My first entrepreneurship -The library

When was the first time you created something, ran it as a business, had costumers and made a revenue. No.. I am not talking about the business you ran after you graduated from college..No.. Not that.. Go a little back... It could be games stall you could have put up in the annual school fair or some services you could have provided for which you would have earned money, way back when you were in school.

The one I started was when I was around 8 years old and even today it brings a smile on my face when I remember it.

It was a library that we had started.

One evening as I was playing on the terrace of a friend's home, I overheard her mother share with another aunty that the children in a nearby colony had started a library. In my mind I thought, “We too have a lot of books…”

We did read a lot - my brother, especially, was known for his interest in reading and we had a huge collection of Amar Chitra Kathas(ACK) at home. Brother read the ACKs and I read the Twinkles:) And of course, there would be the odd chacha choudaris or Phantoms or an Alice in Wonderlands. “But yes! We did have books!” I thought as I slept that night.

The next day, I woke up with a plan in my mind.

I needed a team :D and I spoke to my brother and the two next door neighbourhood girls and enrolled them in to the idea of starting the library.

We put all our story books together and made a collection of about 25 books - not bad at all to start a library. And then we looked for a big bath tub.

Why did I need a bath tub? Because my friend's mother had mentioned that those children had kept their books in bath tubs. So of course, we needed a bath tub to keep our books.

We finally found two huge bath tubs in my neighbour's house and borrowed it. We placed the books in the bath tub – we placed the books vertically and then placed them horizontally and then placed them against the bath tub sides – but the books just wouldn’t stay. Finally, after some juggling, we did find an arrangement to display the books. We fixed a membership fee at two rupees per person.

The next thing we needed to do was marketing - so we made small handwritten pamplets and went to each of our friends house to distribute them. The aunties there seemed to be curious and amused at our idea. Some of them seemed incredulous. Well, it was embarrassing - but we went about our duties. In the silent moments I would have in between setting up a library, I would silently wonder though - what was the incredulous look about. :D

The library started the next day – two bath tubs and twenty five books. Five friends came in and enrolled into the library. The library was operational! We had started with zero investment and we had made ten rupees too!

Now the big question, what could we do with the ten rupees? So we discussed and bought two new amar chitra kathas.

At the start of day 2 we had two new amar chitra kathas and more curiosities from some more aunties.

Not knowing what more to do with the library and not able to handle the curious attention, we sat together at the end of day 3 to decide the fate and future of our library.

And here was what we decided - The two new ACKs would go to the neighbourhood girls who had contributed their books. The tubs would go back to its rightful owner. We would ensure that the borrowed books would be returned back to the library and we would close down our first successful venture.

What was your first entrepreneurship ? :)