How I built a successful high-tech R&D company in a Tier-2 city’s suburb, and what I learned about talent, innovation, and the human element in business.
The Unconventional Journey
Aha Innovations sits in a small Indian town: a suburb 30 kms off of Jaipur, which itself is relatively small in the Indian tech innovations landscape. When I tell people I’ve churned out several of the world’s first innovations from my high-tech firm here, holding multiple patents and doing world-class production, they often look puzzled. How do you do cutting-edge R&D in a place where some team members struggle with basic communication?
The answer lies in understanding what real talent looks like.
I’ve been bootstrapped from day one, never had money to waste, and in my 15 years of entrepreneurial journey, I’ve employed everyone from IITians to people who can barely read. Over this time, I’ve discovered that success can be found in unconventional approaches. “Life finds a way”, if you will.
The Rural Advantage: What Big Cities Miss
Common Sense Over Cramming
Rural talent carries something that’s increasingly rare in our hyper-competitive world: common sense. I’ve noticed that excessive studying actually ruins this natural intelligence. The people I work with carry in abundance what the typical “high scorer” kid totally loses in their exhausting grind from school through college – a connection to life and freshness of thinking. They approach problems with simplicity and that’s genuinely delightful.
My role has become less about teaching them technology and more about helping them translate high-tech concepts in their own way. Once they connect the dots, their comprehension is remarkable.
Financial Wisdom Born from Necessity
When I worked in the corporate world, earning ₹3 lakh per month, I was financially illiterate. I never understood the value of a single rupee, squandered money on car EMIs and unnecessary expenses. This is the story of most tier-1 city job holders in India—we earn a lot but lack financial wisdom.
Village people, on the other hand, extract incredible mileage from small sums. They deploy money only when absolutely necessary, relying instead on community support, ingenuity, and natural resources. They don’t waste even the tiniest shard of something remotely useful. This resourcefulness is a refreshing life-saver when we’re bootstrapping a tech company. Because of this, I trust my people that they’ll handle money better than me.
Natural Empathy and Purpose
Due to the connected society fabric, suburban people carry empathy naturally. They’re naturally content and less interested in rat races when their needs are met. This makes them connect to bigger community purposes more easily.
Ambitious top-tier college products are very individualistic, and often treat everything as stepping stones and everyone as ammunition for their next career move. Many come across as opportunity-vampires — they extract benefit and move on without looking back if they actually contributed reasonably to the small company that sustained them.
So I now no longer value flashy profiles promising fast results. I now seek lasting, predictable associations instead.
Customer Connection
In many cases, my rural team members represent our actual customers. A town youth connects far better with a fellow tier-2 city resident than an MNC employee with a 50 LPA package. This empathy translates into companies that actually solve real problems for regular people.
They help build genuinely sensible and affordable products.
Rise of AI
With AI simplifying expression of market requirements to people with domain-specific skills, it might be easier for suburban people to communicate to technology experts, and together deliver what matters most: products that solve real problems for the customer.
The Human Investment: Building Loyalty Through Growth
When we build someone up, they become genuinely loyal. They don’t leave you unless it’s absolutely impossible to survive. They forge human connections, truly care about the company and founder, carry gratitude, and go to extraordinary lengths to contribute.
This has helped me build a resilient team. High retention rates mean lower recruitment costs, better institutional knowledge, and stronger team cohesion.
The Framework: How to Succeed with suburban talent
1. Patience as Strategy
Don’t shoot down people and label them as failures. Nurture them like you would your own child. Their failure is actually your own failure. Trust that they’ll come around with proper support.
2. The two-pronged growth method
Figure out how each person will earn their salary. Create roles where anyone can contribute meaningfully and earn sustenance. Then, give them ambitious targets and ample resources, and nurture them to help them achieve the goals.
3. Systems Before People
Establish systems to ensure that people won’t fail at their basic tasks. This gives you the bandwidth to provide the love and support they need while maintaining business viability.
4. Honor the Unspoken Contract
Before expecting output, provide full resources: time, knowledge, tools, training, and funds. Provision for lavish buffers at your end: and you’ll find that almost everyone will give you a delightful surprise over time.
5. Build Resilience
- Ensure your team is amply buffered for unexpected challenges
- Find and develop leaders quickly to build structure and a “teach-each-other” network
- Don’t build business plans on ambitious undertakings
The Challenges: Being Honest About the Difficulties
Market Realities
The unpredictability of modern business creates real challenges. Companies in the ’60s had it easy in the way that customer expectation was relatively static. There was time to groom talent and build large production teams because they were not chasing moving targets. Today, competition and consumer demands move very fast. Suburban talent isn’t too agile in this adaptation, and we have to forego a lot of opportunities because of this.
Not All Talent Is Immediately Deployable
Rural talent comes with its own set of challenges:
- Some suffer from complete lack of initiative and “joie de vivre”—they’re overly passive
- Others struggle with inferiority complexes which delay the realization of their potential.
- Many get intimidated by English, or from people with polished personalities, and lose their natural element during interactions.
- Job insecurity runs deep, exacerbated with their inability to be articulate with their fears — I once lost a talented person because they thought a new hire was their replacement when I was actually expanding. He simply disconnected from his duties due to this fear. I couldn’t bring him around and had to let him go.
Cultural Adaptation Challenges
- Many suburban people naturally lack initiative, which is partly why they’re still in small towns. This creates a challenge to create new avenues for their growth.
- Basic concepts like accountability and time management often require significant investment to develop.
- Social life is vibrant in small towns, leading to frequent leaves. I’ve learned to employ 1.5x the required manpower to keep operations running smoothly.
The Bigger Picture
This journey has taught me that innovation doesn’t require branded people in the team. It can also be done with empathy, resourcefulness, and the right environment for growth.
While working with suburban talent presents unique challenges, the rewards are also unique. The key is approaching it with patience, proper systems, and genuine love, patience and respect. Simply put, treating your team as your children is the key: you need to help them succeed in order to consider yourself successful.
Alongside the gleaming towers of Bangalore or Gurgaon, the small towns and villages may very well be rightful contenders of leading innovations; where common sense still thrives, where people understand the value of money, and where human connections matter more than LinkedIn networks.
The question isn’t whether rural India has talent. The question is whether we’re wise enough to recognize it, patient enough to nurture it, and innovative enough to build systems that let it flourish.
Aakash
Founder, Aha 3D Innovations Pvt. Ltd.
Website: https://aha.store
Jaipur, Rajasthan, India