Many of the companies we admire today didn’t start with a business plan, a large team, or significant funding. They started with a simple idea and a willingness to build.
In 2013, two IIT Madras students, Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, started exploring a question that seemed simple at the time: Why can’t electric scooters be better?
They weren’t building a company. They were working on an idea.
Like most student projects, it began with research, prototypes, failed attempts, and countless hours of testing. There was no guarantee that it would become anything more than a project.
But they kept going.
That idea eventually became Ather Energy. Today, Ather is one of India’s leading EV brands, with thousands of scooters on the road and a growing charging network across the country.
What I find interesting is that the journey didn’t start with funding or a perfect business plan. It started with curiosity, a real problem, and the willingness to build a solution.
Most student projects will never become startups—and that’s okay.
But every successful startup was once someone’s unfinished prototype, rough sketch, or late-night experiment.
You never really know which project will stay a project and which one will become something much bigger.
