Published On: October 12th, 2020
For some people, innovation runs in their blood. They get winning ideas at a young age, that they actively work on and turn into success stories. They find ideas in their daily life that we do not even notice and make a company out of them. They do not let age or society stop them from achieving their dreams. There is no dearth of examples of young entrepreneurs of India who created their success before they even reached 40.
Many of them have not even crossed their teen years. Some of them have achieved more in this short time than even some of the biggest CEOs in the world would have in their entire lifetime. Some of them are already achieving turnovers in crores. That is no mean feat. These young entrepreneurs of India are showing the world that you do not need an Ivy League education to make it big in life. All you need is will and creativity. We will be looking at some of these inspirational personalities who changed the world in their ways.
Let’s get to know our Top 10 Young Entrepreneurs of India That Show Age Is Just A Number if you have a vision and a dream.
1. Tilak Mehta, Founder of Papers N Parcels (13)
Tilak Mehta is the youngest entrepreneur on this list. His company, Papers N Parcels, is hailed as the Ola and Uber of courier service. It guarantees single-day delivery of papers and small parcels within Mumbai. The idea for this logistics business struck him when he needed some textbooks from the opposite side of the city urgently; his family lives in the Mumbai suburbs. His father had just returned from work, exhausted, and the boy did not have the heart to ask him.
Today, partnering with the Dabbawalas of Mumbai, he provides over 1200 deliveries a day. Today, he is the youngest Forbes panelist, a TEDx speaker, Youngest Entrepreneur awardee and most importantly, the CEO of his own company.
He is targeting a 100 crore turnover in 2020. How did he accomplish all this? By taking his father’s words to heart –
“Each level in the video game gets [more] difficult than the previous one, and what matters is the results you get on the table and not the excuses that you give to the world.”
Also Read – 5 Pro Tips To Becoming a Student Entrepreneur in India
2. Trishneet Arora, Founder of TAC Security Solutions (26)
Trishneet Arora is what most Indian parents would consider an academic failure. He failed his class 8 exams and dropped out. His father enrolled him in distance education but once again, he failed his class 12 exams.
Undeterred, at 19, he founded his own company, TAC Security Solutions in 2013. The company provides vulnerability assessment and penetration testing services. He is one of the youngest ethical hackers in India.
He has even authored two books on hacking, “Hacking Talk with Trishneet Arora” and “Hacking with Smart Phones”.
Today, he is in the Forbes 30 Under 30 and Fortune 40 Under 40 lists, has been named Entrepreneur of the Year for 2020 and is the subject of a biopic. He assists the CBI, Punjab, and Gujarat police departments as well as Reliance Industries with cybersecurity issues. Most would have given up after this, but not Trishneet. He stayed true to his mantra in life –
“I believe in showing my plans in reality rather than speaking about them.”
3. Sreelakshmi Suresh, Founder of eDesign and TinyLogo (22)
Sreelakshmi Suresh was using a computer at age 3 when most of us have hardly learned to recite the alphabet. She had designed her first website when she was just 6. She had even designed the website of her school. She started her company eDesign in 2009 when she was just 11.
She has often been hailed as the Youngest CEO and Youngest Web Designer of the world and has won several awards for her achievements. She also owns another company, TinyLogo. She designs websites voraciously, at a rate few can emulate. Her company provides various web design, SEO and other web services to many brands. Achieving so much at such a young age has only been possible because she believes –
“No sentiments or friendships count in business, it is only the quality of work that matters.”
4. Farrhad Acidwalla, Founder of Rockstah Media and Cybernetiv Digital (26)
Acidwalla has been showing his entrepreneurial calibre since age 13. He was very passionate about aviation and returning from school one day, decided to create an online community about aero-modeling and aviation. He had no idea about website development but instead of letting that deter him, he used the opportunity to learn it. He borrowed Rs. 1200 from his father to create the community but later sold it to a fan.
When he was 16, he again borrowed Rs. 500 from his father to buy an online domain. And, at just 17, he was interviewed by CNN. He later sold his business idea to another fan for Rs.25,000 which he used to build his company Rockstah Media. By then, he was quite adept at web development and within a year, the company had reached great success all because of his belief.
5. Rohit Kashyap, Founder of Maytree School of Entrepreneurship (18)
As a young boy from a small town in Bihar, Rohit Kashyap did not have access to a lot of resources. Yet, he was winning Olympiads left and right and even ranked under 1000 in the ICAI Commerce Wizard. When he wanted to help other kids achieve the same, he got over 350 calls in 45 days. This gave him the idea for a school to help young minds and at the young age of 14, he created Maytree School of Entrepreneurship.
