Editor’s note: Three months ago, we told you the story of students at Bharathidasan Institute of Management (BIM), Trichy where students completely managed their canteen and mess like it were a business — from buying vegetables to setting prices. Here is a similar story from Mumbai’s KJ Somaiya, demonstrating that one’s enterprising drive need not wait until after graduation.
The signage at Narayanan Palani’s Gandhigiri shop
In the age of increasing commercial consumption, Gandhian principles have had a mini-revival of sorts in the Anna Hazare anti-corruption campaign. Narayanan Palani, an executive MBA student of KJ Somaiya Institute of Management & Research (SIMSR), Mumbai seems to be walking a similar path with his ‘Gandhigiri Shop’, a little store that sells stationery. Nothing unusual about a stationery shop, except that there is nobody manning the Gandhigiri Shop. This is how it works: the customer walks into the shop, picks up whatever he wants to buy and then — wait for it — he puts the payment in a pay-box and leaves!
“The purpose is to promote value systems in students by giving them a chance to be truthful and honest,” says Narayanan. But isn’t he worried about the dishonesty of some resulting in financial losses? “Customers are aware of the value system of this venture, which is why we do not expect any losses. In any case, even if we do incur any losses, we are happy to bear them,” he says. According to Narayanan, the business model of his venture has already been demonstrated to a few entrepreneurs among KJ Somaiya alumni and now there are plans to expand the venture. Currently, Narayanan’s Gandhigiri shop is stationed in room number 417 of a hostel block at KJ Somaiya.
“The first time the concept of a Gandhigiri shop occurred to me was when my teacher in school talked about business and honesty going hand-in-hand,” says Narayanan. “It was during a conference that the entrepreneurship team, of which I am a part, presented the Gandhigiri shop model to alumni who are now entrepreneurs,” he explained.
“Recently, I shared the concept of the Gandhigiri shop with an association of teachers called ‘Teachers India’ on Google Groups and was appreciated by Dr MV Ramana, chairperson of the Board Of Studies in Sanskrit, Andhra University,” he says. Narayanan plans to expand his business to sell more types of stationery besides toothpaste, detergent and other daily-need goods over the next couple of months. “We also intend to take this business model to a few science colleges, but at this stage we are in the process of getting approvals from them,” he says.
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Khitish Kakkar and his online library book collection
Khitish Kakkar, first-year MBA student at SIMSR, started an online circulating library called www.letstalkbooks.in last September, which boasts of a collection of 500 books which customers can browse online and order for rental. Khitish, who has floated the business in partnership with Saroj Nayak, a software developer friend, delivers books to students on rent, both inside his college and to some parts of Mumbai. “I had a personal collection of about 80-100 books, which I had brought along with myself when I joined college. After coming here, I realised that this could be converted into a great business,” he says.
“I initially invested around Rs 30,000 towards the purchase of books and have made more than two hundred deliveries so far,” he says. Khitish makes the deliveries himself after classes, during breaks or on weekends. Not all the books are his own though, some are owned by Khitish’s friends too and part of the revenue coming from those books is shared back with them. The book collection spans across a wide range of genres such as fiction, business & management, philosophy, Indian authors, classics, science, math and humour. “Contemporary fiction sells the most, but we are also focussing on the mythology and philosophy genres as they have considerable readership. The Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi is doing very well at the moment,” he informs. “The pricing for college students in my campus is Rs 2 per day per book as rental with a cap of Rs 20 for a period of 10 days, while those outside college premises need to deposit Rs 200 and rent each book for Rs 50,” explains Khitish.
“In a couple of months we plan to expand the website with a new section meant to facilitate book lovers to interact with each other as well as with us and form groups amongst themselves,” he says, adding that he is interested in tying up with Mumbai-based authors like Ameesh Tripathi and Devdutt Pattanaik so that they could write for his website’s blog.
Khitish has also run a creative marketing campaign to promote his venture. “I have created an icon called ‘Bookkad’, which is a clever play of words implying ‘the hunger for books’. This is a means of advertisement for my business and is featured on a poster put up across classrooms. The venture is also getting promoted via Facebook and word-of-mouth,” he says.
The four-month-old library has made 250 deliveries including two books that have been delivered outside the campus. “‘Let’s talk books’ is the first step that I have taken in order to become an entrepreneur and I want to explore more possibilities in this area,” he says on being asked whether he is going to continue being an entrepreneur after college. Khitish plans to continue with the online circulating library, adding that anything else that he ventures into, will be in addition to this.
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Ruchir Shukla, another first year student in the MBA two-year programme at SIMSR has set up a midnight snack store called ‘Ruchir’s Snack Bar’ since September 2011. “The concept of a midnight snack shop is very novel here,” says Ruchir. “In our college, the fact that food parcels cannot be delivered inside the hostels after 10:30 pm is a rule that students find stringent,” he says explaining the opportunity that led to the snack bar. The snack bar sells eatables such as potato wafers, schezwan sticks and three flavours of coffee. The snack bar is located in the same room as that of Narayanan’s Gandhigiri shop and Khitish’s online library. It is manned by Ruchir himself.
“In the first nineteen days of it being set up, the venture made more than Rs 10,000 and has generated about Rs 35,ooo since September 2011,” he added.
“We are planning to convert the midnight snack bar into a fulltime snack bar. This has already been implemented for the weekends,” he says, when asked about whether he was planning to upgrade his venture in any way. Soon, I will team up with a collegemate and carry eatables in a bag, and deliver it in the class itself,” he describes. While Ruchir takes the profits he makes from the snacks, his friend pockets the profit made from the sales of the coffee. Ruchir plans to pass the legacy of the snack bar to nis juniors after he graduates. For now, Ruchir’s immediate plan is to get a job.