additional financing helped business graduate Ridhwaan Radzi from the Class of 2023 and his schoolmates bring their halal investment platform closer to market.

NTU gave them an initial $10,000 grant to develop the platform, as well as office space, entrepreneurship advice and industry connections. The university also sent them to a venture competition in Saudi Arabia, where they beat over 300 teams from more than 40 countries to win second place. 

With NTU as their incubator, Ridhwaan’s team received another $50,000 in government funding to get their product market-ready. 

“We launched our halal investment website in September and this is just the beginning,” says Ridhwaan.

This story was published in the Sep-Oct 2024 issue of HEY!. To read it and other stories from this issue in print, click here.