Product Overview

In 2014, Vishal Singhi, a young entrepreneur, established Enrich Development Private Limited (EDPL). EDPL is a small Skill Development consulting firm based in Jaipur, India. EDPL provided consultancy services to third-party agencies to acquire, implement and evaluate the Skill Development projects sponsored by the Government of India. EDPL’s founder realised that there were higher margins in project implementation, i.e., training students and helping them with placements, than providing consultancy for it, and thus EDPL ventured into project implementation. EDPL soon received initial success by forging alliances with several agencies and securing significant projects. Project implementation required high investment, which resulted in working capital issues for EDPL. By 2016, it was running low on cash and had no liquid assets, and payments were due for the completed projects. Reconciled to this critical situation, the founder of EDPL was contemplating whether to stop its operations, take up only consulting projects, or take the risk of starting the next highly profitable training project.

Learning Objectives

Apply a framework for analyzing different stages of an entrepreneurial process. Show how entrepreneurial failure can have multiple interrelated causes. Show how inadvertent causes can lead to failure and emphasize the importance of planning. Encourage students to identify the problems in the planning and execution of a start-up venture, suggested options to approach the problem, and understand and evaluate the pros and cons of different options.