It was 10.30 am, and I still hadn’t heard from Sathish, who was supposed to send me a message with the business start time and end time as well as his team’s plan for the day. I wondered if they were alright, I wondered if they were even doing their business as they did not take any money from me on the previous day.
After the previous day’s business, we had realized that tender coconut was a good business to continue as we had been reaching our targets fully for the last 2 days. We started early that day at 8.00am as it was a new location we wanted to get there early and set up. We had 35 pieces, each cost us about Rs.8. We found a place on Devanahalli highway, under a big banyan tree. It had enough shade for us to comfortably do our work. 2 hours went by and we only sold 5 pieces. That was unusually slow given the heat and the number of people on the highway who rode and drove up and down. We decided to stay for 2 more hours hoping the sales would increase but we only managed to sell 2 more. We made 7 sales in 4 hours. We were deeply disappointed and couldn’t figure out how we could have done better. We started to get back to Vijayapura, and on our way asked a few vendors if they’d be interested in buying from us at the price we bought. All of them refused. On reaching Vijayapura, we stopped near the Government hospital and divided ourselves so that we could finish selling what we have left over.
It was 1 pm and all the teams had slowly started to come in and there was still no sign of Sathish and Team. Teams came in earlier than usual as all of them experienced low sales. Upon enquiring, I realized that PU results were out, and the teams were restricted from entering college premises. The classroom was a total chaos. Teams were confused with their calculations, some hadn’t had their lunch and wanted to get over with the class soon. All of them wanted my attention at the same time. I hadn’t had my breakfast or lunch and I could tell I was losing patience and getting irritated. It was 3pm and there was still no sign of Sathish and team.
Just then, 2-3 customers came to for tender coconuts and people just kept coming. Patients, pregnant women, old people, all of them moving in and out of hospital came to us. It is then that it suddenly hit us that there was nobody selling tender coconut to drink. There is shop opposite to us selling fruits and cold drinks, a shop next to us selling buttermilk, another tea but no one selling tender coconut. It suddenly lifted our energies and we managed to sell out everything in less than 90 mins. At that moment, we wished we had more in stock as there were more customers. We have learned that tender coconut around hospitals is a good idea, given the climate and all the health benefits it comes with. Also, it was reasonably priced. We were joyous to finally count all our earnings from the day. Turns out, we invested Rs.270 to buy 35 pieces of coconuts and sold them at the rate of Rs.25 per piece. We made profits of Rs.605.
We felt really proud because all four of us put in our own money in starting today’s business and didn’t expect this would happen.
Sathish and team enter with extraordinary pride and joy on their faces. I was just relieved to have them back, but they had a success story that they couldn’t wait to share with me:) And it goes something like this “After yesterday’s business, we realized that tender coconut….”
This team has decided to invest their own money for the next few days in the business.
Ownership: Check
