How I built a business after nearly losing my son! | Madhuri Singh | TEDxEuroSchoolKharadiWomen
The speaker, Madhuri Singh, details her journey from infertility struggle to becoming India's first school reviewer by converting personal adversities—including hospital trauma and negative feedback—into a business that empowers parents with verified school information. She found success by creating a platform that allows parents to weigh the true quality of educational institutions, leading to a massive community resource reaching 1.5 million parents across 35 groups. Her enduring advice is to manage negativity by mentally archiving it and to pray for abundance for others.
## Speakers & Context
- **Speaker:** Madhuri Singh.
- Initial profession: Software consultant in Sydney, Australia.
- Initial geographical move: From Sydney to Mumbai for her husband's startup.
- Trauma experienced: Multiple infertility treatments (IUI, IVF, surgeries, injections) causing depression and receiving insensitive questions from relatives.
- Key incident timing: February 25, 2006, when she was picking up her two and a half-year-old son from a venue in a busy Pune location.
- Initial fallout: School principal apologized for the incident, promising care, but later the Mumbai head office dismissed her trauma, leading her to feel "kicked from a cliff."
- Revelation: After opening a blog at 1 a.m., she realized the public was demanding information on two things: how to vet a school before admission and what control parents have.
- Current status: Has built a brand as a school reviewer and successfully established 35 all-India parenting groups with 1.5 million following.
## Theses & Positions
- Adversities can be transformed into opportunities to start a business.
- The primary need for modern parents is verifiable information regarding school quality, admission processes, and safety controls.
- A parent must have the power and knowledge to vet an educational institution before committing to admission.
- Establishing a centralized, trustworthy resource (the blog/platform) can build immense trust between the parent community and the reviewer.
- Dealing with negativity requires a deliberate, mental process: visualizing, archiving, and disposing of negative incidents.
## Mechanisms & Processes
- **Infertility treatment cycle:** Involving IUI, IVF, surgeries, and daily injections over years of failed attempts.
- **Business growth mechanism:** Moving from writing a personal blog to receiving calls from branches across the country, leading to formalizing the service through webinars and seminars.
- **Vetting Process (The Core Service):**
1. Waiting outside the school.
2. Observing body language of teachers, parents, and students.
3. Observing chats and gossip among mothers.
4. Entering to check security guards, CCTV, approach roads, bathrooms, and infrastructure.
5. Interviewing admission officers and every possible person.
- **Community building:** Transitioning from personal blog writing to creating dedicated groups for parents to collectively share views, moving from reviewer to facilitator.
## Timeline & Sequence
- **Past:** Worked as a software consultant in Sydney, Australia.
- **Period 1:** Moved to Mumbai; initial infertility treatments and struggles.
- **Period 2:** Moved to Pune after the second child was born; focused on putting son in the "top preschool."
- **Incident Date:** February 25, 2006, in Pune.
- **Immediate Aftermath:** School principal promises help; Head office dismisses trauma claims.
- **Pivot Point:** Around 1 a.m. at night, writing on a blog.
- **Expansion:** Receiving calls from multiple school branches across the country; starting the review process.
- **Revenue Generation:** Committing answers to comments from 2 to 3 a.m. daily, leading to parents calling her for consultations.
- **Maturity:** Developing from a personal blog to 35 all-India parenting groups, attracting product companies for consultancy.
## Named Entities
- **Madhuri Singh** — Speaker; established "India's first school reviewer."
- **Sydney, Australia** — Former place of employment.
- **Mumbai** — Location of early life events and startup movement.
- **Pune** — Location where the turning point incident with her son occurred.
- **India** — Country of operation and market focus.
- **UK, US** — International regions from which she receives calls.
## Numbers & Data
- Infertility treatment procedures: "innumerable."
- Number of children born: First baby boy, second baby boy.
- Age of lost son: Two and a half years old.
- Number of groups currently active: 35.
- Number of parents following the groups: 1.5 million.
## Examples & Cases
- **The Infertility Struggle:** Detailed passage of emotional decline due to repeated medical procedures.
- **The Lost Son Incident:** Waiting at a red light opposite a busy petrol pump in Pune; seeing the two and a half-year-old son wandering alone; the ensuing panic and the truck passing.
- **The Betrayal:** Being told by school staff that "Mrs Singh you overreacted nothing happened and so there's nothing that we need to do."
- **The Blog Discovery:** The CEO of the platform contacting her after she shared her number while writing about the incident.
- **Successful Placement:** Her sons ultimately getting into "the top schools in Pune."
- **Future Proofing:** Showing that a two and a half-year-old boy has stepped into becoming a doctor today, and her other son is a social media expert.
## Tools, Tech & Products
- **Blog/Blog Platform** — The initial tool for documenting and sharing information.
- **Group Platform** — The current organizational structure for community discussion (35 groups).
- **CCTV** — Infrastructure point observed during school visits.
## References Cited
- None mentioned (speaker builds all concepts from personal experience).
## Trade-offs & Alternatives
- **Initial Focus:** Remaining solely a mother dealing with personal medical trauma.
- **Alternative Path Rejected:** Stopping her dream of becoming a corporate leader for motherhood.
- **Current Value Proposition:** Providing necessary *information control* to prevent parents from falling into systemic misinformation regarding schools.
- **Future Potential:** Collaborating with foreign education systems due to the rapid growth of the middle class needing options.
## Counterarguments & Caveats
- **Initial Doubt:** The school staff's immediate reaction: "Mrs Singh you overreacted nothing happened and so there's nothing that we need to do."
- **Ethical Concern:** Feeling "so unfair to all the children and the parents who were already going to a particular school and could not change" by aggregating all schools for review.
## Methodology
- **Blog/Online Content Creation:** Starting by writing about personal trauma, drawing attention.
- **Deep On-Site Investigation:** Physically visiting schools to observe body language, security protocols, and infrastructure elements.
- **Multi-Stakeholder Interviews:** Speaking with admission officers and every possible person within the school campus.
- **Community Aggregation:** Building groups to foster collective parental wisdom and review participation.
## Conclusions & Recommendations
- To manage negativity, create an imaginary "black box," throw the negative incident in it, and lock it away in the "deepest part of my brain never to access it again."
- Praying for abundance for others: "May you all get ten times of what you wish for me and may i get 10 times of what i wish for you all."
- The general necessity for India to develop stronger collaborations between parents, schools, and foreign education models.
## Implications & Consequences
- The necessity for *parental oversight* as the primary defense against substandard or opaque educational institutions in India.
- The transformation of personal trauma (infertility, son's near-death experience) into a scalable, influential, and successful business model.
## Verbatim Moments
- *"i was happily working as a software consultant in sydney australia"*
- *"good news i was so depressed one day that i prayed to the universe that if i do conceive i will stop my dream of becoming the corporate leader"*
- *"i nearly lost my first son was just two and a half year old"*
- *"a truck zipped between us"*
- *"lump was growing painfully in my throat"*
- *"Mrs Singh you overreacted nothing happened and so there's nothing that we need to do"*
- *"i opened a blog"*
- *"how do we know about a school before taking admission and what do we do what control do we have once we send our children to a school"*
- *"Today i have 35 all india parenting groups with 1.5 million parents following each and every word that i write"*
- *"i throw in the negative incident negative comments negative people and sometimes kick them also then lock it and throw this box into the deepest part of my brain never to access it again"*
- *"may you all get ten times of what you wish for me and may i get 10 times of what i wish for you all"*