“Bengaluru VPN in Bihar,” say netizens after 14 YO Patna student goes viral for his startup that sells robotics and electronics kits

In our second episode of covering small businesses that started with nothing, we’ve reached the city of Patna in Bihar.

This is the story of 14-year-old Aryan Kumar, who, currently in his 8th grade of school, has established XolveTech – a small startup that aims to help young students get their hands on tech and robotics through fully comprehensive and hands-on STEM kits.

“The thing is, I realized that a lot of students are interested in electronics, but their school systems don’t really provide anything hands-on for them to experiment with, build from scratch, and operate. The kits that they do get are again, just the plug-and-play type, and they end up being treated as toys,” Aryan Kumar tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

Founded in July 2025, XolveTech is a Patna-based student-led startup that offers hands-on Arduino STEM learning kits and electronic projects to help students gain access to innovative ways of dabbling with electronics.

Today, one of their STEM kits, the ESP Wi-Fi Controlled Car Kit, enables users to build their own smart car that connects to their phone through Wi-Fi.

THE BACKGROUND

In 2024, Aryan Kumar, hailing from Patna, was in 7th grade and just 13 years old. He saw students around him who wanted to tinker with electronics but only had plug-and-play kits at most.

Being a tech buff himself, Aryan has been coding since the age of 9.

“I have been doing web development and learning Python for a very long time now. I just really like everything around tech and electronics. I also love repairing things and understanding the intricacies behind their operations. Seeing students around me also facing the lack of a hands-on way to dabble in electronics, I got an idea,” Aryan Kumar says.

The idea was to curate STEM learning kits that enable users to build end-to-end electronics projects from scratch.

However, in 2024, Aryan didn’t find friends around him who would be interested in starting a small business in the tech education field. He waited, and in 2025, during 8th grade, he finally found his tribe – Ayush Kumar, Rishabh Kumar, and Shubham Raj.

“While Ayush and Rishabh are my age and study in the same school as me, Shubham is 18 years old and is pursuing college,” entrepreneur Aryan Kumar mentions.

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THE BEGINNING

In around June 2025, Aryan, Rishabh, Ayush, and Shubham decided to make these STEM kits by sourcing electronic materials from the local market.

“Initially, we sat down and brainstormed on the kind of ideas we want to inspire in people. We zeroed in on building smart cars and smart soil detection systems,” Shubham Raj tells Startup Pedia.

The next step was to procure electronic materials from local markets in Patna.

They did a combination of things to bootstrap XolveTech from the ground up – they pooled money from the prizes of science competitions they won in school and took some amounts from their parents as well.

The total investment needed to start XolveTech was Rs 9,900.

• Rs 900 went into buying the domain name.
• Rs 2000 went into packaging material.
• Rs 7000 went into sourcing the electronic material for the kits from local markets.

With this, about 10 kits were assembled and used as prototypes.

“However, these didn’t end up getting sold. Some of them even failed. We thought of this as our trial phase,” Shubham mentions.

Next, the XolveTech team invested Rs 23,000 for the new batch of kits that were to be made ready and actually sold.

This time around, they had received Rs 5,000 from a coding teacher in advance for a small electronics project. They used this amount as well as pitched in separate amounts that their parents helped them with.

“Aryan, being the founder, brought in Rs 10,000. Ayush gave Rs 1,500 and looked into the packaging aspects of it. Rishabh and I gave Rs 3000 each,” Shubham shares.

These kits were then launched in the market on 3 August 2025 through their Instagram page.

“We didn’t need to hire any web developer for our website, since Aryan had the web development expertise. He has built the XolveTech website from scratch,” Shubham mentions.

“Since this was our first official month of operations, we didn’t really make a lot of profits,” Rishabh Kumar says.

“For now, if one of our STEM Kits is roughly Rs 1,200 in MRP, at least Rs 900 gets spent in sourcing the materials and packaging the kit. We will be working towards margins in the future, once we receive more orders. In electronics, the real margins come in when you buy and sell in bulk,” small business founder Aryan Kumar explains.

