On Mumbai’s bustling pavements—from Crawford Market to Dadar—street entrepreneurs quietly run some of the most dynamic micro-enterprises imaginable. Using pushcarts and sheer hustle, these entrepreneurs display razor-sharp financial discipline, supply-chain agility, and customer understanding that equals and often exceeds theoretically trained minds in air-conditioned boardrooms.

These vendors are not side-hustlers; with hundreds of thousands operating in Mumbai and generating over ₹15,000 crore annually, they form the city’s invisible economic backbone. Their toolkit—informal credit cycles, trust-based supplier networks, rapid turnover, and intuitive market sensing runs at lightning speed without software or MBA jargon. They manage bribes not just as a burden but as de facto “operational fees,” navigating governance gaps with adaptability and resilience. 

Meanwhile, business schools remain fixated on Silicon Valley case studies and polished presentations. They rarely make space for the street: a living classroom of lean operations, contextual marketing, and adaptive problem-solving. By collaborating with street vendors, students can ground theory in real-world complexity building financial tools, shadowing vendor workflows, and co-developing low-cost innovations. This experiential dive doesn’t just enrich learning; it democratizes entrepreneurship and bridges formal-informal economic divides.