Dreams of Unicorns, Not Bureaucracy: India’s Kids Bet on Start-ups

For 16-year-old Adithyan T, a Class 11 student in Bengaluru, exam prep and coaching schedules were the last things on his mind. He pulled out his phone to show me the prototype of an app he is building, a peer-to-peer platform for students to exchange textbooks. He spoke with the fluency of a founder, tossing out terms like “user acquisition” and “early traction,” picked up from binge-watching Shark Tank India “I watched it with my parents and thought, why not me?” he said with a grin. “Getting into IIT is about proving yourself to an exam. Starting up is about proving yourself to the world.”

Similarly, thirteen-year-old Rishaan Sindhwani, an 8th standard student, has already launched his own startup, Optimize Site, a website creation venture. 

“Today anybody can be an entrepreneur,” Dr Trilok Sindhwani says while talking about his grandson’s start-up. “All you need is a hobby and link it up from India to Ghana or America or Japan.”

Adithyan is not alone. Across Indian schools, teenagers are increasingly trading dreams of engineering colleges and government badges for the allure of entrepreneurship. What once seemed risky or fanciful has become a celebrated career aspiration, fuelled by start-up role models, institutional backing, and shifting parental attitudes.

From taboo to trend

For decades, India’s middle-class ambition followed a set script: crack the IIT-JEE, pursue engineering or medicine, or prepare for the UPSC. Over the past decade, though, the start-up boom has opened up a new track.

The rise of entrepreneurs from Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal to Zepto’s teenage duo Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra has turned the role of founder into a sought-after ambition. Multi-million-dollar valuations, blockbuster exits, and wall-to-wall media coverage have given start-ups the same sheen once reserved for IIT toppers or IAS officers.

“Failure is no longer a scarlet letter,” says Dheeraj, a Bombay-based entrepreneurship coach who mentors teenagers at school incubators. “A 22-year-old with a failed start-up is more attractive to employers today than someone who only has a degree. That’s what gives parents confidence to let their kids try.”

Meanwhile, the shift is playing out in classrooms. Entrepreneurship clubs, pitch competitions, and incubation programs for teenagers are mushrooming across schools. The government’s Atal Innovation Mission has set up thousands of tinkering labs nationwide, while initiatives like TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TYE) and the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) are giving high schoolers a chance to build and pitch real businesses.

At a recent pitch competition in Bengaluru, a group of Class 9 students presented a solar-powered backpack that could charge devices on the go. Their teacher, who runs the school’s entrepreneurship club, says the change in ambition is unmistakable. “Five years ago, if I asked my students what they wanted to be, it was always engineer or IAS officer. Now many say ‘founder’. Parents are actually proud when their children stand on stage and pitch an idea.”

However, the pride comes with some anxiety as well. In Mangalore, 14-year-old Isha Menon recently attended a weekend start-up bootcamp where she prototyped a menstrual health app. Her father, a government employee, confesses he initially resisted. “We believed UPSC was the safest dream,” he says. “But I see her passion. If she can explore this while still in school, maybe by the time she’s in college she’ll know if she really wants it.”

Others still prefer a safety-first approach. “I’m okay with my son entering competitions, but he must first secure an engineering degree,” says the mother of a 15-year-old in Bangalore. “Start-ups sound glamorous, but it’s still risky. A degree is non-negotiable.”

This negotiation between passion and pragmatism is playing out across middle-class households. What’s striking is that the word “entrepreneur” is no longer dismissed as it’s now a serious career conversation.

Teachers as facilitators

Educators are leaning into the shift. Many schools now weave entrepreneurship into extracurricular activities and even formal curricula, with some tying up with incubators to mentor student projects.

“We treat it as part of holistic education,” says Ms Sneha Rai, the principal of Freedom International School in Bangalore. “Even if not every child becomes a founder, these programs teach teamwork, financial literacy, and problem-solving. It’s 21st-century learning.”

Colleges, too, are building strong entrepreneurship cells and running hackathons and bootcamps. What began in IITs and IIMs is now spreading to tier-2 and tier-3 campuses, creating a pipeline of students who see start-ups as first-choice careers.

Cultural narratives are central to this shift. Just as Sachin Tendulkar inspired generations of cricketers, today’s start-up stories are shaping ambition. From Sundar Pichai, a techie-turned-billionaire, to Nikhil Kamath, who built Zerodha without a degree, founders are positioned as modern icons.

Television has amplified the trend. Shows like Shark Tank India have introduced start-up lingo into living rooms. Words like “valuation” and “equity” are now part of dinner-table conversations, and teenagers watching peers pitch on national TV are emboldened to dream earlier.

A new safety net

Underlying all this is the systemic support that simply didn’t exist 20 years ago. Today, start-ups are backed by incubators, accelerators, angel investors, and mentorship networks. Failure is no longer seen as career-ending; it is often treated as experience.

Employers, too, value entrepreneurial stints. Recruiters openly say they prefer candidates who’ve tried and failed at building something, citing resilience and creativity as assets.

“In the past, dropping out to start up meant burning bridges,” says a Bengaluru-based VC. “Now it opens doors. Parents know their kids won’t be stranded if things don’t work out.”

Though most visible in metros, the start-up dream is spreading to smaller towns. In Indore, a group of high schoolers launched a food delivery service within their campus, complete with digital payments. In Patna, a coaching institute now runs weekend entrepreneurship workshops alongside IIT prep evidence that parents want their children to straddle both worlds.

Government initiatives like Start-up India and the Atal Innovation Mission are pushing this further, bringing entrepreneurship labs and competitions to schools in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

Still, this generational shift doesn’t mean IIT or IAS ambitions are vanishing. For many families, they remain prestigious paths. But entrepreneurship is now firmly part of the aspirational menu.

Seventeen-year-old Ved Mehta, who is building a fintech prototype with his school’s entrepreneurship cell, sums it up best: “Our parents grew up dreaming of government jobs. We grew up seeing Flipkart, Paytm, and Zepto. For us, being a founder is as big a dream as being an IAS officer. Maybe bigger.”

In India, the definition of success is widening. Stability is no longer the sole marker; creativity, ambition, and the potential for scale are equally celebrated. The founder’s dream, once unthinkable in middle-class homes, is now a legitimate frontier for a new generation.