How To Make Money From Nothing? — A Real Life Incident

Starting a business or being an entrepreneur is not a joyful ride. Many people or even institutions say that they teach entrepreneurship. For me, it’s an art to be practised consistently for years. Every minute is a new learning in an entrepreneurs life, which includes lots of joy and risks.

I started my first business when I was studying class 10. I lived in a small town, and every year we celebrate our town goddess festival for a couple of weeks. The entire town will be adorned, and people enjoy drama, musical nights, dance shows and more celebrations every night.

Photo by Rangarajan Ragunathan on Unsplash

Joining with my friend, we thought of doing advertisement through public address system. We prepare a script for every shop in the town and record it with the voice over artist and play it in a market street where the people crowd is high.

So thought of starting our sales pitch. There was a problem. We need to print a receipt to give when they pay us money. Printing the receipt book would cost us INR 150 ($15 as of the year 1982). We need money to print else we couldn’t start.

We don’t have money. We feared to ask family members, as they may dump our entrepreneurial spirit.

So, What to do?

No pocket money! No support from family! What is the way forward?

Felt like the roads are closed. Budding entrepreneurial thoughts are descending to rest. Real entrepreneurs never settle for rest. The desire for success will burn within them always.

We have only one month for the town festival. Tik…Tok… Tik… Tok…

One beautiful morning, my grandma called and asked me to get some small pieces of coconut from our neighbour to prepare Chutney for our breakfast. I think it runs out of stock faster that week.

As the stores are closed in the early morning, we couldn’t get it from the market. So, we get it from the neighbour and repay it once the market opens.

Got a spark!

YES! Why can’t we implement the same principle in our business?

We live in a small town. Most of the merchants know us.

We planned to collect INR 50 ($5 as of the year 1982) for advertising for the whole two weeks.

So, I approached a few and told them we are planning to do an advertisement during our town festival, and it would cost INR 50 ($5 as of the year 1982). I offered them a deal for just INR 30 ($3 as of the year 1982) and said we give you the receipt in a couple of days. They agreed. Collected money from five known merchants and printed the receipt book.

We did it. First, five receipts were given and approached the rest of the merchants in our town by saying already five peopled joined. It worked, collected a total of 40 advertisements.

Simple Calculation here:

5 x INR 30 = INR 150
35 X INR 50 = INR 1750
so, the total receipt was INR 1900 ($190)
We spend
Receipt Printing — INR 150
Audio Recording — INR 300
Audio Equipment Rent— INR 500
Local Municipal Fee — INR 100

So the total expense come at INR 1050 ($105), resulting in a net profit of INR 850 ($85)

It is amazing! Isn’t it?

We harvested money without anything.

It is not a story. It is my life experience, and my entrepreneurial journey begins from there. Entrepreneurship is a never-ending story.

Money is not everything in one’s life. You need to find and search for alternative ways to earn it. What every entrepreneur should have is the desire to be an Entrepreneur.

For Entrepreneurial success, strategy is essential. However, as is proven every day — what truly matters is developing the mindset that will help you turn your business into a million-dollar entity. Focus your mindset and train your psychology to create and seize opportunities. Learn to manage risk, and your entrepreneurial success is guaranteed.