Harsha Ravindran is still in her teens but that has not stopped her from delving into entrepreneurship, and excelling in it.

The 18-year-old, who was born in Johor and raised in Kuala Lumpur, is the chief executive of her own start-up - StartMyName.com, and serves as the chief marketing officer at Ascendance Sdn Bhd.

The lass has even spoken at three TEDx conferences, and has now written her own book called "The Makings of a Teenage Entrepreneur" to guide and inspire her fellow teenage entrepreneurs.

On top of these achievements, Harsha also received the Diana Award for Young Changemakers 2019 in recognition of social and humanitarian work.

Bernama spoke to Harsha, who recalled that her interest in entrepreneurship began when she was just 11, after attending talks by a social business incubator.

She founded StartMyName.com, which designs, builds and maintains websites, when she was just 17, and today, the start-up had more than 400 clients from four continents.

Harsha, who is currently a distance-learning undergraduate student (bachelor of applied arts and sciences degree) at the University of Pennsylvania, said she started the company as she wanted to pay her own university fees without burdening her single mother.

"I was already dabbling in web development during my free time, and had the resources from having met my kind entrepreneurs from ET Ideas over the last few years of running Ascendance," she told the national news agency.

The idea to pen the book was sparked when she buckled under pressure after being flooded with text messages, meetings, emails and calls from clients, on her 18th birthday on July 11 last year.

"For a moment, all my experiences of managing my own business seemed to have been overshadowed by my teenage emotions.

"Realising that many other teenage entrepreneurs around the world may have been facing the same things that I did, I decided to pen down my experiences as a teenage entrepreneur over the last seven years as truthfully as possible, and share the ups and downs and lessons learnt from them so that other teenagers can have a guide towards their own journey as an entrepreneur," she said.

According to Harsha, "The Makings of a Teenage Entrepreneur" documents both the fun and exciting experiences of teenage entrepreneurship, as well as the serious, hard-hitting side of the business.

"I hope that all of these experiences will inspire others to become entrepreneurs as well."

The books are available for purchase at RM39.90 per copy at store.startmyname.com.

Harsha advice to budding teenage entrepreneurs is "don't be shy to explore and reach out because opportunities come through small steps."

"If you have an idea of what you are passionate about, go for it and find the right environment of people that can foster the idea into reality."

Very inspiring indeed. Here's wishing all the very best for Harsha to reach even greater heights in the future.


Source: Bernama
Photo source: Bernama, vulcanpost.com