Ever since I was a little girl, I was always interested in running my own business. My interest reflected in the games I played with my brother, where I was the seller and he was the buyer. At the age of 9, I sold twigs, grass, bunches of leaves, silver foil from cigarette packs (that I removed carefully from my father's pack) and mostly the stuff I thought my brother would be interested in buying and trading. We were not allowed to go out during summer afternoons so I had no option to expand my business.
Eventually me and my brother even opened a bank of our own to deposit our excess cash. We made our own currency notes with left-over blank pages from our notebooks, wrote numbers on them and found an old discarded bank passbook that belonged to my mother and followed the instructions. It was simple addition and subtraction so I didn't have any trouble teaching my brother. Things were simple. Business was good. My brother managed the bank and I was happy with my business. My mom didn't not mind as we were getting about our business without fighting or killing each her.
But then trouble started when my brother started printing excess currency notes in weird denominations. I had a tough time explaining to him that we cannot have currency which reads as Rs.13. Apart from having surplus cash, I had fake currency problem to deal with. Things got out of hand as my brother wouldn't stop printing fake notes. So I had to call in the authorities to report. My Mom who was otherwise very wise, brushed the matter off with a laugh without giving much importance to my problem, said it is okay and asked me to go and play.
For those who take even a little bit of interest in economics, this story must be very familiar and must ring a bell. :) Ok am not going to take a dig at Big Brother that we Indians follow blindly. But the outcome with my little business was, I did not approve my brother's currency. Business suffered and we both found other things to do and the game fizzled out. That was a child's play so it was okay. But what we have now in our country is not a game that 8-9 yrs old kids play on summer afternoons. This is gigantic and beyond imagination for its magnanimity and yet is seen as trivial and small and often sidelined by government. While the government focuses only on large businesses and corporate houses, there are several small ones which are entirely out of radar yet thriving.
As a small business owner, managing my travel company now, I had a chance to interact with a energetic bunch of girls from Kasturba Gandhi College when I was giving a lecture on Entrepreneurship a few years ago. The spirit of entrepreneurship was so strong among the girls who were graduating the same year. They all dreamed of starting their own business, working from a plush office in a high rise, wearing fashionable clothes, driving expensive cars and ofcourse being extremely successful in whatever they do in their business. They were spirited. But when I asked a few of them what business they wanted to do, some drew blank, some said software exports, fashion designing, advertising, restaurant, travel etc. When I asked them how they intend to start their dream business, I was met with silence. I sensed their discomfort and reassured them that there are no wrong answers and they can freely talk about their dreams, aims and aspirations. Eventually I got an overall picture that each one of them were dreaming of doing something big and employing atleast 50-300 people. I was happy that they are considering to aim high. In the end it all the girls agreed that having something of their own will give them the freedom to be more creative at work.
That sums up the mind set of an enthusiastic entrepreneur in her twenties and the whole idea of a having their own business. The sense of freedom is the main reason we all decide to work for ourselves. As we dream, we unconsciously have a mindset of assuming that bigger is better, more is wholesome, but miss out the fact that small is beautiful, manageable and profitable. I too was no different from those young girls when I started my business. I wanted to get rich, and grow faster and sell franchises of my travel company just like how the big ones did. But I learnt my lesson in the first 3 years in business. I decided to keep it as a small and focused company offering quality and personalised services.
India's backbone is the sum of all the small businesses which aid our day to day life. These small businesses can teach you everything about running a successful business without going to an ivy league business school. As a small business owner I have decided to share my experiences and write about them by bringing out stories of real entrepreneurs and business persons in India, which media and the government conveniently overlooks.
If we look closely, these small business owners teach you anything and everything from production techniques to trading, marketing to business ethics, re-investment to customer service. They may not drive fancy cars or have shiny showrooms to display their products, some don't even have an address and a majority of these owners didn't even go to school, yet, they survive and have flourishing business to pay bills, take care of their families and even build a house, put kids in school and train them eventually to take over the family business if their kids are interested.
This blog is a small effort to appreciate these small businesses who make India, the country it is today. We can learn from their success stories and from the mistakes. There is a lot of useful information if we look closely. These businesses go selling, buying, trading, making, fixing things and services without any fancy advertising campaigns and have been silently contributing to the economy in their own little way. The efforts they put in to survive and sustain their businesses are laudable. Such businesses form into little pockets of economies which exist in all nooks and corners of our country, if we look closely and have their own self-sustaining methods to beat the odds.
I thank my dear friend Susanta who inspired me to take interest in small businesses a few years ago. Susanta, if you didn't tweak that interest in me, I would still be running around in circles trying to get an MBA. Your clues were subtle. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.
Another person who enlightened me is my Guru in Leadership class, Swami Bodhamayananda at Vivekananda Institute of Human Excellence. He redefined the whole concept of being a leader so succinctly that I stated looking at things differently from then. I saw leaders everywhere, who were creating more leaders. Till then, I saw myself as just a small business owner who took the plunge, but after taking the focus off me and started looking around with an open mind and heart, I found that leadership was everywhere in India. It exists in the spirit of entrepreneurship who all believe to change the world or atleast their surroundings by doing something on their own. These are the people who believe in change and being the change. And they are more than happy and content doing their business.
This blog is a tiny effort to learn from these entrepreneurs and leaders to see there how are they doing it so well and able to smile readily all the time. Surely they must have got something right in whatever they are doing that they don't seem stressed to me. I hope their stories will inspire many more to pursue their dreams in considering small business and taking us seriously.
