From Kathmandu to Australia, Aarohi Sharma’s story sits at the intersection of entrepreneurship, technology, migration and reinvention. In Nepal, she is publicly listed as the co-founder and chief operating officer of Zookti, a Kathmandu-based technology company founded in 2020. In Australia, her public professional profile places her in Norlane, Victoria, while listing studies at Deakin University. The two chapters are not contradictory. Together, they show how a new generation of Nepali entrepreneurs is learning to build across borders rather than inside one fixed geography.

Zookti itself emerged from a straightforward premise: make technology simpler. The company describes its work as creating digital products and services that reduce complexity for users. Its public materials list areas including branding, web and mobile applications, content creation and digital marketing, while its team page identifies Aarohi Sharma as co-founder and COO alongside founder and CEO Ishant Sitaula. The company says it was founded in 2020 and has developed multiple products and projects since then. Those details matter because Aarohi’s story is not simply one of someone moving abroad after working in Nepal. It is the story of someone who helped build a company in Kathmandu and is now carrying that experience into a new environment.

Starting with the operational side of entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is often described through founders, ideas and launches. Much less attention is paid to operations: the systems, people, schedules, clients, finances and follow-through that determine whether an idea becomes a functioning business. The COO role sits in that less glamorous but essential part of a company. It requires translating ambition into repeatable execution.

For a young company such as Zookti, that kind of work would have meant dealing with the realities of a small but expanding team, multiple client needs, product development and the constant pressure to make limited resources stretch further. Zookti’s own public description reflects that practical focus. It calls itself an IT company built around simplifying digital problems and turning them into usable products and services rather than technology for its own sake.

That operating mindset is important when looking at Aarohi’s trajectory. The distinction between “having an idea” and “building something that works” is one of the hardest lessons in entrepreneurship. In small markets, it is even harder. Founders often need to be strategists, salespeople, recruiters, project managers and problem-solvers at the same time. A COO in such an environment is rarely confined to one department.

Zookti and the attempt to make technology practical

Zookti’s public-facing language repeatedly returns to simplicity. Its website says the company exists to create solutions and products that address specific needs, while its service portfolio covers branding, web and mobile applications, content creation and digital marketing. That combination is revealing. It places Zookti somewhere between a software company, a creative agency and a digital services business.

That hybrid model is common in Nepal’s technology sector. Pure product companies often face a smaller domestic market and limited early-stage funding, so many build a mixture of service revenue and product experimentation. The advantage is resilience: client work can finance the team while internal products create longer-term upside. The risk is fragmentation: a company can become too spread out, doing many things without developing one clear competitive edge.

Zookti appears to have embraced the first side of that trade-off. Its website lists a broad set of capabilities and positions the company as a place where clients can simplify different parts of their digital operations. The Zookti Store has also expanded into creator-oriented products such as tripods, mobile video lights and ring lights, moving the brand beyond conventional software services and into practical tools for digital creators.

Aarohi’s association with that wider business model helps explain why her story belongs as much in a conversation about modern entrepreneurship as it does in technology. Building a company like Zookti means dealing with product positioning, operational systems, brand development and customer behavior at the same time.

From an IT company to creator gear

Zookti Store’s own account dates the venture to 2021 and says it has served thousands of creators. These are company-reported claims, rather than independently audited figures. The store links its origins to Zookti’s work in digital services.

For Nepal’s photographers, food creators, educators and small retailers, the first production setup may be a phone, a tripod and a light. Selling into that market involves practical questions of portability, reliability and after-sales support.

Why product businesses are harder than they look

Consumer accessories can appear simple from the outside. A tripod looks like a pole, clamp and stand. A mobile light looks like LEDs, a battery and a casing. But a product business has to manage tolerances, materials, hinges, packaging, testing, replacement rates and after-sales support. The cheaper the product category, the less room there may be for expensive mistakes.

There is also the problem of differentiation. Nepalese consumers can access imported products across a wide price range. Competing only on price is dangerous because a local brand will rarely beat the largest regional manufacturers on scale. It has to compete on some combination of availability, trust, warranty, design, local support, product selection and brand identity.

Zookti’s move into creator gear therefore represents a more difficult entrepreneurial path than simply reselling generic technology. The long-term test is whether the brand can create enough confidence that customers choose it deliberately rather than because it happens to be available.

This is where operations and brand-building meet. Marketing can get a product into someone’s feed. Operations determine whether that person recommends it six months later.

Why Australia changes the frame

The move to Australia adds another dimension. Aarohi’s current public professional profile places her in Victoria and lists Deakin University from 2026 to 2027. That shift reflects a pattern increasingly visible among Nepali professionals: experience is built in Nepal, then tested and expanded abroad.

Migration is often discussed as a one-way loss for Nepal. In the simplest version of the story, skilled people leave, and the country loses their talent. That does happen. But the reality is more complicated. Some people leave after they have already built businesses, networks and professional identities in Nepal. Their move can become an extension of that work rather than a complete departure from it.

For an entrepreneur, Australia offers exposure to a larger, more structured market, different customer expectations, stronger regulatory systems and a more mature startup ecosystem. It also imposes a higher bar. Competition is tougher, labour is more expensive, consumers have more choices and credibility often has to be rebuilt from zero.

That creates an interesting test for someone coming from a smaller entrepreneurial ecosystem. Skills that worked in Kathmandu may still matter, but assumptions do not always transfer. A product, brand or operating style that makes sense in Nepal may need to be rethought for Australia. The value of the move lies partly in that friction.

From local experience to cross-border thinking

The most compelling part of Aarohi’s journey is not the geography itself. It is the possibility of cross-border thinking. Someone who has worked inside Nepal’s constraints learns a particular kind of resourcefulness. Budgets are smaller, teams are leaner and formal systems may be weaker, so founders often compensate with speed, personal networks and improvisation.

