Top 8 Insights From the Founders of Edtech Startup Trashbots
Last Updated: By TRUiC Team
The founders of Trashbots, the low-cost edtech hardware and platform that teaches kids of all ages to code, have learned a great deal from launching a startup at a young age. In our interview, Sidharth and Rohit Srinivasan provide insights for entrepreneurs and startups in the edtech industry and beyond. From how they developed such a strong startup idea to who helped them along the way, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite insights from the Trashbot founders.
1. ‘Play Productively’
“[W]e really adopt that through our product and how we interact with our students, but it's also how our company culture is formed. Obviously, we have a productive goal of building out this company and building out this product that students and teachers and parents are going to love, but it's also having fun while you're doing that, playing, but it's productive.” — Sidharth Srinivasan
2. Find a Problem You’re Passionate About Solving
"Find issues that you think ... you're passionate about solving, and then once you have that passion and once you see that problem, just dive right in and just start working on it, because you never know the outcome." — Sidharth Srinivasan
3. Stick With It
"Believe it or not, the next time we walked back into [the investor’s] office to go pitch them again, they cut us a check because they were just like, "They stuck with it for so long," and they saw the tremendous growth that was happening. It was really exciting. It's firsthand. If you stick with something long enough, cool things will happen.” — Rohit Srinivasan
4. Mentors Are Essential
“There's so many little, little things you don't even think about when you're starting a company, and so to find mentors who can advise you in areas is very, very important because it not only helps you complete those tasks, but it also just helps you learn about those ideas." — Sidharth Srinivasan
5. You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
“Well, I think, really, what's really great about Sidharth and I is we're cognizant that we don't know what we don't know. We're cognizant that we're young and we're learning a lot … [W]e still constantly spend time talking to mentors and getting feedback.” — Rohit Srinivasan
6. Focus on Communication and Macro Goals
“There's sales, marketing, and product. All these different things Rohit and I have kind of cued into, and it's been nice having people who work on that day to day, but also, you have to kind of look at macro goals and make sure everything is on the same page in the company.” — Sidharth Srinivasan
7. Don’t Be Afraid to Start Small
“We started this thinking, ‘Let's make this a summer project.’ We went and kind of threw some motors in a little shell and put a processor around it and coded something up and said, ‘Let's go teach some camp students.’ — Sidharth Srinivasan
8. Create Something You’re Excited About
“When we were building Trashbots initially, the end user was us. We were building a platform that we could use. [This] really allowed us to be a lot more successful in the long term because we were building the products for ourselves.” — Rohit Srinivasan
Next Steps:
- Check out Trashbots’ origin story and ways to support them!
- Keep up with more startup companies by following Startup Savant on Google News!
- Start your own edtech startup by reading our guide on how to start a startup.
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