The opinions of contributing entrepreneurs are their own. </p><div>
Key Takeaways
- Genuine curiosity can sometimes be better than expertise.
- The best teachers are on the ground, not just in the boardroom.
- Integrity is the backbone of a successful business.
What is your relationship with uncertainty? I come from a part of the world where it is wise to cling to certainty.
Most of my life I have followed the safe path. In my early 30s, I had founded SEO Corporation, which grew into a solid digital marketing company with regular clients and decent margins.
But even comfort can make you restless inside. That’s why I often went hiking in the Himalayan hills, just to clear my head. During a trek in Uttarakhand, something happened that stuck with me.
Our group stopped at a hillside hamlet outside Chamoli, where our local guide Vijendra pointed out bundles of dried stems. “That’s hemp,” he said. “Strong fibers. But no one wants the stems. Usually they are burned or rot.” I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a story in that pile of trash. Even when I was back in my office in Delhi, my thoughts kept wandering to those hemp stalks.
Even though I had no background in materials science, I knew two things:
- There was untapped value in those stems.
- Farmers would work with me if I could create a new revenue stream for them.
So I took the plunge. I sold my share, packed up and started spending time in village kitchens and open fields, asking naive questions about drying, retting and bundling to anyone I could find.
Looking back, that leap into the unknown turned out to be the best business decision of my life. It forced me to learn the lessons that no MBA can teach.
Related: This Founder Makes Sure He Has One Life-Changing Solo Trek Every Year
Lesson 1: Genuine curiosity is better than expertise
Of course I wasn’t a scientist. So for months I felt like an impostor in the agricultural world. My first real exposure was during a workshop at IIT Guwahati, where I was surrounded by polymer experts. I had gone in hoping to “absorb by osmosis,” but instead got lost in technical jargon: chain splitting, crystallinity, disintegration testing.
More than once I was that guy quietly Googling terms during seminars. At that moment I realized that I had based myself on the honesty of not knowing. So I asked, “Why?” Sometimes I asked until I annoyed people, but my outsider’s eyes also helped me see what others were missing.
For example, early on we tried to make a batch of hemp-based biopolymer (which we now call EcoGran™) that looked and felt good. But our first compostability test was a flop. Even after six months in a compost bin, our sample was virtually unchanged. It was supposed to go away in 180 days, but it didn’t. So we kept asking questions and experimenting.
After much trial and error (and bugging the scientists), we realized that the pH of the mixture was off, preventing microbes from breaking it down. A small adjustment to the formula solved the problem and the next batch passed the compostability test.
This “beginner’s mentality” became our secret weapon. I’ve sent ideas to everyone: researchers, farmers, even local teachers. I remember a women’s group in Pauri once helped us test different hemp varieties for strength and flexibility. For them, the benefit was immediate: one woman told me that she had made an extra ₹12,000 that season (a tidy sum in the economic system of remote Himalayan villages) just by selling hemp stalks that she burned.
For me it proved that ‘naive’ questions can lead to major breakthroughs.
Related: I Quit My Corporate Role to Work a ‘Lazy Girl Job’ Instead—Here’s How This Career Change Helped Me Earn 10 Times More
Lesson 2: The best teachers are on site
Innovation does not always happen in laboratories. Some of the smartest solutions I’ve seen have come from farmers and fiber artisans during visits to their fields and workshops.
One day we gave a workshop in a Chamoli village on drying hemp and nettle. Our team assumed that drying nettles in full sun was the fastest way. But an older woman looked at us and then shook her head: “Too much sun, too fast. At our house we dry the nettle in the shade. It stays strong.”
I was curious. So we split the batch: half sun, half shade. A week later, the sun-dried fibers broke and splintered, while the shade-dried fibers were tough and flexible.
That was a wake-up call. Traditional methods are not just ‘old ways’. They are generations of R&D, learned in practice. So we changed our process and started drying fibers in shady sheds, and our quality improved.
These kinds of lessons kept coming. Sitting on the kitchen floor, sipping sweet chai, I learned things you never discover from spreadsheets. We made our bioplastic films sturdier because farmers said so, and we focused on compostability because villagers wanted bags that would disappear quickly.
The best business insights I gained didn’t come from boardrooms, but from moments spent cross-legged on mud floors.
Lesson 3: Integrity travels well
When you’re new to an industry, trust is everything. You have no track record, just your word.
Not long after we started scaling EcoGran™, a supplier offered us a ‘magic’ additive that would increase production. But it wasn’t certified for compostable plastic, and if we used it, we’d be cutting corners.
But I remembered something from my days at SEO Corporation: shortcuts always come back to bite you. I told my team, “Either we keep our promises, or we’re just a gang chasing a quick buck.” So we turned down the deal.
Months later, that choice paid off when a major European buyer requested proof of every ingredient. Since we had nothing to hide, the deal went through. The buyer told us, “We trusted you because your numbers matched your claims.”
Furthermore, integrity is not just about customers; it’s also about partners. From day one we published our price per kilo for hemp and nettle. When prices fell, we did not put pressure on farmers. Over time, our supply chain ran on relationships, not contracts.
Many founders talk about “brand values.” For us, integrity is what keeps a company alive when the going gets tough.
Related: How to Succeed in an Industry You Know Nothing About
Now when I look at what UKHI has become, I’m grateful that I didn’t let my lack of references hold me back. We have secured funding in collaboration with leading institutes like ICAR, Pusa, IIT Guwahati and the Indian Institute of Packaging. Most importantly, we built EcoGran™, a product that really makes a difference.
A thousand farmers now supply us with crop waste and earn income from material they once burned. Startups in India and abroad use our materials to package food and beauty products, knowing they will return safely to Earth. In a completely unplanned way, our supply chain shows how rural India and high-tech manufacturing can work together for a circular economy.
Of course there are still plenty of challenges:
- How do we scale up?
- How do we keep costs low?
- How do we stay ahead of regulations and avoid greenwashing?
What has changed the most is my definition of success. They are no longer contracts or quarterly figures. It’s cleaner rivers, farm scenes and hearing a child say, “We’re not burning the stalks now.”
If you’re about to take a leap into the unknown, my advice is: don’t wait until you’re an expert. Stay curious, maintain your integrity, and remember that an outsider’s perspective is exactly what it takes to build something better.