Are you ready to take a leap of faith? Trust me this is one trip that you will not forget. May this new year bring you happiness and joy in abundance along with peace.
More soon...
The story behind this is equally good.
Eventually me and my brother even opened a bank of our own to deposit our excess cash. We made our own currency notes with left-over blank pages from our notebooks, wrote numbers on them and found an old discarded bank passbook that belonged to my mother and followed the instructions. It was simple addition and subtraction so I didn't have any trouble teaching my brother. Things were simple. Business was good. My brother managed the bank and I was happy with my business. My mom didn't not mind as we were getting about our business without fighting or killing each her.
But then trouble started when my brother started printing excess currency notes in weird denominations. I had a tough time explaining to him that we cannot have currency which reads as Rs.13. Apart from having surplus cash, I had fake currency problem to deal with. Things got out of hand as my brother wouldn't stop printing fake notes. So I had to call in the authorities to report. My Mom who was otherwise very wise, brushed the matter off with a laugh without giving much importance to my problem, said it is okay and asked me to go and play.
For those who take even a little bit of interest in economics, this story must be very familiar and must ring a bell. :) Ok am not going to take a dig at Big Brother that we Indians follow blindly. But the outcome with my little business was, I did not approve my brother's currency. Business suffered and we both found other things to do and the game fizzled out. That was a child's play so it was okay. But what we have now in our country is not a game that 8-9 yrs old kids play on summer afternoons. This is gigantic and beyond imagination for its magnanimity and yet is seen as trivial and small and often sidelined by government. While the government focuses only on large businesses and corporate houses, there are several small ones which are entirely out of radar yet thriving.
As a small business owner, managing my travel company now, I had a chance to interact with a energetic bunch of girls from Kasturba Gandhi College when I was giving a lecture on Entrepreneurship a few years ago. The spirit of entrepreneurship was so strong among the girls who were graduating the same year. They all dreamed of starting their own business, working from a plush office in a high rise, wearing fashionable clothes, driving expensive cars and ofcourse being extremely successful in whatever they do in their business. They were spirited. But when I asked a few of them what business they wanted to do, some drew blank, some said software exports, fashion designing, advertising, restaurant, travel etc. When I asked them how they intend to start their dream business, I was met with silence. I sensed their discomfort and reassured them that there are no wrong answers and they can freely talk about their dreams, aims and aspirations. Eventually I got an overall picture that each one of them were dreaming of doing something big and employing atleast 50-300 people. I was happy that they are considering to aim high. In the end it all the girls agreed that having something of their own will give them the freedom to be more creative at work.
She's got a production unit and a sales outlet and manages them both very well.
That sums up the mind set of an enthusiastic entrepreneur in her twenties and the whole idea of a having their own business. The sense of freedom is the main reason we all decide to work for ourselves. As we dream, we unconsciously have a mindset of assuming that bigger is better, more is wholesome, but miss out the fact that small is beautiful, manageable and profitable. I too was no different from those young girls when I started my business. I wanted to get rich, and grow faster and sell franchises of my travel company just like how the big ones did. But I learnt my lesson in the first 3 years in business. I decided to keep it as a small and focused company offering quality and personalised services.
India's backbone is the sum of all the small businesses which aid our day to day life. These small businesses can teach you everything about running a successful business without going to an ivy league business school. As a small business owner I have decided to share my experiences and write about them by bringing out stories of real entrepreneurs and business persons in India, which media and the government conveniently overlooks.
If we look closely, these small business owners teach you anything and everything from production techniques to trading, marketing to business ethics, re-investment to customer service. They may not drive fancy cars or have shiny showrooms to display their products, some don't even have an address and a majority of these owners didn't even go to school, yet, they survive and have flourishing business to pay bills, take care of their families and even build a house, put kids in school and train them eventually to take over the family business if their kids are interested.
Food business always interests me
This blog is a small effort to appreciate these small businesses who make India, the country it is today. We can learn from their success stories and from the mistakes. There is a lot of useful information if we look closely. These businesses go selling, buying, trading, making, fixing things and services without any fancy advertising campaigns and have been silently contributing to the economy in their own little way. The efforts they put in to survive and sustain their businesses are laudable. Such businesses form into little pockets of economies which exist in all nooks and corners of our country, if we look closely and have their own self-sustaining methods to beat the odds.
I thank my dear friend Susanta who inspired me to take interest in small businesses a few years ago. Susanta, if you didn't tweak that interest in me, I would still be running around in circles trying to get an MBA. Your clues were subtle. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.
Another person who enlightened me is my Guru in Leadership class, Swami Bodhamayananda at Vivekananda Institute of Human Excellence. He redefined the whole concept of being a leader so succinctly that I stated looking at things differently from then. I saw leaders everywhere, who were creating more leaders. Till then, I saw myself as just a small business owner who took the plunge, but after taking the focus off me and started looking around with an open mind and heart, I found that leadership was everywhere in India. It exists in the spirit of entrepreneurship who all believe to change the world or atleast their surroundings by doing something on their own. These are the people who believe in change and being the change. And they are more than happy and content doing their business.
She is is a small business owner.
This blog is a tiny effort to learn from these entrepreneurs and leaders to see there how are they doing it so well and able to smile readily all the time. Surely they must have got something right in whatever they are doing that they don't seem stressed to me. I hope their stories will inspire many more to pursue their dreams in considering small business and taking us seriously.
Hammocks anyone?
More soon...
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