A story of becoming, not a résumé timeline.
I did not start as an entrepreneur.
I started as a curious teenager who wanted to learn faster than his environment. I did not have a startup, a business plan, or a clear career path. I was simply trying to become capable.
Over time, that curiosity took me through coding, design, ambitious communities, business, user research, startup building, team failures, professional work, and eventually EduLens.
Looking back, every chapter taught me something I needed for the next one. This is how the journey unfolded.
Learning How to Learn
During COVID, when I was around 14 and studying in grade 9, I discovered something that changed how I approached almost everything afterward: the internet could compress years of learning into months if I was willing to teach myself seriously.
I started learning HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, Python, Photoshop, Illustrator, website development, and product design. I was not trying to become a professional software engineer. I wanted to understand enough to build simple things, prototype ideas, communicate with technical people, and depend less on others.
The most important thing I learned was not a programming language. It was how to learn when a real problem is in front of me.
My pattern became simple: act first, get stuck, learn what is needed, keep moving. That mindset became one of the foundations of how I build today.
I stopped waiting until I felt fully ready before beginning.
Entering Rooms Before I Had Titles
After secondary school, I wanted to move to Dhaka because I believed environment mattered. I did not get into Notre Dame College, which felt like a major setback at the time. But I still chose a Dhaka-based path because I wanted to be closer to ambition, opportunity, and people who were already thinking several steps ahead.
During my higher-secondary years, I spent significant time around students living in University of Dhaka residential halls. Before officially entering university myself, I was already surrounded by conversations about careers, leadership, politics, competition, public service, struggle, and ambition. I also learned from students and graduates connected to BUET and Dhaka Medical College.
That exposure changed the way I saw learning. I began to understand that sometimes the fastest way to understand a system is not only to read about it. It is to speak with people who are already operating inside it.
That became a habit. I started reaching out to senior people in technology, telecom, startups, consulting, consumer businesses, and other industries — not to ask for jobs, not to ask for money, but to ask better questions. Over time, conversations with people connected to Oracle, Robi Axiata, ShopUp, Uber Bangladesh, Unilever, Nokia, Huawei, and others helped me understand technology, scale, trust, operations, business models, distribution, and incentives from a much higher level.
Whenever I want to understand something seriously, I try to learn from people who have already seen the system from above.
The Confused Student
In grade 12, I started thinking seriously about studying abroad. MIT was one of those distant dreams. But when I looked honestly at my own profile, I realized I did not know where I stood, what I was missing, or what I should do next.
So I started searching. University websites. YouTube. Facebook groups. Agencies. Seniors. Counselors. Online information. The more I searched, the more confusing the journey became.
One study-abroad agency gave me one estimate for studying in the United States. Another gave me a dramatically different one. Later, I realized the first agency was mainly focused on a different destination. That experience stayed with me.
I started asking: why are students making life-changing decisions through fragmented information, unclear incentives, and systems that are not truly built around them? At that point, I was not trying to build a company. I was a student trying to understand a problem that had affected me personally.
Everything that came later grew from a lived frustration, not from a market scan.
Connectify — My First Answer
I created the first pitch deck for a project called Connectify. The idea was simple: students who wanted to study abroad could connect directly with international students who had already gone through the process. I imagined it almost like Uber for student guidance. At the time, I believed mentorship was the missing piece.
Then I started talking to users. And I learned I was wrong. International students often did not have enough time or motivation to guide large numbers of students consistently. The demand was much larger than the available supply of mentors. Mentorship alone could not scale.
Looking back, Connectify was not the first version of EduLens. It was the first version of my understanding.
Changing My Mind
This became one of the most important parts of the journey. Every new version taught me what the previous one had missed.
The question stayed consistent. The understanding became better.
- Mentorship — I thought students needed guides.
- Information — I thought students needed better, more trusted content. But they already had too much.
- Short summaries — casual news does not help with life-decisions involving money, family, and deadlines.
- Tools — comparison, search, research, planning. But tools only work when people already know what they need.
- AI-assisted guidance — something that could ask better questions, identify gaps, and guide step by step. Closer, but still not enough.
- A connected system — because the real gap was not mentorship, information, or one tool. It was the absence of coordination.
From Study Abroad to Student Navigation
The more conversations I had, the bigger the problem became. I started by trying to solve study abroad. Then I realized I was trying to solve readiness. Then I realized I was trying to solve navigation.
The underlying question became: how can students understand where they stand and what they should do next?
Study abroad was where I first experienced the pain. But the problem was broader. Students work hard, but their progress is scattered across documents, AI chats, notes, applications, communities, counselors, portals, deadlines, and goals. Nothing keeps the journey connected.
That became the core idea behind EduLens: progress should carry forward. Not a mentorship platform. Not an information website. Not a collection of tools. A Student Operating System.
- Study abroad
- Readiness
- Navigation
500+ Conversations Changed the Product
Over roughly two and a half years, I spoke with more than 500 students, guardians, international students, counselors, education stakeholders, and study-abroad experts. Those conversations repeatedly changed the product.
Some people wanted long-term readiness. Some wanted expert support. Some wanted better documents. Some wanted clearer planning. Some wanted to know whether they were competitive. Some did not even know which questions they should be asking.
