Akshay Chhugani was the CEO of “The Indian Backpacker” (www.indianbackpacker.com) which was recently acquired by www.ixigo.com. He is currently working as the Head – Traveller Communities at ixigo.com . He has also worked with Yuvraj Singh Foundation, an NGO, which works on spreading awareness about cancer.  Akshay has done BTech in Computing and Business Applications, MBA in Marketing and HR and was a Fellow at Startup Leadership Program. Akshay was a student of the January 2014 batch of the Diploma in Entrepreneurship Administration and Business Laws offered by NUJS, Kolkata. Akshay talks about his startup journey and his interaction with the course. Over to Akshay.

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Startup journeys are always fun and exciting due to the unknown challenges you face from day to day. Getting successfully acquired surely is one of the most accomplishing things for any startup and the experience surely has been great, both in terms of growth, learning and  mental satisfaction. For me, the current plan for building the next biggest travel company with ixigo.com is what I am excited about the most.

I came to know about NUJS Business Law Diploma Course from a friend while I was part of the Startup Leadership Program in 2014, at that time I was running my own travel start-up. Knowing about business laws is one of the most important things for any startup. Being a bootstrapped startup, I couldn’t afford to hire proper legal services for day to day contracts, investor pitching, etc. and thus wanted to learn it all myself to save costs.

The experience was great especially, because the materials could be accessed online and I could study whenever I wanted to. The most valuable skills according to me which I learnt from the course were understanding term sheets and creating/studying contracts. Getting your company acquired is a long drawn process and involves a lot of agreements /MOU’s /Contracts, etc. and it is very important to know and understand if your deal is worth it or not. The course surely helped me make a much more informed decision and negotiate on the terms that suited me.

I think young entrepreneurs can benefit a lot from this course, and would recommend them to take this course. As mentioned above understanding of the laws, investor decks and terms sheets are of very high importance for an entrepreneur and the course can help them get clarity regarding it. This course will surely help the entrepreneurs in better understanding things from a legal perspective rather than just a layman.