Meet a Sandboxer: Rajeeb Dey
Rajeeb Dey is founder & CEO of Enternships.com. He is 24 years old and based in London. Rajeeb graduated with First Class Honours in June 2008 from the University of Oxford in Economics & Management. Whilst at University he was the longest serving President of Oxford Entrepreneurs, one of the largest networks of student entrepreneurs in Europe. Rajeeb on Facebook and Twitter and Enternships.com on Facebook and Twitter.
Tell us the story of your latest project / occupation
Enternships.com started as a simple listing service which I set up as President of Oxford Entrepreneurs (one of the largest networks of student entrepreneurs in Europe). Companies were approaching me to advertise opportunities as they were keen to reach entrepreneurial candidates. Over time it became evident that more and more small companies wanted to reach students and with no proactive marketing, word of mouth led to over 160 placements being advertised.
I realised that Small & Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) struggle to find talent and lack the recruitment budgets of “blue-chip firms” to undertake the traditional ‘milkround’. Enternships therefore provides these companies with visibility on campus and serves as a central place for start-ups to reach out to talent.
What are you doing and how did you get there?
I caught the entrepreneurial bug at a young age. At the age of 17, I became the Founder & Chairman of the English Secondary Students’ Association (ESSA)the first national student run organisation empowering secondary school students, giving them a voice in education. This gave me my first experience in enterprise (in ESSA’s case a social enterprise) and since then I didn’t look back and knew I would always look to do ‘my own thing.’
I spend a lot of time outside of Enternships engaging in community and voluntary work, especially promoting entrepreneurship and my work in promoting entrepreneurship has led to me becoming one of the first Ambassadors for the Enterprise UK’s “Make Your Mark Campaign”. My other roles include being a Trustee of UnLtd – the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs; Trustee of the Phoenix Education Trust; a Commissioner on the Carnegie UK Trust’s Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society; Education Advisory Board Member for Channel 4; and an Advisory Board Member of the UK-India Business Council (UKIBC).
Tell us about the biggest successes and failures in your life. What worked, what didn’t, and what did you learn?
I am not sure I’ve had monumental success or failures as yet; I make mistakes all the time but I do not consider them as ‘failures’ per se. I am still very early on in my entrepreneurial journey and it is not as though I’ve done something so monumental I’m in a position to retire…nevertheless I suppose one success would be to have got ESSA off the ground aged 17 and to a position where we now employ 5 members of staff and work with thousands of school students across the country. I could not have done this however without the support of people around me such as Anna Leatherdale from the Phoenix Education Trust who worked tirelessly alongside me to support me along the way and take a lot of the administrative burden away from me (as I was in full-time education during the time I was working to launch the organisation).
In terms of mistakes to date I suppose one is not having found myself a technical Co-Founder for Enternships. As an internet business it is clear to me I really have to have someone on board who is fully aligned with the vision and can focus totally on developing a world-class platform and complement my skill set. It is something I am rectifying now however I would say that the development of Enternships has definitely been slowed down by the fact I do not have the technical expertise in-house.
What do you want to achieve in the next week, the next year, the next 10 years?
I am on the hunt for a technical co-founder/lead developer to join me – this is my number one priority and if I can find one within the next week then that’d be amazing (though not realistic I know!) Within the next year (more precisely next six months) I will be looking to raise a round of Angel investment to help me scale up Enternships and ensure that the hundreds and thousands of graduates entering the bleak jobs market are aware of our service. In the next 10 years I want to have created a new word – so that doing an ‘enternship’ enters the dictionary and have exited the business and started my next venture
What was your most inspiring moment during the last two weeks?
A couple of weeks back I had the great privilege of being part of the British Council’s TN2020 Network Summit in Chicago. TN2020 is a network of leaders aged 25-35 from Europe and North America who look at ways of strengthening international relations between the two regions. I met some amazing people and heard some inspirational speakers including Brad Keywell (Founder of an extremely successful US startup called Groupon). In his talk he spoke about his numerous ventures and his attitude towards risk, failure, mentoring and entrepreneurship. Brad is a serial entrepreneur who has an admirable track record, his talk really resonated with me and he was a true inspiration. You can hear a part of Brad’s talk (in particular his view on mentoring) in my friend’s Chris’ blog.
How could other Sandboxers and the outside world support you and why would that be exciting for them?
Firstly if you know someone who may wish to join me as a Technical Co-Founder that’d be immensely helpful; introductions to potential angel investors are always welcome too!
Other than that we’re always on the look out for people to spread the word about Enternships and whilst we do not have the capacity to be in every country from day 1; we have a network of great Country Advisors who are passionate about start-ups/entrepreneurship and love the Enternships vision and mission and want to help us spread the word. In return you get to be part of an awesome community of people and be part of the ‘Enternships family’ (and hence get a warm fuzzy feeling ) You will also be part of creating a new word in the dictionary!
Over time there will be more formal opportunities to help us expand in new regions so always on the lookout for supporters and partners.
Rajeeb’s favorites:
-Book: I rarely finish a whole book – terrible I know!
-Movie: 3 Idiots (a Bollywood movie which touches upon problems related to the education system) -Place on earth: home!
-Travel destination during last year: India
-Food: Thai (seafood in particular)
-Drink: Mango lassi (which is basically an Indian mango smoothie!)
-Quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi
On the 13. July 2010 at 17:05 o'Clock
Both informative and inspiring:D
Thanks