No IIT, IIM degree, yet Rs 1 crore monthly income at 19: How a co-founder used his laptop with patchy internet to build an AI business

In India's technology and startup ecosystem, success stories are often associated with graduates from prestigious institutions such as IITs, IIMs, or leading foreign universities. But every now and then, a story emerges that challenges those assumptions. A LinkedIn post that has gone viral across social media is doing exactly that. It tells the story of 19-year-old Ayush Singh, a self-taught AI entrepreneur who reportedly earns around Rs 1 crore every month despite having no elite college credentials.

His journey, shared by Topmate co-founder and CTO Dinesh Singh, traces how a financial setback during the Covid-19 pandemic pushed him towards artificial intelligence and eventually helped him build a thriving business.

A financial crisis became the turning point

According to Dinesh Singh, Ayush's journey began when he was just 13 years old. During the Covid-19 pandemic, his family faced financial difficulties, leaving him with limited resources and few opportunities for formal training.


Sharing details of that phase, Dinesh wrote, "He's not an IITian, not an MIT grad, and wasn't born with a silver spoon. At 13, during COVID, his family hit a financial crisis. All he had was outdated courses, a patchy internet, a laptop, and a ridiculous amount of curiosity."

Rather than focusing on the limitations around him, Ayush turned to self-learning. Using the resources available to him, he started studying machine learning and artificial intelligence on his own.

"So, he taught himself machine learning the hard way," Dinesh added.

From self-learning to global opportunities

The effort reportedly started paying off sooner than expected. According to the LinkedIn post, Ayush began working with startups abroad within months of teaching himself AI concepts.

His progress continued at a rapid pace. Dinesh claimed that by the age of 14, one of Ayush's courses had been publicly recommended by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Over the following years, Ayush expanded his experience across different areas of artificial intelligence. The post states that he developed natural language processing (NLP) systems for a US startup and later worked as both a data scientist and an MLOps engineer.

He also launched his own ventures, becoming the founder of Antern and co-founder of Second Brain Labs. By his late teens, he had already built a portfolio that many professionals spend years working toward.

Why technical skills alone were not enough

Despite those achievements, Dinesh noted that building expertise was only one part of the journey. According to him, Ayush had already established himself as an educator and was helping engineers across India learn AI skills and secure opportunities in the industry.

"Today, he's teaching AI to hundreds of engineers across India, helping them land the kind of work that once felt out of reach," Dinesh wrote.

However, teaching by itself was not generating the level of income one might expect from such expertise. "And yet, for all of it, the teaching was never paying him back," the post stated.

The breakthrough came when Ayush focused on turning his knowledge into a structured business.

According to Dinesh, the biggest change was not a new technical skill or a major invention. Instead, it was learning how to package, position and sell expertise effectively.

Ayush now reportedly runs premium AI cohorts through Topmate, where professionals pay to learn advanced AI skills and practical industry applications. Dinesh claimed that this model has helped the young entrepreneur generate around Rs 1 crore in monthly income.