Masai, India’s leading outcome-based career institute, and XLRI, one of the most reputed management schools, have announced the launch of a 6-month-long entrepreneurship programme to groom India into a new generation of startup pioneers. The move comes at a time when the startup ecosystem in India is on a high, having received a record $35 billion of funding in 2024, and as the world economy driven by the digital economy is expected to hit 23 trillion dollars in the next five years with an annual growth of 15-20%.

The program aims to provide graduates, working professionals, and aspiring entrepreneurs with the mindset, skills, and tools required to create scalable, responsible, and innovative ventures. The initiative promises to be a game changer in entrepreneurship education in India, as the collaboration will complement the practical, outcome-driven focus of Masai and the academic rigor and the ethics-driven nature of XLRI. 

Masai and XLRI’s growth

Masai was first launched in June of 2019 as a military-style coding school designed to turn individuals into competent data analysts and programmers by training them intensively. It’s tough, a six-day-six-hour program, 9 AM to 9 PM, earned Masai a reputation as an institution devoted to preparing its graduates to enter the industry successfully.

In its fifth year now, Masai has grown as a full-fledged career institute, having been through 800,000 applications and has placed 4,000+ applicants in the best positions with companies such as Ola, PayTM, Meesho, Swiggy, Capgemini, Uber, JP Morgan, and GlobalLogic. With 6,000+ students already enrolled with an orientation towards individuals in families with less than 7.5 lakhs per annum, Masai has credibly been able to bring around 350 families out of poverty through education and employment.

XLRI was founded in 1949. XLRI is an Indian management school and the oldest in India, and a pioneer in business education. XLRI is already recognized with an international approach and a sense of moral leadership, which has made the university launch programs that will bring together a sense of academic achievement with the enhancement of the society in which it resides. The philosophy that drives its students is MAGIS, a never-ending pursuit of excellence and an inability to accept anything less than excellence.

Over the years, XLRI has come up with various short and long-term programs to work out for executive, where they can develop their knowledge level of management and be more efficient in business management. This new association with Masai is one more step towards the constant commitment of XLRI to innovation and relevance in the changing world of business.

6-month entrepreneurship program designed for real-world experiences

The program is organized into 6 active modules that present a complete account of the startup lifecycle. Participants will start with the Founder Mindset of resilience, vision, and leadership. This is then followed by Problem-Solving and Idea Discovery, where they will be taught to find out the gaps in the market and how to validate the ideas. The third module, Prototyping and Product-Market Fit, presents the participants with no-code tools such as Webflow and Bubble so that they can create the MVPs without the need to deal with technical constraints.

Marketing and Brand Building is the next stage that aims at conducting practical campaigns and learning about customer psychology. Business Models and Fundraising teaches how to evaluate and fundraise, revenue models, and pitch to investors. The last module, Scaling and Demo Day, leads to a two-day in-person pitch challenge on the campus of XLRI, where the best teams do their pitches to industry mentors and investors.

Throughout the course, participants will work on real-world exercises such as developing financial plans, interviewing customers, and presenting investor-readable pitch decks. This experiential method is such that learners complete not only with a nice bit of theory, but with a bit of startup experience. 

Eligibility and mentorship program 

Experienced mentors who are startup founders, investors, and industry leaders will provide guidance to participants by walking them through the art of creating and expanding ventures and drawing upon the knowledge of what works and what does not.

Besides, the participants will have access to AI-enabled and no-code platforms to develop products, generate content, analytics, and automation. The tech-enabled learning environment mirrors the changing form of entrepreneurship in which the ability to be agile and innovative is at the forefront.

In order to improve industry preparedness, case studies, cross-peering, and mingling with the startup ecosystem are integrated into the program. This will make sure that participants are ready not only to start their businesses but also to become significant contributors to start-ups, innovative companies, and business enterprises in general.

The program is available to students who have a graduation degree in any stream. To assure quality and commitment, only those applicants who pass a qualifier test conducted by Masai, then a counseling process will be enrolled. On successful completion, it will be deemed a certificate that will be issued by XLRI Leadership Education and Development, which will give much credibility to the entrepreneurial venture that they have undertaken. At our time of writing, applications are open on the official Masai site, and due to the program being worthy of its very existence, we anticipate there to be a lot of demand.

Conclusion

The Masai-XLRI entrepreneurship program is not just another point of education- it is an incubator of aspiring business owners in India. The effective combination of practical skills, ethical basis, and real-life experience will allow the participants to realize the path into the world of entrepreneurship with confidence and clarity.