4 Primary School Students Who Taught Me Powerful Entrepreneurial Lessons

In today’s article, I share with you an eye-opening day spent in rural Uttar Pradesh. On a sunny December morning, L.N. Primary School in the midst of lush green fields of Bulandshahr came across as a typical small village school. A handful of students, no proper roads leading to the school, and limited infrastructure made it blend seamlessly in the countryside.

A total of close to 40 students(Grade 4 and 5) were the ones we had gone to interact with. We hoped to have a conversation with them and see where that leads. These children were typically shy and hesitant to interact with a couple of new faces who had suddenly disrupted their daily school routine.

We called these students out in the bright and pleasant outdoors and just sat with them and tried to start a group conversation. The talk veered towards aspirations, life goals, village life, facilities their village lacks, and thoughts on improvements. We gave them a situation with an imaginary character(Dabbu, who lived in the same village and wanted to start a venture on the road passing through his village) to extract their thoughts and made them express them in writing too at the end of our conversation.

This was one of the most impressive responses in my opinion. The fact that he recognized the demand for an eatery, fruit shop, and a showroom on the road to his village (apart from water) showed the importance of identifying the demand as the key to a successful venture.

The detailing of his eatery menu (Tikki, Chowmein, Burger, and Chhole Bhature) amazed me the most. It made me realize that one cannot be successful unless there is absolute clarity regarding the products he is serving to consumers.

She had one of the most balanced and responsible take on this situation. The fact that she would open a factory from the earnings of her water venture taught me that responsible and organic investment is also an option to expand and diversify in new areas. In the age of Angel Investing and Venture Capitalism, this reminded me that sometimes(not always!), being your own investor is the way to go. I understand that something like this would require a lot more patience and persistence.

She had mentioned verbally that after a point, she would make water free for thirsty people. This made me understand the need for a business to be socially responsible and ultimately strive for improvement in quality of life and society as a whole. Ventures should not just function to make money but provide the satisfaction of serving a social purpose.

Written like a mature entrepreneur, the fact that they viewed the situation from a different perspective and preferred to enable people to have filters and RO rather than directly supplying water was encouraging. Any entrepreneur with a unique perspective on the same problem will always stand out.

Also, the fact that he envisions the fact that if his product is good people would book him for water supply lays emphasis on the importance of maintaining quality and a vision for the future.

Her response depicts the importance of variety and diversity to cater to a larger consumer base. She does not just have water but varieties like Sharbat, Meetha Pani, Nimbu Pani, etc.

Conclusion: Despite the fact that the students mentioned here did not have the same amount of exposure, encouragement, and modern education compared to their city counterparts, their thought process was no less than anyone else. Sometimes, we underestimate the power of a simple conversation as a stimulator of newer thoughts, expressions, and views.

As Mahatma Gandhi, famously said, “India is not only Calcutta and Bombay; India lives in her seven hundred thousand villages.”

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