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11 Successful Teenage Entrepreneurs in India

Published on May 26, 2022

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11 Successful Teenage Entrepreneurs in India

An entrepreneur is someone who forges ahead even when there is only a small chance of success! They find thrill and satisfaction in succeeding against the odds and do not let the voices of nay-sayers drown out their own inner voice. By having the courage to follow their dreams and intuition, entrepreneurs chart the course of their magical journey.   

Passion and opportunity guide the entrepreneurial journey. Young entrepreneurs exemplify this the best. They’ve proven that it is more important to do your best rather than being the best – success then will be consequential! It is their journey that now inspires others to create a success story of their own! Here are eleven successful entrepreneurs from India who started their journey as teenagers and succeeded because they had a vision, the drive and a strong belief in themselves!  

1. Ritesh Agarwal

Passionate about travelling, 17-year-old Ritesh realised the need for affordable hotels that offered good services. His unique drive for identifying, understanding and solving the problem helped him create a huge empire that was built on the concept of fulfilling the requirements of the travellers – affordable rooms with standard facilities. His venture, OYO (On Your Own) is valued at more than $10 billion and Ritesh’s net worth is more than $1 billion, which makes him the world’s second-youngest self-made billionaire.  

2. Advait Thakur

Advait is a young tech entrepreneur who is changing the world. He founded his own tech company Apex Infosys when he was 12 years old. The company is now a global technology and innovation company that specialises in IoT- related services and products, AI and Health Tech sectors. Advait is also the youngest Google, Bing and Hubspot Certified Professional.  

3. Vinusha MK

A simple cake baking task to surprise her mother on her birthday led Vinusha to start an enterprise of her own – Four Seasons Pastry. She was 9 years old at that time. 

Vinusha bakes and sells cupcakes inspired by the four seasons. She is scaling up her business and has already launched a baking kit that comes complete with ingredients and recipes, homemade chocolates, sandwiches and more. Needless to say, every order here is baked with passion.    

4. Tilak Mehta

Inspiration for a startup can come from anywhere. Nothing illustrates this better than Tilak Mehta and his success story Paper N Parcels. The story goes something like this – 13 year old Tilak needed some books urgently from the other part of Mumbai city. But despite waiting all day for his father to return from work so he could go and get them, young Tilak was left disappointed – his father was just too tired. Instead of sulking or throwing a tantrum, Tilak struck gold from the situation. He conceptualised a startup that could deliver small parcels within the city on the same day. His venture, Paper N Parcels immediately found traction and took off. It now employs over 200 workers and 300 dabbawallas and handles over 1200 deliveries in a day. Tilak is among the youngest Forbes panelists, a TEDx speaker and a Youngest Entrepreneur awardee in Logistics Sector.  

5. Sreelakshmi Suresh

Sreelakshmi began using computers at the age of 3, started designing at 4, designed her first website at the age of 6 and owned a startup at 11! Life has certainly been on the fast lane for her! She has often been regarded as one of the Youngest CEOs and Youngest Web Designers. Apart from her startup eDesign, Sreelakshmi also owns another company TinyLogo.

6. Akhilendra Sahu

‘World’s Youngest Serial Entrepreneur’. Not a bad title to have, right?  Akhilendra started at the age of 16 by doing freelancing work to gain experience. By sheer hard work and persistence, he achieved great success. He owns and runs ASTNT Technologies, ASTNT Hosting, ASTNT Media, Technical Next, ASTNT Newswire, StartUp199, and a slew of other companies. He is also the co-founder of Scoop Beats Private Limited. 

7. Rohit Kashyap

As a young boy from a small town in Bihar, Rohit did not have access to a lot of resources. Yet, he was winning Olympiads! He also ranked in the top 1000 in the ICAI Commerce Wizard. Not one to hog the limelight all by himself, Rohit offered to tutor others to achieve success. But the response he received overwhelmed him. This gave him the idea to start a school that will help young achievers and thus, at the young age of 14, he founded Maytree School of Entrepreneurship.

8. Deepak Ravindran

Deepak started his entrepreneurial journey when he was 17. Swades Solutions and just4sale.com were his early forays into the world of entrepreneurship. But it was his venture Innoz Technologies Pvt. Ltd. that really put him in the big league. The idea was inspired by a vegetable purchase interaction between his mother and a vendor. His innovation helped people who had no internet access data without having to go online. 

Through determination and hard work, Innoz today counts some of the biggest names like Airtel, Vodafone, Aircel, Idea, Wikipedia, Vuclip, Rotten Tomatoes, Zomato, Snapdeal, Bing, Worldweatheronline, etc., as clients. 

9. Farrhad Acidwalla

Farrhad’s entrepreneurial calibre was evident from the age of 13 when he created an online community about aero-modelling and aviation. When he was 17 he was interviewed by CNN and it was soon after that he started his successful venture Rockstah Media. Rockstah Media is a one-stop style destination for web development, marketing and beyond.

10. Nithin Kamath

Nithin Kamath began trading stocks when he was just 17. His passion led him to establish Zerodha in 2007. Zerodha has over 7 million users and Nithin Kamath’s net assets have swelled to $1.9 billion, making him the third-biggest stockbroker in the country, just after ICICI and HDFC.

11. Appalla Saikiran

A prosperous professional career before even crossing the teenage years – just what Appalla achieved with his pathbreaking idea and the right mentorship. Appalla, an Ivy Early Entrepreneur, founded SCOPE at the age of 17. The idea was inspired from his own struggle to find the right mentors, investors and connect with other entrepreneurs in his early days of entrepreneurship. SCOPE is a new-age holistic platform that brings together aspiring entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investors and industry experts. Awards and accolades have followed Appalla since – Global Kids Achievers Award, a spot at the Junior CEO program certified by Brown University and an invitation by Google to visit their office, a few among the many.  

Conclusion

Age is just a number. Our young entrepreneurs have proven that and how! By thinking out of the box and by having the zest to fulfil their dream, they have launched themselves into the great 

heights already – and that’s not the best part – the best part is that they have just started out on their journey! 

The inspiring stories serve as a great motivator. With vision, determination and the right guidance, achieving success is just a matter of when and not how. Organisations like The Big Red group provide Ivy league counselling as well as several entrepreneur workshops in India like the Ivy Early Entrepreneur program which helps students in taking the first step towards their successful entrepreneurial journey and keeps them ahead of the rest of the crowd.

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