"If you are disciplined, have a support system, and the drive to continue pushing forward; nothing is impossible."
That's how Tshering Dorji describes his path to entrepreneurship in the tiny country of Bhutan, where he says he was discouraged by his parents and friends when he first started collecting waste in the streets of Thimphu in 2009.
"Even my parents discouraged me from doing what I was doing then," the 24-year-old says, per the Telegraph of India.
But he didn't give up.
"I just wanted to bring a sustainable business solution to clean up towns," Dorji says.
Money was a problem.
In 2009, he got about $450,000 from the Loden Foundation to launch his waste-collection business in Thimphu, but it didn't perform well and he started a waste-collection center in another town but found it wasn't helping the community.
In 2014, he started a waste-collection center in Doksum and received a loan from his wife, who agreed to be equal partners.
"This waste business is a profit initiative, but as a waste entrepreneur I also have a social responsibility to educate people on how to manage their own waste and create a better environment starting from our own places," Dorji says
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