Meet the Boss Babies: Teenpreneurs from the Internet B-School solving real-world problems

Time of India

2 days ago

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ADARSH KUMAR 18, MOTIHARI
WHAT: Offers entrepreneurship programme undefined has reached 20,000+ learners
WHEN:2023
FOUNDER OF SKILLZO
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MENTAL HEALTH TO HAIR CARE
VAIKHARI SONAWANE, 18,NASHIK
FOUNDER OF AATMAN
WHEN: 2023
WHAT: Mental health education for teens, reached over 300,000 students
ANOUSHKA PODDAR, 16, MUMBAI
FOUNDER OF SNAZZ
WHEN: 2022
WHAT: Personal care company aimed at teens, offers shampoo & conditioner, to launch sunscreen & lip balm
MANAS SOOD 17, DELHI
FOUNDER OF TAXCITY
WHEN: 2023
WHAT: A card game to educate young adults about personal finance, distributed 2,350+ game kits in 45+ schools across 14 states
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'ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS A SKILL'
At 11 am, the Google Meet buzzes and there's Dhiraj Gatmane, the 17-yearold founder of Stoodive. The start is a little rusty. 'Where are you from?' I ask. 'Near Maharashtra,' he says. 'Where exactly?' 'Have you heard of Dadra & Nagar Haveli?' I have, but Gatmane still confirms if I am familiar with the small Union territory on the Maharashtra border. Yet that tentativeness about his location didn't stop him from starting his company Stoodive in February with collaborators from across the world—many of whom he found on LinkedIn, which he joined just last November.Stoodive is his solution to a real-world problem: finding a professor or a research guide for project work. He calls it the world's first social networking platform for researchers—'a Bumble + LinkedIn for research'. This month a core team of 15 members, working remotely, will launch its app which, claims Gatmane, has a 4,000+ waiting list. 'It will be free for now, but we are in discussions with leading pre-seed funds,' he says. Gatmane's business lessons come from social media and online courses. He says he owes a lot to LinkedIn: 'It's the most important social network for students. It's a skill that should be taught in schools as connections matter more than followers, even education.'The face of entrepreneurship is getting younger. According to a 2023 Connectd research, 92% of startups founded by Gen Z (18-24 year olds) in the US started off as side hustles. In a survey by SCORE, 38% of Gen Z respondents said entrepreneurship is the best career path. Richa Bajpai, founder of Campus Fund, a venture capital firm focused on student entrepreneurs, told ET last year that in the 4,800 student-led startu p s they evaluated, the proportion of those under 22 years surged from 60% in 2020 to over 75% in 2024. the trend is now permanent. He identifies three factors: the first has always existed, the second came about 10 years ago and the third is a recent phenomenon. He explains, 'First: young people have a very low perception of what actual risk is. They are irrationally optimists. That kind of audacity is required in entrepreneurship. Second: access to capital. Now, venture capitalists are open to funding first-time founders, even really young ones. Then the likes of Shark Tank have made entrepreneurship a family conversation. Third, AI has dramatically reduced the cost of starting up, particularly in tech.' He believes that entrepreneurs are only going to get younger.Adarsh Kumar, who is from Motihari, Bihar, is studying in Class XII at Jayshree Periwal International School, Jaipur, on a full scholarship. He says he started his entrepreneurial journey at age 14 when he got his first laptop. It was a T-shirt business that folded sooner than the tees. 'I was an entrepreneur even before I could pronounce the word.' Since then, he worked on many ideas which eventually shut like the social enterprise Mission Badlao and an online tutoring site Learnly. Now he is building Skillzo that brings 21st century skills to students, particularly in underserved geographies, by offering entrepreneurship programmes and mentorship to them. 'I want to give tools to kids like me. This year we are planning to upskill 1 lakh students using a model we are developing through AI,' says Kumar, who has more than 12,000 followers on LinkedIn.He feels his entrepreneurship has created opportunities—he is a Google Youth Advisor through the consumer insights agency Canvas8, which means he's one of the 58 advisors chosen worldwide that ensure that Google keeps youth needs front and centre when creating new products, features and services.He has also got the backing of his school CEO Ayush Periwal.The youngsters are concerned about everything from mental health to hair care to taxes. Nashik-based Vaikhari Sonawane, 18, calls herself a hustler. 'I was in a dummy school after Class X. I didn't socialise a lot for two years. All my free time was for building up Aatman, which started as a mental health blog four years ago.' Wanting to do more, she worked with Dr Vasantrao Pawar Medical College, Hospital & Research Centre to devise a mental health curriculum for students. She says Aatman has been able to take mental health education to over 300,000 students. Sonawane also has started Chamak, a marketing agency, with a friend and is not shy of trying out new things. In 2023 she started Schola, a platform for high schoolers to connect with college students. 