Dyumna Madan was just 15 when she launched her first company. Six years on, the 21-year-old entrepreneur has built multiple ventures, appeared on Shark Tank India, and is considered one of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs
MARIA FERNANDES | NT
For Dyumna Madan, entrepreneurship did not begin with a grand business plan but with a simple desire to solve a problem.
Growing up in a fifth-generation business family, building something of her own felt almost inevitable. “My father runs his own factory, so did his father. My mother is a fashion designer running a successful store in Panaji. My brother is a chef who started building his own venture at 14. It’s in my blood.”
It was this mindset that led to Brooks Brainery. At 14, while searching for summer schools, she realised most programmes were unaffordable. “So I thought, ‘Why not build my own?’ I’ve always been an incredibly delusional kid,” she laughs.
Turning the idea into reality, however, proved far from easy. Madan had to persuade instructors from leading universities around the world to join a programme that had no established reputation. “I must’ve easily sent more than 1,000 cold emails and DMs,” she recalls. At the time, she was studying at a boarding school and would wake up at 5 a.m. to take meetings before breakfast. Her persistence eventually began to pay off. “Every 50 emails I sent, I got one response. I was fascinated by that. It’s almost impossible not to get a yes if you send enough emails.”
Students from Ivy League universities agreed to teach. However, not every class was a success. While some sessions attracted 200 students, others barely had two. “My co-founder and I would change our names on Zoom and join as ‘students’,” she says, laughing. The experience taught her a lesson that has endured, ‘that everything is possible’.
This belief inspired her next venture, Project Clay, a mentorship platform connecting students with seniors studying at universities they aspired to join. This enabled mentors to guide the students through applications, essays, extracurricular activities, and college decisions. “The thought was that young people don’t think our parents completely understand us,” she says. “If my parents tell me something, I might ignore it. But if a senior I respect says the exact same thing, I’ll take their word as gospel.” Project Clay not only helped students get into Ivy League universities but also aided some to build startups and podcasts, write books, and build robots.
Appearing on Shark Tank India became another milestone, not because of the spotlight but because of what it did for her self-belief. “It gave me enough confidence to drop out of college,” she says. Indeed, after spending four months at Northeastern University, Madan chose to return to India. “Education is tremendous. It’s a great leveller for so many Indians,” she says. “But I’d already worked at a couple of ed-tech startups during my gap year and knew I wanted to build for the rest of my life from India, for India.”
Joining The Foundery further shaped her entrepreneurial outlook. Under the mentorship of Nikhil Kamath, Kishore Biyani, and Ronnie Screwvala, she says, she learned to think beyond rapid growth. “I have fundamentally changed as a person. I now build patiently for the long term and understand the importance of having a strong team, product and values.”
Her latest venture has raised Rs. 4 crore, which she is investing in branding, packaging and talent. But Madan does not see funding as a measure of success. “That depends on execution,” she says.
Her advice to young founders is simple, “There will be people who won’t take you seriously but all it takes is one yes. Keep taking asymmetric risks. Send that cold email, post that content, apply for that job. Who knows what can happen?” For Madan, success is less about waiting for opportunities and more about creating them.
On leadership, she says honestly, “I think it starts with accepting what you don’t know and encouraging smarter people in your company to lead alongside you.” Her mentors, she adds, taught her the value of adaptability, strong fundamentals, customer focus, and respect for the team. She sees being young as an advantage. “I had four years of experimenting and failing which is a privilege most people don’t have,” she says.
At present, she hopes to build one of India’s finest consumer companies, while eventually creating football academies and subsidised schools.
