Sanil Chawla was a sophomore in high school when he discovered the legal issues behind minors (those under the age of 18) starting their own businesses.
Chawla’s entrepreneurial undertaking, Hack+, was originally supposed to be a web development startup. However, he wasn’t able to carry it out because, in the process of starting this business, Chawla was faced with legal issues such as signing legal paperwork and starting his own bank account due to the fact that he was a minor at the time.
2 years later, when Chawla was 19 and a sophomore in college, he decided to start Hack+, which helps provide free fiscal sponsorship and guidance to students under legal age in order to help them start their own businesses with the help of Hack+.
In just one year, Hack+ had helped hundreds of students; and it helped launch over 50 student organizations. Today, Hack+’s website states that they’ve helped 732 students, and 65 organizations. To this day, Hack+ is still up and running, and helping students start their entrepreneurial ventures.
Some reasons I think Hack+ is a good idea:
- It is something was an obvious need in the market, and not just something Chawla thought would be successful but wasn’t.
- Chawla was able to create a solution to a problem that he had personally experienced while trying another entrepreneurial venture. It’s almost as if one idea led to another, which is how I feel like entrepreneurial thinking should be.
- It takes something that Chawla is passionate about (development startups) and adds it to a pain in the area of something else he is passionate about (minors not being able to start businesses) to create something entirely new.
For more information check out the following sites:
Meet 16 Teen Founders Who Are Building Big Businesses — and Making Big Money | Entrepreneur
https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/meet-16-teen-founders-who-are-building-big-businesses/337852