Australia demands a different set of strengths: documentation, process, compliance, specialization and the ability to operate inside mature institutions. Neither model is automatically superior. The interesting question is what happens when someone learns from both.

That combination can create a more adaptable entrepreneur. Nepal teaches how to do more with less. Australia can teach how to scale within clearer systems. One environment rewards improvisation; the other often rewards repeatability. A founder who understands both may be better positioned to build businesses that can move across markets.

This is where Aarohi’s story becomes larger than one company. Nepal’s next generation of entrepreneurs will increasingly be international by default. Their customers, employees, investors and education may be spread across multiple countries. The old distinction between “Nepal-based” and “foreign-based” will become less useful as remote work, digital products and diaspora networks make those categories overlap.

The diaspora advantage — and its limits

Nepalis abroad are often described as a source of remittance, but that is a narrow measure of their economic role. Diaspora professionals can also carry market knowledge, technology, investment networks, management practices and access to customers. For entrepreneurs, that can be more valuable over time than money transfers alone.

But diaspora status is not automatically an advantage. It can also produce distance. Entrepreneurs living abroad may misread how quickly the Nepal market is changing, while businesses in Nepal may overestimate the value of a foreign location. Simply being in Australia does not create market access, investment or credibility. Those have to be earned.

That is the sharper way to read Aarohi’s position. The Australia chapter is meaningful because it expands her exposure, not because Australia itself guarantees success. The long-term value will depend on whether that exposure feeds back into better decision-making, stronger networks and more sophisticated business execution.

A woman building inside Nepal’s technology ecosystem

There is also a gender dimension to the story. Technology entrepreneurship in Nepal remains visibly male-dominated at senior levels. Women are present across design, marketing, operations, engineering and management, but far fewer are publicly identified as founders or C-suite leaders.

Aarohi’s role as co-founder and COO therefore matters without needing to turn her story into a symbolic one. The strongest case for representation is not that every woman founder should be treated as exceptional, but that women should become ordinary participants in ownership and leadership.

That requires more than visibility. It requires access to capital, professional networks, mentorship, technical talent and the freedom to take business risks without being judged by a different standard. A profile like Aarohi’s is useful because it shows a woman occupying an operational leadership role in a technology company, not merely being presented as a brand ambassador or public face.

The challenge of building beyond the founder story

Zookti’s future, like that of any young company, will not be determined by its origin story. It will be determined by what it can sustain. The company currently presents a broad set of services and products, and that breadth creates both opportunity and strategic risk.

The opportunity is clear: Nepal’s digital economy still has room for companies that can combine software, branding, content and practical digital tools. Small and medium businesses often want integrated solutions rather than multiple vendors. Creator-focused hardware adds another potential market as social media, online commerce and digital content continue to grow.

The risk is also clear. A company that tries to be a software studio, agency, product developer and hardware brand simultaneously can dilute its focus. The next stage of maturity usually requires deciding which capabilities are core, which are supporting services and which should be abandoned.

For someone with an operations background, that is exactly the kind of question that becomes more important as a company grows. Early entrepreneurship rewards hustle. Later entrepreneurship rewards prioritization.

What the Australia chapter could mean for Zookti

Zookti’s corporate website presents its Kathmandu base, while the Australian store advertises local shipping and lists Zookti Pty Ltd in its footer. That is public evidence of an Australian retail presence. It does not, by itself, establish Aarohi’s ownership of that entity or show that the Kathmandu company has relocated.

Aarohi’s personal and professional geography has expanded, alongside a brand now presenting stores for customers in Nepal and Australia. How her role connects the two operations still requires an on-the-record account from her or the company. Exposure to different customers, technologies and networks offers possibilities; it does not establish future business plans.

The distinction matters. Good profiles should not turn every move abroad into an expansion announcement or every founder into a global success story before the evidence exists. The more interesting story is often the unfinished one: a person moving between ecosystems, carrying previous experience while discovering what still needs to be learned.

A new model of Nepali entrepreneurship

Aarohi Sharma’s journey represents a model that is likely to become more common. Build something in Nepal. Learn from the constraints. Move, study or work abroad. Keep professional links alive. Then decide whether the next opportunity belongs in Nepal, overseas or somewhere between the two.

This model complicates the conventional brain-drain debate. A founder living in Australia can still contribute to a company in Kathmandu. A Nepali startup can sell internationally without relocating its entire team. An entrepreneur can return later with deeper experience, or remain abroad while investing, mentoring or building across borders.

The important issue is not where the person sleeps at night. It is whether knowledge, ownership, networks and economic value remain connected to Nepal in some meaningful way.

The story is still being written

Zookti’s public record establishes the core facts: the company was founded in 2020, operates from Kathmandu, works across digital services and products, and lists Aarohi Sharma as co-founder and COO. Her current professional profile places her in Victoria, Australia, with Deakin University as part of her latest chapter. Beyond that, the future is still open.

That uncertainty is not a weakness in the story. It is what makes it relevant. Entrepreneurship rarely unfolds as a clean sequence of launch, growth and success. It is usually a series of transitions, experiments and recalibrations.

From Kathmandu to Australia, Aarohi Sharma’s journey is best understood not as a departure from one identity into another, but as an expansion of the same entrepreneurial path. Zookti gave her a platform to learn what it means to build. Australia may now give her a different environment in which to test those lessons.

For Nepal, the larger question is whether people like Aarohi remain connected strongly enough for their next stage of growth to create value on both sides of the border. It is also the question behind building a Nepal-based business while living abroad. If that happens, migration does not have to mean disconnection. It can become part of a more international form of Nepali entrepreneurship.