A Business Venture – and watching it grow!

Photo: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

Starting something new, especially in the beginning of the New Year is always very exciting. We get ourselves a shiny new notebook and write down everything that we want to do in the new year. With 'losing weight' and 'saving more money' topping the lists, many young professionals also make vows to start a new venture, stepping into the world of business, taking the title 'entrepreneur' seriously for the very first time.

While one group signs up for classes and workshops on business assistance and training programmes, makes an excel sheet for anything and everything on their laptops, another bunch just jumps into the sea and prepares for a first time, long-term session of deep sea diving. Next, choosing a location, thinking of interior designing, financing the business, registering the name and so much more.

Even half a century ago, educated Bengalis would prefer to be identified as government officials, foreign affairs personnels and of course, doctors, engineers and professors to add to the 'respectable' list. Of course their ancestors had spent their lives ruling over regions and villages as Zamindars, reaping profit from lands left to them by their elders, through agriculture and tenancy. It is only in the last decade or more that entrepreneurship has become an integral part of the youth's modern-day life in Bangladesh.

17-year-old Morshed Alam is a student of class 12 at the Ispahani School in Chittagong and is busy preparing for his Higher Secondary examinations to be held this year. A cricket enthusiast, Morshed however spends extra time after school working on his new Tee-shirt business. "I made around 56,000 takas last year, with a 35,000 taka profit – and too by selling tee-shirts," says a jubilant Morshed. Along with class friends, Morshed rented a small space inside a workshop near his school, where every evening, he and his friends would design and supervise the creating of the 'cool' and 'rad' tee-shirts that all youngsters seem to be in love with in Chittagong. "I am not sure if I would like to spend tee-shirts for the rest of my life," says the teenager. "My mother wants to be a professor at a university or work at a corporate company like my older cousin in Dhaka. But I think I will pursue with business. I will continue creating designs for young people – be it tee-shirts or watches or caps."

Starting a business venture and spending at least 6-7 months developing the business is a lesson that one seldom learns at educational institutions. You learn all about sourcing items, generate writing skills and marketing skills, become a better public speaker and also become more sensitive to people around you, especially those working for you.

"I started this restaurant just 15 days ago and already I feel that I have had a crash course on how the world of food business actually runs," says Nayeem Salaam, owner of a small kichuri shop in Mohammadpur. "Every day I sit with my team twice; once early in the morning to discuss about hygiene issues, not wasting food, kitchen and service etc. We sit at the end of the day once again to discuss any kind of changes we need to make the next day, shopping list and other inputs. These daily routines have made me realise that my team will be calm and happy only if I can create a suitable environment for them. Also, I now know all the vegetable and meat shopping spots in Dhaka where I make my own purchases, plus I spend some time in the kitchen taking care of hygiene and learning to cook a few dishes myself!"

In nutshell, if you have an idea that you have been twiddling with for some time, maybe you should go for it and give it a try. You never know, that just might be your calling!