Want to Start a Business Right After College? Ganesh Ghatti Shares How Students Can Do It”

Many young people in India want to start a business. Very few know where to begin. Most students are told the safe route is to finish college, sit for placements and get a job. Building something of your own is treated as a risk you take later, if ever.

Ganesh Ghatti did not wait for later. He started freelancing while he was still in college, and by the time he graduated he had paying clients, long-term projects and steady income. He went straight into running his own business instead of looking for a job.

His path was not built on funding, connections or luck. It was built on a few simple steps that any student can follow, whatever their field. Here is what he recommends, and how he did it himself.

The Path From College to Business

1. Get very good at one thing – It can be software development, AI, running ads, sales, lead generation or something else. The field matters less than the depth. A business pays for a skill that solves a real problem, so pick one and go deep.

2. Get your foot in the door – Before anyone pays you, you need experience. Intern with a business, offer a free service, build a small demo project, or do a small project for a nominal fee. A student who is good at sales, for example, can offer to bring in leads for free and only charge a commission on the deals that close. Whatever gets you inside, take it.

3. Work directly with founders – This is where most students miss out. As an intern or fresher in a large company with seven layers of management, you rarely see how a business actually runs. Working directly with a founder or a C-suite executive shows you how decisions are made, how money moves and how customers are won. That real-world experience is what you need to run a business of your own.

4. Build a portfolio and pitch a precise offer – Once you have work to show, start reaching out to businesses where your skill can add value. Do your research first. If you are an AI engineer and you see a growing AI learning app, look for a gap you can fill, such as a voice assistant it doesn’t have yet, an error you can fix, or a feature that would make it better. Then reach out to the founder on LinkedIn: who you are, what experience you have, and exactly what you can build for them.

“The fancy marketing that big companies do won’t work for you when you’re starting out,” Ganesh says. “You don’t have credibility yet. What works is a precise, well-researched offer that fixes a real problem in their business.”

5. Pitch as a solution provider and deliver your best – If you are solving a genuine problem, the founder will be interested. Pitch the solution, not yourself: this is your problem, and this is how I will solve it. Then deliver the work in the best way possible. Good delivery is what turns a first project into long-term work, referrals and testimonials.

Do these things well during college or just after it, and you will have a portfolio, a network, real-world experience, long-term projects and steady revenue. At that point, Ganesh says, you are ready to build an actual business: hire people, build a sales pipeline, invest in marketing and try to scale. “But that only comes after the first steps,” he says. “Not before.”

Traps to Avoid in the Early Years

Ganesh is just as clear about what not to do.

Don’t believe the get-rich-quick stories.“Don’t fall into the trap of Instagram coaches who say you can become rich in six months,” he says. “In the real world, that doesn’t happen in your first one, two or three years.” The early years are for building skill, trust and experience.

Don’t make price the deciding factor. In the beginning, don’t haggle over every rupee, and don’t undercharge either. Charging too little makes you look like noise. Keep your price reasonable and let the quality of your work do the talking.

Don’t copy how big companies market themselves. Large companies can afford brand campaigns because people already know them. A student starting out can’t. A specific, well-researched offer to the right person will do more than any fancy marketing.

How Ganesh Did It Himself

It all started with one day in 2023, while he was still in college. Someone asked him to build a landing page with five to six sections. He started early in the morning and finished by evening, and earned ₹3,000 for that one day of work.

“I know there are a lot of ifs and buts,” he says. “But that one day made me realise I could earn ₹3,000 in a day, on my own, without a job. That’s when it struck me that I could build something of my own.”

He had no network and no one to introduce him to clients, so he went where the work was. He joined WhatsApp groups where freelance projects were posted and reached out directly to startup founders asking for work. In some cases, he didn’t even ask for money. He just wanted to do the project and learn.

That free work gave him experience. The next step was taking on small projects with startup founders for small amounts, sometimes as little as ₹10,000 or ₹20,000. He used them to earn the founders’ trust, and that trust turned into bigger, long-term projects.

Where That Path Led

Today, Ganesh is the founder of The Squirrel Technologies, a Bengaluru-based company that builds AI products and software for startups and businesses. It works with more than 20 companies across education, edtech, healthcare, nonprofit, robotics and other sectors.

A Message for Students

Ganesh’s message to students who feel they are starting with nothing is simple.

“If you don’t have a network, connections or funding, don’t sit and complain about it,” he says. “Work towards it. Work very hard. Nobody is going to hand it to you. In the end, only your actions decide where you reach.”