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INSTAGRAM-LED MARKETING

Being a small business that is student-led, entrepreneur Aryan Kumar and his team knew that establishing trust in the online and offline space was paramount.

So they started documenting their entire journey of starting a startup and posting it as reels on Instagram.

From ideating the product, building prototypes, registering the startup, etc., they showed every single detail on Instagram.

“This decision helped us a lot because when we finally launched our kits in the market, the majority of orders came from Delhi, Mumbai, and other parts of India. We partnered with Shiprocket for deliveries,” Aryan Kumar says.To date, XolveTech’s Instagram page has achieved a reel audience of 5 million. Their current follower count is 13,800.

Viewers were impressed with the student-let startup and left comments like “All the best” and “Bangalore VPN in Bihar.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by XolveTech | STEM Kits & Innovation (@xolvetech)

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PERSONAL FRONT

The daily schedules of Aryan, Rishabh, Ayush, and Shubham are usually packed.

“Aryan, Ayush, and Rishabh have school till 2 PM. They come home to focus on their school projects and then start working on XolveTech. As for me, I have college till the afternoon, but since it's a government college, I get a lot of legroom and flexibility,” Shubham Raj tells Startup Pedia.

The student-led startup team says that their families are supportive, but their friends and peers do not really pay attention to their efforts or ideas.

XOLVETECH: MAKING STEM EDUCATION ACCESSIBLE

XolveTech operates with one mission: to make electronics interesting and real-life applicable for students.

The founder, Aryan Kumar, strongly believes that creating things from scratch and dabbling in wires, sensors, motors – all of that makes for a great experience and even hones the desire to do something greater in the tech world.

“Even our logo, which is a bulb, is inspired by Thomas Alva Edison’s multiple attempts to make it successful. XolveTech promotes the same – do it until you do not fail,” entrepreneur Aryan Kumar

It has been roughly close to one month of XolveTech in the market. The small business has achieved a sales number of 30+ kits (24 kits were ordered online and the remaining orders came from schools and institutions near them).

In one month of operations, XolveTech clocked roughly Rs 35,000. 

Currently, XolveTech’s product offerings include three kits:

1. Automatic Soil Irrigation Kit - Priced at Rs 849, this kit helps users explore automatic, sensor, and basic electronics without any coding requirements. It not only builds into a smart watering system that detects dry soil but also automatically waters the plant.

“This includes many components like a soil moisture sensor, relay module, mini water pump, Li-ion batteries, and jumper wires,” Aryan tells Startup Pedia.

1. ​ESP Wi-Fi Controlled Car Kit - Priced at Rs 1,119, this kit helps users build their own smart car that connects to their phone via Wi-Fi. Once again, requires no coding and lets people dabble freely in motor control and hands-on IoT fun.
2. Obstacle Avoiding Car Kit - Priced at Rs 899, this kit enables users to build a smart car that detects and avoids obstacles without coding requirements. It comes with components like Arduino UNO, an ultrasonic sensor, a motor driver, wheels, and a battery holder.

Having sold more than 30 STEM kits to date, XolveTech has achieved a revenue of Rs 35,000. With a profit margin of 15%, they have already reinvested the amount into the business.

“We did receive more online orders, but honestly, our major focus now is on catering to schools and institutions in Patna and nearby places. When we started XolveTech, some freshers doing degrees like B.Com asked us if we had any job opportunities for them. So we got an idea – hire college freshers to give prototype demonstrations and host workshops at schools and educational institutions,” small business founder Aryan Kumar explains.

With no Plan B, the young founders are committed to scaling XolveTech and helping students gain access to hands-on STEM learning that converts into tangible experiences for their future.

“There is no learning if it’s only theoretical. At XolveTech, we want to make vocational tech learning mainstream in India,” entrepreneur Ayush Kumar signs off.