With India witnessing an entrepreneurial wave, Pratham Mittal is running a modern business school in Gurugram. Pratham Mittal is a third-generation entrepreneur who is the Founder of Masters’ Union. In Masters’ Union, students are taught business skills through hands-on projects instead of traditional lectures. While Pratham Mittal was giving a tour of his college in a video, he pointed out a CCTV installed inside the classroom.
Pratham Mittal outlined the CCTV reads facial expressions of students who are studying in the class. It even sends us notification if the student is paying attention or not, judging by his/her eyebrow position.
Notably, Pratham Mittal has recently announced that he will feature in Shark Tank India Season 5 as a Shark/Judge.
Pratham on his LinkedIn wrote, "I’ll be joining Shark Tank India this season as a shark.
I was super excited when I first heard. Then, almost immediately, an imposter syndrome doubt followed:
Do I truly belong here? Will I be able to contribute meaningfully?
Shark Tank, of course, isn’t how real investments actually happen. Anyone who has built or funded companies knows that.
But it is a powerful public classroom. It introduces students and families to the terms, the trade-offs, & the reality that building is hard, uncertain, but still worth attempting.
So if my role there is to bring a little more reality, honesty, context, and long-term thinking to that conversation, I’ll consider it meaningful.
I would really love to hear what you’d like to see more of on Shark Tank. I’ll be starting my prep from today.
And for entrepreneurs who are building something crazy in college - I'm extremely excited to meet you."
In a podcast with Think School, Pratham Mittal on his business school Masters’ Union said, "I am very lucky that I went to University of Pennsylvania that is an Ivy League. At that time, it was ranked 2 or 3. I want to learn from the education system. I can say we want to evolve, but our education system has not evolved as much as it should. Our classroom looks essentially the same as they did 100 or 200 years ago."
Pratham Mittal further said, "Being a third generation entrepreneur has its own set of challenges. My grandfather actually moved from Multan to India to a place called Jalandhar in Punjab. He got essentially attached with a local battalion i.e. an Army unit stationed in Jalandhar Cantonment at that time and he essentially became a Chaiwala for that battalion."
"That's where his journey started. It was like a freelance gig. Then, he was able to set up a small retail store for the Army for that unit. Eventually, he realised, the real margin is in the sweets."
Pratham Mittal further narrated, "Because if you are selling a Parle G, you are buying it at a certain price and selling it at a cost plus. But when you are selling sweets, you are making it at home, so your gross margin becomes much higher. So, he realised the highest margin in all the products he was selling was sweets."
"So, he basically then decided to building his own sweets shop. In one of those workshops, my dad was actually born with entire family making sweets, rolling laddus, flattening the barfis. That's how he built a 'mithai ki dukan' called Lovely Sweets."
Pratham further revealed, "The reason he called it Lovely is also interesting because that was perhaps the only English word or an English Adjective that he knew."
"The rest of the sweet shops at that time were also like Ghasitaram, Haldiram, one of those traditional sounding Indian names. So, he was a bit ahead of his time. That sweet shop became people's favourite in the 5-mile radius of Jalandhar Cantt."
Pratham further said, "By the way, I still live there in that same house, shop that my grand-father started still exists and you still go there everyday to go for Samosas in the morning and Rasmalai in the evening. 1 shop led to another shop, 1 brand led to another, so the business grew."
"Now, there is a 1 lakh square foot store i.e. 1 lakh square foot candy land. My father and his elder brothers worked there and that's where I think entrepreneurship instilled in our family. Even, I used to sit on counter giving back change to customers."
"When I was about to go to High School, my grand-father passed away. So, I could not talk too much about his life and learnings with him. But, he was an awesome man. From being a refugee to building such an empire I will call him a Mithai conglomerate at least in that region."
For the unversed, Pratham Mittal is the son of Rajya Sabha MP & LPU Chancellor Ashok Mittal and LPU's Pro Chancellor Rashmi Mittal.
Pratham Mittal did his High School from The Doon School. Thereafter, BSE, BA, Systems Science, Political Science from Ivy League college University of Pennsylvania.
He has been a CoFounder of multiple firms. For example, Pratham Mittal is CoFounder of New York-based Outgrow. As per LinkedIn's profile, Outgrow is a growth marketing platform that enables marketers to build interactive content, tools to increase customer engagement and boost demand generation with no custom design or development.
He is also founder of Masters’ Union. Furthermore, he is the founder of Tetr College of Business. As per Pratham's official LinkedIn profile, "Tetr is a unique Institution of Higher Education where students live and learn in different countries. Dubai - New York - Milan - New Delhi - Accra - Singapore - Rio".
