Entrepreneurship. One tends to imagine spacious offices, large warehouses, and people in flashy suits discussing proposals and overseeing projects. But what if, instead of all that, there is a dark room with a floor littered with boxes, stickers, and plastic wraps? A household kitchen counter dotted with piping bags and spatulas? An Instagram page with a modest follower count? A teenager explaining science concepts to a small YouTube audience? What happens when ambition decides to show up a bit earlier on the timeline?
It begins with minimal investment. A teenager with an idea, often a desire to attain some degree of financial independence, creativity, and — of course — the internet. Teenage entrepreneurship is a new culture that has emerged post-pandemic. To outsiders, these businesses may seem like side hustles, but they offer a wealth of opportunities to learn and grow because of the practical exposure: marketing your business, managing social media, dealing with customers, and, most importantly, handling criticism.
“You’ll Quit in a Month”
It isn’t just one surge of motivation; it is a lot of perseverance that keeps these businesses going. To gain a deeper insight into what goes on behind the scenes, I interviewed Adeena, who has been running Deens Beans Cafe, a home-based cake business, and Sir Ruhab Iqbal, owner of Prosperity Academy.
No matter what the business is, a few factors are common to all in the initial stages. Once one actually steps into the work, a realisation hits — things are a lot more complicated than they seem. As Adeena remarks,
“It can often be very draining when all you want to do is quit. The important thing is that you push through and keep going.”
Ambition and intrinsic motivation thus top the list of non-negotiable essentials for the survival of a business in the early stages, and this is something Sir Ruhab believes our generation lacks, because many of us tend to give up too early.
Living in a country where formal teenage employment is not the norm among the educated class and a lot of professions are looked down upon, it is almost impossible not to encounter criticism, especially while trying out something unconventional. One can succumb to this mindset, especially when the future seems uncertain, and give in to the criticism. Not many people are fortunate enough to realise that society’s generalisations of scope, success, and career are often not applicable to every individual. Sir Ruhab shared how people’s perceptions about his ideas affected him negatively in the beginning:
“Teaching unfortunately is looked down upon in Pakistan and isn’t considered good enough of a job. Most of my family supported me, but my father and a few outsiders believed that it was not going to work out and was not a respected profession, so initially, all of this wired the belief in me that teaching was supposed to be temporary — which led me into making a few bad decisions. Eventually, I realised that all of that was wrong. Happiness is what keeps you going, so despite people not believing in me in the beginning, teaching worked out for me.”
Another ability that comes in handy is patience. It is very hard to resist the urge to take big steps right from the beginning and expect immediate rewards. One thing Adeena thinks she could’ve done differently in the early days of Deens Beans Cafe was to take small steps and build her way up rather than taking huge steps from day one.
One thing that really stood out in Ruhab Iqbal’s journey from “Ruhab bhai” — just another A-level tutor — to “Sir Ruhab” from Prosperity Academy is experimentation. What started as a 17-year-old A-level student, some existing skills, and a capital of PKR 5,000 is now an online academy with over 20,000 active students. But neither was this the initial plan nor the only thing tried. In the words of Sir Ruhab himself:
“When you’re starting off in deciding what to do, you have to touch upon a lot of things and eventually things work out in one way. I’m pretty sure I tried 10–20 things before I decided that teaching was the way forward for me.”
If one idea doesn’t seem to work out, it doesn’t imply that you’ve failed; every experience teaches you something useful for the future. All the skills that helped Prosperity Academy thrive in the market were learnt by Sir Ruhab in his past attempts to set up a business: website making, animation, graphic designing, e-commerce, and other soft skills like command over MS Office.
Success is often a slow, almost silent process — it does not occur overnight, and contrary to popular belief, it also doesn’t require truckloads of investment either. Sir Ruhab shares a similar perspective:
“Most of the people aren’t lucky enough to have a lot of capital or inheritance from their parents — most of them are like me. If you’re starting something, you need to give it time to develop and hope the outcomes work out for you.”
While one may not see grand results right from the beginning, there are small rewards that keep one motivated even when things do not seem to be working out. This can include making a small difference in someone else’s life or just being able to improve your own skill. The initial years of Prosperity Academy were difficult, but being able to teach students in a way that they actually grasped the concept was what kept Sir Ruhab going. For Adeena, Deens Beans Cafe gave her the chance to sharpen her skills — from not being able to hold a spatula properly to being able to recreate any cake design sent to her.
The good thing about small businesses is that overall there is minimal risk involved, so one can easily turn them into win-win situations, because no matter if the business fails or succeeds, it is a learning opportunity either way, and there can be multiple ways to try and execute a plan. Progress doesn’t have to be linear; you can pause, change your strategy, or even try something new altogether.
So, to my readers: when ambition decides to show up a bit earlier, don’t let that energy go to waste. With the right intention and patience, the idea buried deep in your notes app is worth trying!