After 2 failed startups and lost savings, founder's wife sold her jewellery to back his dream. See viral post

Startup success stories often focus on funding rounds, valuations and growth milestones. But for College Vidya co-founder and COO Rohit Gupta, the turning point came long before investors entered the picture.

In a LinkedIn post shared on Tuesday, Gupta recounted a deeply personal chapter from his entrepreneurial journey, revealing how his wife sold her wedding jewellery to help him restart after years of setbacks. Describing her as his "first investor", he said her faith in him arrived at a time when he had run out of options.

College Vidya was founded in 2019 by brothers Rohit Gupta and Mayank Gupta, who were later joined by Sarthak Garg. The company has since grown into a major education consulting platform and reported annual revenue of $7.69 million for the financial year ending March 2025.

However, Gupta said the road to building the business was far from smooth.

"After two failed startups. And my father's retirement money, gone. Loan agents sticking notices on our door. I was sleeping in the office because there was nowhere else left to go," he wrote.

Before launching College Vidya, the Gupta brothers had built a computer training network that operated more than 40 centres. The venture eventually shut down. According to an Inc42 report, Rohit Gupta later worked as a student counsellor, where interactions with students highlighted a gap in educational guidance, eventually inspiring the idea behind College Vidya.

When he began working on the new venture, Gupta said he struggled to find financial backing.

"Nobody would fund the idea. Every door I knew, I had already knocked on," he wrote.

With investors unwilling to support the business, Gupta turned to the one person he had not yet approached — his wife.

"She took off her wedding jewelry, all of it, and told me to sell it and start again. ₹17 lakh. That became the first money behind College Vidya," Gupta said.

According to the entrepreneur, the ₹17 lakh raised from the sale of the jewellery became the initial capital that helped launch the company.

Gupta said he was sharing the story not to seek sympathy, but to remind aspiring entrepreneurs that belief often comes before investment.

"I am not sharing this for sympathy. I am sharing it because people assume funding comes from investors. Mine came from someone who had faith instead," he wrote.

Reflecting on the company's journey, Gupta said what began with four founders has grown into a much larger organisation.

"We began with four co-founders. Today there are close to 750 of us," he wrote.