The virtual entrepreneurship school uses the best faculty to plant the seeds of innovation in young, creative minds. Besides running the school, Kashyap is also a Quora influencer with millions of followers. His running advice to them all?
“The brain is curious and we can invest any amount in learning new things.”
Also Read – Top 5 Businesses Initiated by Students in India
6. Shravan and Sanjay Kumaran, Founder of GoDimensions (18 and 16)
The Kumaran brothers are the youngest app developers in India and two of the youngest owners of a company. For Shravan and Sanjay, coding started as a hobby. They read lots of books and solved problems to learn to program until they got good enough to create their own apps.
They, of course, had the full support of their father, who himself was the director of a software company. They first tasted success with the app “Catch Me Cop” that got into the Apple App Store.
In 2011, they created GoDimensions, through which they have launched 10 more apps. The fact that their apps have an average rating of 4.5 and over 70 thousand downloads is enough evidence of their success and the brothers thank their father for this.
7. King Sidharth, Founder of Friendz (20)
Sidharth was an 11-year-old kid living in a backward area of North India that had few activities to keep children and teens engaged. To get over the boredom, he started to organize local contests. He would charge entry fees and give small prizes to the winners. It was quite a success but he did not stop there.
He also sold the excess flowers from weddings as necklaces, using clever advertising techniques. He got admitted to a college at his father’s behest, but soon left it and started the magazine Friendz, a medium of expression for kids and teens.
Image Source – Friendz App
Today, he is an inspirational speaker. He has organized the conference Createens to teach teenagers modern entrepreneurial, blogging, design and other skills, and is making a movie “Friendz: The Movie” too.
8. Arjun Rai, Founder of BizDen, FuelBrite, Odyssey Ads, and Canvs+ (21)
At the age of 7, Arjun Rai held his first garage sale. When he was 9, he had created a LinkedIn page to interact and network with big entrepreneurs around the world.
At the age of 10, he used his knowledge to become the COO of an online advertising agency, which he left, to create his venture. This became Odyssey Ads, through which he wanted to provide modern advertising solutions to other companies.
Image Source – Canvs
In 2012, while he was an intern at a PR agency, he decided to enter the tech space with a visual collaboration platform for artists and designers.
Thus, Canvs+ was created. As an undergrad at the New York Institute of Technology, he had built two more startups – BizDen and FuelBrite. And he has not stopped. He is still challenging the big names in the industry with many other bold and successful ventures.
9. Advait Thakur, Founder of Apex Infosys India (17)
A prodigious computer whizz, Advait Thakur started using computers at the age of 6. When his father noticed how fascinated he was watching him code, he decided to teach his son the basics of computers.
From there on, Advait used the Internet and books to fuel his curiosity himself. He built his first website when he was just 9. When he was 14, he built the app “Technology Quiz” to help kids learn about science and technology.
Image Source – Crunchbase – Apex Infosys India
Today, he is the CEO of Apex Infosys India and working with great enthusiasm for AI, NLP, and cloud computing with Google. He is a certified professional of Google Certified Adwords and Analytics, Bing, Digital Sales, Hubspot, and Mobile Sites. He is also of a philanthropic bend of mind, as he has provided free services to two NGOs and built “Autism Awareness” for Google. It was all made possible because of his driving philosophy –
“I don’t have a fear of failure. Instead, I am afraid not to try!”
10. Akhilendra Sahu, Founder of ASTNT Technologies Pvt Ltd (19)
Akhilendra Sahu has been named the world’s youngest serial entrepreneur and for good reason. If you take a look at his website, you will see more companies in his name than you can count in one sweep of the eye.
He started at the age of 16 when he began doing freelance work. In the gap of just 3 years, he has achieved phenomenal success, creating and becoming the CEO of not just ASTNT Technologies but also its many subsidiaries like ASTNT Media, Technical Next, 2Newswire, InfinityFame, StartUp199, HeyIndia, and ThePublishly.
His companies serve major clients from all over the world, making him also one of the most successful CEOs in the world. And it is all because he believes –
“Whether you think you’re ready or not, just start right now. There is magic in action.”
Also Read – Startup vs MNC – What should you join after your graduation?
Conclusion :-
The inspiring stories of these young entrepreneurs of India encourage every youngster to think out of the box and not let age be a limitation in the fulfilment of their dreams. They started young and are already mega-successful. That only means that there is even more scope and time for them to reach greater heights in the future. These inspiring stories are not just to make us feel proud. They are also meant to help us realize that there is potential in everybody and if we work on that, nothing can stop us from getting ahead in life.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
