A few weeks ago, Mala, a dynamic lady in her late thirties asked me, "I want to launch a political party or a religious entity. Is it a good idea?"
I replied, "We are living in a free country. Our constitution guarantees freedom of expression and you are free to follow your own beliefs and faith, whether political or religious. But I am curious to know why you want to do it?"
"I would like to start a small new not-for-profit school that will impart the best education to the poor and lower middle class. To make this happen, I need two lakh Rupees. After spending several weeks of unsuccessful fund raising campaign I have come to the conclusion that the easiest routes to unlimited supply of money is politics and religion," said Mala.
"I am happy to know about your aspiration. Money generally does not flow freely into good projects. Besides you don't have to shake the earth for two lakh Rupees " before I could finish, Mala asked me, "Are you going to give the money I need to me?"
"No," I said, "A wise man once said. 'Give the unemployed some money; he will be happy for a day. Give him the knowledge to earn money; he will be happy for the rest of his life.' I will follow his advice and want to make you happy for the rest of your life. Tell me how soon do you need the money?" "Say six months," said Mala.
"That's an eternity. I am sure you would not mind working hard to earn money online and using it for your project. Because it is easy to start an online venture and test new ideas, tens of thousands of people use their imagination to the maximum and come up with new ideas. Some of them succeed and some of them fail. As the cost of experience is negligible, you too can try some kind of novel online project," I said.
"A few days ago I visited a website that sells readymade assignment papers to school students. Schools give students assignments to develop their skills and knowledge. However, these types of websites corrupt the students and make money," said Mala bitterly.
I told her, "You have contracted the bad habit of looking always at the wrong side. There are thousands of projects that can make you happy. For centuries teachers used to evaluate students and in many cases the career of the students and their prosperity were directly related to the evaluation. RateMyTeachers.com reversed the evaluation method by inviting students evaluate their teachers using a rating system. As any school or college is only as good as its teachers, the schools want to have as many highly rated teachers as possible. The success of this website has created many clones."
"It would be very difficult to implement such rating system here," said Mala. I said, "Yes I understand. There are thousands of private colleges and schools in our country. They collect hefty fees from the students. Many parents believe higher the fees are, the better the quality is and get admission in such institutions only to feel sorry about their ignorance later and regret their decision. You can collect basic information about all the colleges or at least important colleges and request the parents and students rate these institutions. Hire a software professional and create a good dynamic website. Even though there are already a few websites based on this concept, they have really not taken off because of lack of marketing and difficulty in implementation. You can begin to implement this project with an investment as low as Rs. 10,000."
"I did a lot of research about schools and colleges when I prepared the project report for my school. I know where to find information and how to reach the parents. My cousin is working in a big IT company. I will talk to him about this online venture. He may be able to help me in designing the software or finding some good programmer," said Mala.
"As you have limited technical knowledge and limited financial resources, invite him to become a partner in the online project," I suggested to Mala.
A few days ago, Mala sent me this email: "My cousin and a few of his colleagues like the idea and have decided to invest in the 'rating the colleges' project. As these software professionals earn Rs. 75,000 a month, they have invested Rs.50,000 each. They have given me Rs.2 lakhs as interest free loan for starting the school and the loan amount will be adjusted against my share of profits from the rating project ."