The more I listened, the less the problem looked like lack of information. It looked like a lack of coordination. A lack of memory. A lack of visibility. A lack of next-step clarity.
The goal is not to defend the first idea. The goal is to move closer to the truth.
From 40+ Ideas to Something That Could Ship
At one stage, I mapped the student journey into around 40 tools and concepts. It included profile, roadmap, document work, tracking, opportunities, university comparison, expert guidance, AI agents, monitoring, applications, versioning, and many other ideas.
The vision was exciting. The product was impossible. I had to admit something: students would feel overwhelmed, and we could not execute all of it well.
So I simplified. 40+ → 18 → 12 → focused core system. That became one of the biggest product lessons of the journey. The mission did not need to become smaller. The first product needed to become executable.
A large ambition still needs a focused first move.
- Stage 140+
- Stage 218
- Stage 312
- Stage 4Focused core
Shipping Through the Bottleneck
At one point during the transition toward EduLens, progress became stuck. The team believed we needed a professional UI/UX designer before moving forward. The designers I contacted estimated that the next prototype could take months. We could not afford to wait that long. We needed feedback.
So I built the prototype myself. Using the basic programming, design, and AI-assisted skills I had developed over time, I designed, built, and deployed a usable prototype in one day. It was not perfect. But it existed. And because it existed, people could react to it. We could test. We could learn. We could move again.
That experience changed how I think about leadership. Sometimes leadership means removing the bottleneck yourself.
The team could react to something real, and the work moved again.
EduLens Becomes Real
Eventually, the work stopped living only in decks and diagrams. EduLens became a working MVP. Students could create profiles, receive readiness assessments, build roadmaps, track targets, and manage documents inside a connected system. For the first time, the idea existed outside my head.
The deeper concept was synchronization. A student profile should not sit separately from the roadmap. Documents should not sit separately from achievements. Tracking should not sit separately from goals. AI conversations should not disappear after the chat ends. Everything should update the same living system.
Progress should carry forward. That became the core of EduLens.
Every part should update the same living picture of the student.
Rebuilding the Team
The journey was not smooth. My first team eventually left. Later, I built another strong founding team with people who brought technical and industry experience. For a period, I was proud of what we had built together.
After honest conversations, both co-founders stepped down from co-founder responsibilities. It was painful. But it also clarified what EduLens needed. I rebuilt again.
But over time, professional responsibilities reduced their ability to contribute consistently. Eventually, I had to make a difficult decision. A startup cannot run on impressive titles alone. Commitment, ownership, urgency, and execution matter more than credentials.
The right people are not simply the most impressive people. They are the people who can truly own the work.
Choosing Business After Science
For much of my early life, I assumed I would follow a technical or science-focused path. But EduLens forced me to confront a different set of problems. Not only: can this be built? But: can people trust it? Can it change behavior? Can it reach users? Can it survive the market? Can people return to it?
That changed the way I thought about education. I chose Business Administration at North South University intentionally. I believed I could continue learning technical concepts independently when needed. But business would expose me to markets, incentives, strategy, organizations, distribution, and company building.
It was another example of the same pattern. Reality changed my understanding. So I changed direction.
Trust, behavior, distribution, and survival matter as much as feasibility.
Learning Through Work
I do not see professional experience as separate from entrepreneurship. Every environment can teach me something I cannot learn from the outside.
Working inside EdTech gives me a closer view of how education products, operations, teams, delivery systems, and users interact in reality. I want to continue entering strong environments where I can contribute meaningfully while learning how complex products and organizations operate at greater scale.
Some future chapters may be companies. Some may be teams. Some may be ventures. Some may be people I learn from. The important thing is that each environment should leave me more capable than before.
Every environment should leave me more capable than before.
- Step 01Enter environment
- Step 02Contribute
- Step 03Understand system
- Step 04Carry forward capability
Recognition Was Evidence, Not the Destination
Along the way, the work began receiving external recognition. EduLens received early non-dilutive support through UIHP. It won a Silver Medal in the Entrepreneurship Category at the Innovation World Cup Bangladesh National Round 2026. I was selected as one of 80 OMLAS Fellows from 1,866 applicants across Asia. There were also startup programs, showcases, leadership programs, incubation opportunities, and Demo Days.
These mattered. But they were not the main story. The real achievement was staying with the same problem long enough to understand it better.
It is a byproduct of staying with the problem, not the point of the work.
- UIHPEarly non-dilutive support
- Innovation World Cup 2026Silver · Entrepreneurship · Bangladesh National Round
- OMLAS Fellow80 of 1,866 across Asia
Still Becoming
I am still early. EduLens is still early. I still have a lot to learn — about AI, about product, about distribution, about leadership, about building teams, about scale, about how world-class organizations operate, about myself.
I do not see that as a weakness. I see it as the current chapter.
The pattern that started when I was 14 is still the same:
- Find a real problem.
- Get close to reality.
- Learn what is missing.
- Build.
- Listen.
- Change when the evidence demands it.
- Keep moving.
I did not spend the last few years simply building a startup. I spent them learning how students make life-changing decisions, why existing systems fail them, and what kind of system might help them move forward.
EduLens is the strongest current expression of that learning. But the journey is still being written.
- BuiltEduLens · MVP
- LearningProduct · distribution · leadership
- ExploringStrong environments to grow inside
- Next________________