If you’ve ever wondered what separates an idea from a business, or what it actually takes to grow a startup from scratch, this is what you need to hear.
Earlier this year, seven founders from NSRCEL’s community were featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and we brought four of them together for a candid, deeply personal conversation. From campus side-projects to companies impacting thousands, their stories had a little bit of everything: uncertainty, hard decisions, a few lucky breaks, and a lot of persistence. Here are the moments and mindsets that stuck with us.
Start with the problem that won’t leave you alone:
Each founder on the panel started with a clear pain point. Not a product, not a pitch deck – but a problem that refused to be ignored.
For Akshita, founder of Sama, it was the frustrating experience of legal disputes in India. “We’re the land of Aadhaar and UPI,” she said. “Why aren’t we applying tech to the justice system?” She and her co-founder started Sama while still in law school, long before there was a market study or a revenue model. The motivation was simple: to serve people better.
Similarly, Anil, who leads the Young Tinker Foundation, began with a deeply personal question: Why did students from my village have so few opportunities in STEM?
He began teaching kids in a tin shed. Years later, his students are winning global NASA challenges and building drones. It didn’t begin with scale. It began with empathy. “If not me, then who?” Anil said. “And if not now, then when?”
Sometimes, one visit changes everything
For Bhanushree, founder of a space-saving furniture brand – Wallter Systems, the turning point came unexpectedly. She dropped by NSRCEL to meet a friend. One conversation later, she walked away thinking, Why am I holding myself back?
Within a week, she quit her job and committed to the venture. She hadn’t studied business. Her first pitch deck was made at NSRCEL. She swept her own office floors in the early days. But she figured it out. “Once you jump into the ocean, there’s no coming back. You’ll swim.”
College is not a detour – it can be your launchpad.
For Khet, founder of ClaimBuddy, the startup began while he was still a student at IIM Bangalore. While everyone around him prepped for consulting interviews, he was working on a platform to simplify health insurance claims.
“I didn’t want to look back and think what if,” he said.
I didn’t want to look back and think what if,” he said. Khet used the ecosystem around him – professors, peers, mentors, and turned a campus project into a full-fledged startup. ClaimBuddy now works with 400+ hospitals and has helped over 50,000 patients navigate claims faster.
“We didn’t just get advice. We got our first check through our professor.”
Traction doesn’t wait for a fancy office
What’s clear across every founder story is that they didn’t wait to be “ready.” They started by doing things manually. By asking users for feedback. By making mistakes, fixing them, and showing up again.
Akshita shared how Sama’s first dispute resolution model launched in Bihar, and then scaled to cities like Mumbai and Delhi based on demand. Khet pitched with a pre-seed round even before graduating. Anil started without even registering a nonprofit, just to test if his idea had legs.
None of them had everything figured out. But they built as they went. The startup path isn’t glamorous. But the wins are real. The Forbes list wasn’t the goal for any of them. But when it came, it felt like a real moment.
“Entrepreneurship doesn’t always feel glamorous,” Akshita said. “So when something like this happens, it’s a reminder that we’re doing something worthwhile.”
For some, it opened up new doors – like getting calls back from potential partners who had ghosted them earlier. For others, it gave their teams a boost of pride. For all of them, it was a moment to pause, celebrate, and then get back to the grind.
Because startups don’t stop. They just evolve.
What happens when you scale from community
All five founders credited the role of having a support system – mentors, incubation programs, or just people to bounce ideas off when things got hard.
The NSRCEL ecosystem showed up in different ways: a conversation that gave someone the courage to quit, a structured program that helped sharpen a business model, a network that led to early customers, hires, or investors
Bhanushree shared that NSRCEL helped her move from zero to one, and then again from one to ten. Khet spoke about how the SRV (Student-Run Venture) model gave them credibility when approaching investors. Akshita spoke about how having a community that believed in her helped her navigate the emotional ups and downs.
“You don’t need to have all the answers,” one of them said. “But you do need people who’ll ask the right questions.”
On leadership, pressure, and staying grounded. The transition from founder to leader is real, and messy. It doesn’t happen overnight.
“When we started, we did everything,” said Bhanushree. “I’ve swept my own office. Taken all the calls. Packed products. Everything.”
You don’t wake up one day knowing how to lead a team. You grow into it. They spoke about staying close to their company’s core, even when the temptation to scale fast showed up. About hiring when you’re stretched too thin. And about how roles evolve as teams grow – from doing the work to enabling others to do their best work.
There’s no fixed rulebook, but there are values. Aligning with those values helps attract the right team and helps you stay sane when things get overwhelming.
There’s no one way to build a startup
One of the most refreshing parts of the session was how openly they spoke about pivots. No one’s first idea was their final one. Khet’s pitch deck changed completely over five years. Anil pivoted from a tin-shed school to a techenabled learning model. Bhanushree went from a personal problem to a furniture brand used across metros.
Their advice? Don’t get attached to how you do it. Stay obsessed with why you’re doing it. And if you’re unsure where to begin, start with a question. One that bothers you enough to lose sleep over.
Their next chapters
Each founder is now entering a new phase. Akshita’s focused on scaling Sama deeper into BFSI segments and building out their community of 3,000+ legal professionals.
Bhanushree is expanding her brand’s B2B footprint by partnering with interior design firms.
Anil is working toward impacting 10 lakh students across rural India by 2027. Khet is continuing to scale his hospital network and simplifying claims at scale.
None of them are slowing down. They’re just getting started!
Final thoughts for founders reading this
If you’re building something, whether from campus, your childhood home, or a coworking space – know this:
You don’t need to have all the answers. You need to start. The journey will surprise you. People will come along who see what you’re building and want to be part of it. Some days will feel like a win. Others will test you more than you thought possible.But if you’re solving something real and you care deeply about it, you’ll keep going. And that’s what makes all the difference.
But if you’re solving something real and you care deeply about it, you’ll keep going. And that’s what makes all the difference.