'It folded in two years, but it taught me why paperwork is important.'Paperwork is what Anoushka Poddar, 16, wants to learn in her third year of entrepreneurship. A student of Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Mumbai, she started Snazz, a personal care brand for teens, as a response to her own struggles with skin, hair and confidence.'It took me eight months to develop the formulations for my shampoo and conditioner, working with lab assistants and a factory in Thane. At that time, no one would take me seriously.' Her parents helped her with the legalities. Monthly, she says, Snazz sells about 1,000 pieces at Rs 650 each. She is planning to launch lip balms and sunscreen this year. The biggest issue? 'Time management. The older you get in school the less free time you have.'For 17-year-old Manas Sood, founder o f TaxCity—a card game that gamifies the tax system—age is a hindrance. Initially, he had a tough time convincing schools to let him hold sessions on taxes and finances. He launched the game in 2023 and, in two years, he says it has been distributed in about 45 schools across 14 states and has generated Rs 5.5 lakh through sales.'We are working to launch an online version this year,' he says. Sood wants 17 to launch in three countries by 2027—US, UK and Nepal. 'Nearly 70% of projects started by under-18 students are abandoned when they go to college,' he says, adding that TaxCity is not going to meet that fate even though he starts college in the University of Southern California . He plans to introduce seven more games in the next two years.While LinkedIn yielded two internships and 8 of 12 collaborators for Sood, Instagram is the launch pad for Thane-based Nidhi Nair. The 20-year-old is a cofounder of the event management company Saddi Galli whose 'Scam Sangeet' aka fake sangeet parties have gone viral. It started as a 'timepass' for Nair and her three friends— Paras Chaudhari (event head), Alisha Chowri (event stylist) and Gaurav Joshi (logistics head). Nair, who is the marketing head, says, 'We didn't think of this as entrepreneurship! But after we went viral, we got sponsors, the event was sold out and now we have a calendar of events. Even someone from Shark Tank approached us!' She says being young can make securing sponsorships difficult.Facing distrust is par for the course for young founders. Hyderabad-based Appalla Saikiran, founder of Scope, an invite-only networking and fundraising platform for startups, is quite familiar with it. When he started his entrepreneurial journey five years ago, at age 17, no one gave him the time of day. 'As a young entrepreneur, you are constantly under scrutiny. If you ease a bit, people will say you are slacking off or have lost interest. You can't afford to make a mistake.Failure is seen as fraud in India.'Rohit Kashyap, 23, who started out at 14 in Patna with the now defunct foodtech venture Foodcubo, is a self-taught entrepreneur. He says entrepreneurship happened because of 'zaroorat', necessity. 'Nowadays people take up entrepreneurship because it is cool or for college admissions abroad. This has created hurdles for us as investors do not take us seriously. Entrepreneurship is not starting a business, it's a skill,' he says. In 2019, he started Maytree School of Entrepreneurship, which works with first-time entrepreneurs and state governments to develop startup ecosystems in the grassroots level. Kashyap says LinkedIn, where he has more than 10,000 followers, and Quora, with over 25,000 followers, have helped him: 'Influence is helpful but nothing works better than a personal connection. Five friends are more effective than 5,000 followers.'Ajinkya Jadhav created his first venture WeAllTeen, a youth-led think tank, at age 17. At 26, he is now leading Praesidio Care, headquartered in Greater Nashik. It incubates ventures focused on healthcare, mobility and public safety. He says 'startup' means something totally different today from five years ago. 'It's not just about hypergrowth or raising millions. Now, a startup could be a solo founder building a product studio from their laptop, a niche D2C brand selling through Instagram, or even an AI tool with 200 loyal users. What matters is purpose, clarity and execution—not scale.' It's a 'start now, scale later' world.Jadhav contends that while titles like 'founder' or 'CEO' are used a bit loosely, that's not a bad thing. 'Everyone has their own reasons for claiming it. In many cases, that title simply means, 'I'm serious about this.' But investors, mentors and accelerators look past titles.They want to know if there's something real underneath. Is there a real problem being solved? Is there any kind of traction—early users, feedback loops, partnerships? Do founders understand their market—the size, the gaps, the competition? Is there team strength? That separates a cool idea from a real company.'Warikoo agrees. He tells young founders to not think this will be for the long term: 'What you are is a builder, what you are is a problem solver, and that doesn't mean you only have to solve one problem in your entire life.'Tanvi Bhatt, personal brand strategist for entrepreneurs, says building a personal brand is more important than ever. Her advice: don't copypaste using AI, be authentic, be clear of your purpose. 'Thought leadership gets built when you bring a perspective to the table, your own unique lens of looking at things. Don't do it because everyone else is doing it or do what everyone else is doing.' Her advice is to not use the title 'CEO' as that's earned after a certain leadership experience. 'Founder or explorer is a better fit. It's also strategic as it means you are open to learning.' And the learning curve is steep and long. Warikoo says, 'Keep trying because statistics say, at least in the US, entrepreneurial performance rises with age.' What the young founders have is a head start.