Startup Formalization at IITM: Owning Onboarding End to End

Kavya took on the formalization and onboarding process at IITM Incubation Cell as a solo workstream. When a startup was accepted for incubation, she was the person responsible for getting them from acceptance to fully compliant status.

Her process started with document collection and verification: MOA, AOA, incorporation certificates, shareholding structures, and statutory registrations. She stored everything in the internal tracker and flagged gaps directly with founders.

The harder part was keeping things moving. Founders, once incubated, would often deprioritize paperwork. In-house consultants had their own timelines. Kavya realized early that deadlines and structured follow-ups were the only thing that actually moved the process forward.

She rebuilt her own rhythm around that insight. She checked the tracker three times a day, morning, afternoon, and evening. She followed up with every party on a two-day cycle, never letting a thread go cold. She gave founders explicit deadlines for document submission and held them to it.

Over time, this approach became the operating standard for the workstream. She handled formalization and onboarding for over 35 startups, managing the full cycle from intake to compliance sign-off.