In America, summer means lemonade stands. Parents and children plan, build, and run these tiny enterprises together, not just selling juice but teaching life's first business lesson. At ten, Cassidy Crowbel pitched The Baby Toon on Shark Tank, a silicone spoon-teether she designed for her sister. A teenager named Kobee built a sustainable lip balm brand with his mum's US$ 200. We watch these videos and feel inspired, but when do our children get the same chance?
American children are groomed to "try it, fail, learn," earning pocket money, managing budgets, and solving problems. From playgrounds to classrooms, independence and creativity are cultivated as core values. In Bangladesh, entrepreneurship is something you study in a course in business studies in university, not something you practise at age ten. Our students sometimes excel at academics, memorising, scoring, and competing. But they rarely get to sell, pitch, or build anything until university, sometimes not even then.
One child learns business by convincing strangers to buy lemonade. The other memorises the definition of entrepreneurship for exams that too at the age of 20 or more. Both systems produce educated young people, but only one produces young people unafraid to build something of their own.
When dreams meet dinner tables: When you walk into any Bangladeshi university during career week and you'll see hundreds lined up for corporate job fairs. Ask about startup incubators and you'll find silence, or some poorly funded initiative gathering dust in a forgotten corner. When a graduate announces they want to start their own venture instead of applying to banks or multinationals, families react as if they've declared bankruptcy before even beginning.
Parents spend huge amount to get their children educated in premier professional colleges, only to be job-ready. If asked, they won't invest the same amount in setting up a business for their children. We celebrate Bangladeshi entrepreneurs who've made it big (the success stories of Pathao, Chaldal, or ShopUp) but we don't want our own children taking that path. We applaud from a distance but panic up close.
Picture a university student telling his parents he wants to start an online tutoring platform instead of joining a bank. His father's response? "Tuition? You went to a private university to become a tuition master?" His mother adds, "We didn't sacrifice everything for you to become a tutor. What will I tell people you're doing?"
This scene plays out in countless households. The parent versus passion battle isn't fought with swords but with guilt, fear, and the weight of unfulfilled parental dreams.
We, Bangladeshis, treat failure like a full stop, not a comma. Remember the story of your neighbour's son who tried opening a small tech startup five years ago? The one who "wasted" his engineering degree and had to eventually take a job at a telecom company? That story gets retold at every family gathering, whispered with a knowing shake of heads. But nobody talks about what he learnt, how he grew, or that his "failed" startup experience helped him become the company's innovation head.
The system that shapes us: From class 1 to SSC, students are trained to memorise, copy, and score. The student who asks "Why can't we do it differently?" is seen as insubordinate, not smart. Science students mock business studies students. Arts students are pitied. Everyone's herded towards the same narrow gates: medical, engineering, or at best, BBA.
There's no class on “How to Start a Business”. There is no project where students solve real community problems. There is no mentor who's built something from scratch sharing battle stories. Instead, we teach entrepreneurship through textbooks written by academics who've never faced a real customer or dealt with a bounced payment.
In American high schools, students participate in DECA competitions, run school stores, and launch mini-ventures for course credit. In Bangladeshi schools, students memorise the definition of 'entrepreneur' for their commerce exam, write essays about Steve Jobs, then return to competing for who can score highest on derivative calculus.
Suppose a young Bangladeshi breaks through the mental barriers and decides to start a business. Now comes the next wall: capital. Banks won't lend without collateral. Angel investors want tech unicorns. Family money comes with suffocating strings attached. Meanwhile, that American teenager starts with US$ 200 and sheer audacity.
What actually needs to change: Change is possible, and it's already beginning in small pockets across Bangladesh. Parents don't need to hand over thousands for business ventures. Start by encouraging your twelve-year-old to sell homemade biscuits in the neighbourhood during Eid. Let your teenager manage a small budget for a family project. If they fail, ask "What did you learn?", not "I told you so".
Government schools should introduce entrepreneurship labs where students solve actual problems. Universities need
innovation hubs where the cost of failure is learning, not shame. BRAC University's venture incubation centre and Startup Bangladesh initiatives are good starts, but we need hundreds more.
For every cautionary tale of failure, share three stories of resilience. Celebrate the entrepreneur who failed twice before succeeding. Interview the 25-year-old running a successful small business instead of just the corporate executive.
Because somewhere in Dhaka or Khulna or Rangpur, there's a kid with an idea that could change everything. The question is: will we let them try?
rounak.marium@gmail.com
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