I started my first company at 14 and am on to my third at 21, while still in college. Here’s my best advice for new entrepreneurs.

Srikar Srinivasan.

Courtesy of Srikar Srinivasan Srikar Srinivasan, a Babson student, cofounded Arcangel, an AI platform for intellectual property.

He suggests entrepreneurs identify personal problems to develop business ideas based on their lives.

He also advises talking to 100 potential customers to validate business ideas before development.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Srikar Srinivasan , a 21-year-old Babson College student and cofounder of Arcangel, an AI-driven intellectual-property platform.

He's currently living in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I've wanted to be an entrepreneur since I was in the fourth grade.

During my summers in elementary and middle school, I attended coding camps , hackathons, and innovation programs throughout New Jersey.

When I was 14, I got my first business idea after being in charge of walking my dogs and cleaning their paws.

It was an automatic pet paw washer, and I filed for a patent for it.

That same year, I sold the company, Comzys , for a six-figure sum to ARCOMM Tech Solutions.

When I was 16, I used some of that capital to start a STEM learning company called Stricx .

When my friends and I left for college, we passed the company down to our younger siblings and friends.