In the last six years, Sharad has brought smiles to more than one lakh students across India with his unique initiative of learning STEM through fun.

Sharad Bansal is the Co-founder and CEO of Tinkerly, an ed-tech company that helps the age group of 6-16 years old to learn STEM(Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) as a hobby. Based out of Jaipur, Tinkerly was founded in 2015 and since then it has been working with more than 500 schools and benefited thousands of students.

Sharad has been brought up in Rajasthan and comes from a service class family. He completed his education at IIT Delhi and then started his venture of providing hands-on training experience to kids by incorporating STEM educational kits.

Talking about his childhood days, Sharad says he was a studious kid not by choice but because of his family’s inclination towards education. He believes in understanding concepts and applying them. Sharad shares that while graduating from IIT, he had no plans of becoming an entrepreneur and wanted to pursue an MBA. However, working in the entrepreneurship cell and interning with a startup gave him more exposure.

He adds that since the beginning he was inclined towards business rather than technology and decided to take up Business Management as his minor. Sharad started working on the idea of Tinkerly in the summer break of his third year and before writing the final exams, he already had a client on board, a renowned school in Jaipur. He shares that one of his professors and his family have been a constant support during his entrepreneurial journey.

Sharing the challenges, Sharad says that with hardly a few members on board, he had to hire interns and find a place to work in an incubation center. He adds that it took a couple of months to convince the investors and reach a target of a hundred schools. In such a scenario, profitability, retaining teams and managing expenses was a challenge in front of him which also taught him to never lose hope.

Sharad gets excited to see children using such innovative products and parents wishing they had such gadgets back in their school days. At the same time, he and his team members have been able to provide significant growth to their employees which they count as an achievement.

However, Sharad feels that it was a mistake to not reach out to as many people for help and wanting to achieve all by himself. He asserts that what an entrepreneur can become today or tomorrow lies in their experiences of the past like managing a team, being innovative in day-to-day life and surviving all ups and downs. Sharad feels that an entrepreneur needs soft skills to grow which comes from taking up challenges that are out of their comfort zone. He learnt it by participating in extracurricular activities that helped him get rid of his stage fear and working in teams.

Adding to it, Sharad feels that such exposure would be great for students who have spent their time at home during the pandemic days. He says that the children can resort to virtual platforms to try new things and utilize their early days to enhance knowledge and identify their interests.

Sharad feels that Education and Experience that you get on the field are equally important incorporating all technical and life skills. He feels that had he not got education, he would not have gained anything out of his experience.

Talking about his role models, Sharad says that he has learnt from his co-founders, teachers and family members.

If given an option to go back in a Time Machine, Sharad would have done more than just Academics during his school days. He would have made more friends during his college days and been more proactive than just spending time in his hostel room. If he could go three years back in his startup life, he would have used technology faster and asked for more help from his mentors.

In his leisure time, Sharad likes to travel which he is currently missing owing to the pandemic. Besides, he also likes to spend time with his friends.

“Tomorrow must be better than today” and “The show must go on” are quotes that keep him going. He urges everyone to take their decisions themselves and do it in a way so as not to regret them later.