The path of an entrepreneur!

An 18-year old boy was riding his bicycle through the lanes of his locality on a sunny afternoon

Feeling a bit thirsty the boy stopped next to a fruit juice counter and ordered a glass of orange juice without sugar and the ice cubes

He liked the taste that way but the first sip made him feel so bitter that he remarked about the taste with the juice maker and requested a fresh glass of juice

The vendor simply ignored the boy and focused on serving the other client's, the repeated pleas from the boy fell on deaf ears and even the few of the customers who tried to support the boy's request didn't yield the desired result

The boy controlled his rising anger since he felt that it may not serve the purpose, would rather deteriorate the situation and probably end up in him getting beaten too

His mind began to analyse the possible reason behind the indifference shown towards him and as to why a vendor would consciously lose a customer

He concluded on the following possibilities 👇
👉 as a boy he wasn't an important client nor a threat
👉 stock of oranges weren't of good quality
👉 lethargic attitude by the vendor due to almost nil competition
👉 the vendor wasn't keen on upscaling the business
👉 or it was a momentary reaction

Irrespective of these reasons what wasn't acceptable was the behaviour of the vendor and the boy decided to think more about this

He slept over this incident and the next day dawn, dawned on him that instead of spending further time educating the vendor, it would be wiser to capitalize on the situation

The boy teamed up with one of his underprivileged classmates to assist him in sharing the responsibility of running a fruit juice counter

He prepared a written presentation on the profitability & demands for healthy competition for a fruit juice counter in their locality and presented it to his father, seeking financial support

He also explained the existing gap of the unsatisfactory client's who frequent the fruit juice counter due to the lack of competition

To not discourage a teenager and deny an opportunity for his son, the father funded the venture and even stood by him to complete the official formalities

The boys for the first year opened the counter only in the evening hours after attending the college classes

They paid close attention to the quality of the fruits supplied, the quality of the distilled water and the overall hygiene conditions

They respected each customer feedback, made improvements accordingly and kept the client relations as their priority

Despite the growing business, the boys stuck to their principles and avoided opening the shop in their absence

By the second year, they identified a local school dropout friend who was in dire need of a job to support his family

They took him in, asked the friend to employ an assistant to man the shop during peak hours, paid him well and gave the friend a free hand to progress

In a short period, the fruit counter turned into a kind of landmark of that area and the business flourished

After securing their university qualifications, the friends decided to expand the business and prepared a project report and business plan on these lines

They shared their business plans with a few of their college mates and invited them to join the team to grow together

They altered the business functional plans from a salaried version to a profit-sharing model and this went well with all the friends who showed their interest to join the team

The team of friends split the responsibilities of locating add on spots for juice counters across the city, reaching out to the financial institutions, identifying wholesale fruit suppliers and enrolling local assistants for the multiple planned outlets

That financial year saw the team growing into two dozen active members and a dozen outlets established at the various vantage locations in their city

The friends resolved to get together on the fourth Saturday night hours of each month to relax, talk, plan and sort any indifferences that had raised

The standalone pub which they frequented on the fourth Saturday was a niche spot with limited space and a friendly atmosphere

But the staff attrition rate was high as their team leader lacked enthusiasm and this naturally affected the quality of customer service, food taste & the ambience

The young boy saw an opportunity here too as he felt that this gap of unprofessional team management can be bridged to improve the quality of service at the pub

He fixed an appointment to meet the founder of that pub, met him with his team of friends cum business associates, presented their past performances, highlighted the missing link in his pub establishment

Explained in detail the growing potentiality of that business and offered to team up with the founder to take the joint efforts, forward

Curious the founder asked for a week to decide, employed his trusted assistant to study the youngster's performances at their various outlets and duly called for a meeting on the weekend

The founder revealed his past life as a peasant to the founder of the conglomerate of companies, praised the youngster's dedication and their business acumen

The founder not only offered the team of youngsters the opportunity to manage the pub but also invited them to open their juice counters at all the office spaces of his group of companies

The young team didn't disappoint the founder's judgement of their mettle, turned the pub into a rocking place, established 20 juice counters at the various office spaces manned by the housekeeping department of the respective offices

In the course of the next 5 calendar years, the young team expanded the juice counters into supermarkets, developed juice vending machines and entered into a franchise model of business growth

Today the young team are an established corporate group with a diversified portfolio of business ventures operating under standalone and franchise models

The young boy who has grown into a fine young man, despite the large growth in business always kept in touch with his first juice counter and came to know that the owner of the juice counter where he was mistreated had piled up huge debts and suffering due to old age too

The young man casually met the old man, didn't reveal the past, introduced himself as the founder of the juice empire and offered to buy his juice counter at a fancy price that will address the old man's financial debts and as well provide him with the fund to sustain his livelihood

The old man was bewildered since he couldn't understand the business logic behind this shrewd young man's offer of taking over his failed business at such a huge value

The young man after handing over the cheque to the old hailing man said 👇
"But for your stupidity, I wouldn't have realised my ability"

With that, he walked out into the wide-open world with a content smile 🙏🏼

*The world is an ocean of opportunity for the well deserved 👍

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