The intercity commute problem no one as solved, until now

Student entrepreneurship in India is transforming the way young founders approach real-world problems. Every Monday morning across India, thousands of students and working professionals face the same impossible choice: pay surge prices for a private cab, or squeeze into an overcrowded, unreliable bus. I’m Ayaan Jain, founder of FareX Rides, and this is how I built an intercity shared mobility startup while studying full time.

What is FareX Rides

FareX Rides is a technology-first intercity premium shared mobility platform, built to organise India’s unorganised pooling industry. Shared cabs split the cost of a journey seat-by-seat among passengers on the same route delivering a premium, affordable and reliable experience while reducing carbon emissions and road congestion.

The platform is designed for phased implementation:

• Phase 1: Hybrid and sustainable fuels across key intercity corridors
• Phase 2: Fully electrified corridor travel, complemented by EV charging lounges
• Long-term: Connecting every small city with its nearest metro hub

FareX directly supports UN SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities) and SDG 13 (Climate Action), contributing to clean energy, decent work, reduced inequalities and responsible consumption.

Can you really build a startup while studying? Here’s what it actually looks like

Student entrepreneurship in India is often talked about in theory. Here’s what it looks like in practice.

Lectures are scheduled earlier in the day, so I use that window to stay on top of coursework before it piles up. After college, I go straight to the office to review progress and work on operations and tech with the team. Evenings are for mentor calls. Late nights are where the real thinking happens quiet, focused hours for investor outreach, strategy and deeper research.

It hasn’t always been clean or disciplined. Days and nights stopped being separate categories a long time ago. What mattered was moving forward consistently, completing tasks by priority, and not letting momentum die.

Managing college and a startup is not a double life. Done right, the two systems complement each other:

• Frameworks taught in class get tested at work
• Questions from work get answered in the classroom
• Financial modelling and market analysis stop being academic exercises and become tools you actually use

The milestones that kept FareX moving

FareX today is not what it was meant to be at the start. The mission has stayed fixed, but the path has changed many times models rebuilt, approaches reset, and moments where it nearly didn’t make it. Each time, a conversation, a person, or a piece of belief carried it forward.

Key milestones so far:

• 🏆 Winner, University of Southampton 100 Big Ideas Competition 2025
• 🚀 Selected for the Ford Mobility Accelerator organised by Enactus UK & Ireland
• 🏛️ Presented at the Strategic Roundtable Conference on Clean Air in Delhi NCR convened by the University of Southampton India Centre, attended by representatives from NITI Aayog, the World Bank and the Supreme Court of India
• 💡 Supported by the University of Southampton Social Impact Lab and the University of Southampton India Centre for Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development

What university actually gave me as a founder

The university environment has enhanced my perspective in ways I didn’t expect. Interactions with leaders, directors and investors have added a layer of real-world understanding that no classroom alone could provide.

Global mentors and a network have refined how I think about sustainability and nation-building and pushed me toward creating solutions that belong on a global stage, not just an Indian one.

The startup journey has also put me in rooms where I haven’t made the final cut, and in conversations that haven’t gone the way I planned. Each one stung briefly then gave a redirection of its own.

Not getting selected isn’t the same as not being seen. The work continues either way. Almost always, a different door opens because of how you carried the previous one.

Skills no syllabus teaches you

Running a business has made me a more intentional student. The skills developed through entrepreneurship are the ones no degree covers:

• How to walk into a room and hold it
• How to pitch an idea to someone who has heard a thousand of them
• How to have a difficult conversation with a potential partner
• How to take feedback without losing momentum

These aren’t soft skills. They’re the hardest skills there are.

Advice for students with an idea

If you’ve got an idea but you’re hesitant to start, here’s what I’d say:

You don’t need everything in place to begin. The perfect setup doesn’t exist. Waiting for it is the most common reason ideas die quietly. Start with what you have clarity comes from doing, not planning.

Pay attention to the problem, not just the solution. It’s more important to understand the usefulness of your product than to perfect its features. Otherwise you risk solving a problem that doesn’t even exist.

Treat your degree as a feature, not a friction. Building a start-up while studying isn’t a trade off done right, it’s one of the most useful versions of student life.

The question isn’t whether you’re ready. It’s whether you’re ready to work for it because resilience can’t be borrowed from somewhere else.

The bigger picture

Sitting in a room with NITI Aayog representatives, World Bank officials and Supreme Court justices pitching an idea that started as a problem I noticed on my commute only makes the mission clearer.

Intercity India is one of the country’s biggest infrastructure gaps. FareX Rides is being built to close it: one shared seat, one corridor, one city at a time.

In this insightful podcast, our student entrepreneurs, Prisha Seth (Co-Founder, Webly) and Ayaan Jain (Founder, FareX Rides), share their real journey of building startups alongside their academic lives, in conversation with our COO, Dr Vishal Talwar.

Author: Ayaan Jain, BSc (Hons) Accounting and Finance

Date: Monday 08 June 2026

This article reflects the thoughts, opinions and experiences of the author, and do not necessarily represent an endorsement or the official view of University of Southampton Delhi. You should confirm and check factual information presented in this article before making decisions based on its content.