Student entrepreneur looks toward careers in the field

For sophomore Dhruv Singh, his attempt at operating a small gaming resell business was a roller coaster ride that ended up teaching him many lessons and inspiring him to continue to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams.

Singh’s company, Lucky Resell, which launched in the summer of 2018 ran until the summer of 2019, operated through multiple e-commerce sites. After seeing a favorable market trend at that time, he decided to start a business of selling video game accounts bought from multiple websites.

Soon after the company’s launch, Singh realized that for the business to succeed, he needed to learn how to market and fund the company. This was no easy task for him, especially since Singh had no prior experience through classes or programs. 

“The hardships I faced were around marketing and taking loans to fund the company, which left me in debt,” Singh said.

The loans initially helped boost the company by allowing him to open an online portal that was linked to his resell store. However, the unforeseen consequences of the lack of funding not only put Singh in debt, but also backfired by demotivating him to continue. 

Fortunately for Singh, he stabilized his company about a week after incurring debt and ended up making a profit of $1,000. After going through such a tumultuous journey, he was able to learn essential real-world skills such as risk, management and marketing — skills he had never really learned about until then.

When aspiring entrepreneurs like Singh start a company without prior experience, making crucial mistakes is almost inevitable, but still, Singh believes the process was worth the setbacks. 

From this experience, Singh decided that more students should try starting companies and “have basic essential entrepreneurial skills and knowledge.” He has set out to establish an entrepreneurship club with sophomore Aditya Thirumalai.

Starting a club, however, was not as easy as the sophomores thought it was. Not only are they having difficulty finding a teacher adviser, but Singh and Thirumalai are still developing a curriculum and coordinating possible events. 

Despite the technicalities involved, Singh is determined to go through the process of establishing his club because of his passion to bring the enjoyment and satisfaction of creating a business to the high school community.

“There are no secrets to success,” Singh said. “It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.”