“Not an IITian, Not an MIT Graduate”: How 19-year-old Ayush Singh Built a 1 Crore AI Business With Self-Learning During Covid

Key Points

TO ESTABLISH A CORPORATE EMPIRE worth millions, one must think it takes years of expertise, vast amounts of capital, and degrees from top institutions. However, an Indian teen has proved otherwise, charting a new course in entrepreneurship by building an AI-based company without access to resources and influential networks. His secret? Skills he learnt remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

A LinkedIn post has gone viral which reveals how 19-year-old Ayush Singh built his Artificial Intelligence (AI) firm that has monthly earnings of around Rs 1 crore, without any elite college degree.  The post, made by co-founder and CTO of Topmate, Dinesh Singh, talked about how financial hardships during the pandemic didn't stop Ayush from learning, instead the young entrepreneur made the best use of tools available at his disposal and taught himself machine learning.

“He's not an IITian, not an MIT grad, and wasn't born with a silver spoon. At 13, during COVID, his family hit a financial crisis. All he had was outdated courses, a patchy internet, a laptop, and a ridiculous amount of curiosity," Dinesh wrote on the LinkedIn post as he shared Ayush's journey. “So, he taught himself machine learning the hard way.”

Ayush spent his teen years learning AI and machine learning independently. His efforts paid off, as within months he was working with foreign startups. His work was also recognized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who publicly recommended Ayush’s learning course when he was 14.

See also: CRED founder Kunal Shah to join as WhatsApp’s next global CEO

In the consequent years, Ayush saw much professional success,. working on building a Natural Language Processing (NLP) system for a US-based company. He also took on other roles such as working as an Machine Learning Operation (MLOps) engineer and a data scientist. Ayush is also the founder of two other ventures: Antern — an Indian education, AI training, and technical assessment venture; and Second Brain Labs — an AI simulation of founders that can chat with users in personal sessions.

Even though Ayush has garnered many accolades to his name, a feat that many work decades for, Dinesh pointed to another setback Ayush had to face. Even though he's teaching AI to hundreds of engineers across India, the project was never paying him back. What Ayush was missing  — Dinesh wrote — was “packaging, positioning, and a system to sell it.”

See also: Mumbai Founder Hires 64-Year-Old Intern, Says It Was the Startup’s Best Decision Yet

That's where Dinesh’s firm Topmate helped. 

Now, Ayush is working with Topmate, running premium AI cohorts on the platform and has built a thriving business empire earning around Rs 1 crore per month.

In addition to highlighting Ayush’s story, Dinesh also underscored how creators and professionals can monetize their skills, if they can figure out the business aspect. 

Ayush’s story has resonated with many users on the platform, terming the young entrepreneur's journey as “inspiring” and “unreal.”

[Edited by: Harsh Pandey]

Suggested reading: