IT's amazing how many people believe that the stock market is an extremely complicated, boring and difficult to understand monster.

Of course, they are the ones who have never invested in the markets.

You, however, don't need to know alien terms to understand the stock market. I believe in keeping things simple.

In fact, I often try to make sense of what some analysts are saying on business television!

Let me tell you what I often tell some of my first-timer clients. It is about my first venture, The Indian Lemonade Company. I initiated it when I was at school in the Middle East.

I was 12 years old then. My school had organised a fair, where students could take a stall on rent and sell whatever they liked.

I liked the idea -- I could make money from it. A few days later, I was sipping nimbu paani, thinking what to do. That is when I got the idea of setting up a nimbu paani stall.

Read more great start up ideas: She prefers chocolates to a 9-to-5 job!

To rent the stall, including purchasing ingredients, I needed around Rs 1,000 (I have converted the currency to Indian Rupees to simplify it).

With Rs 1,000, I could make 1,000 glasses of nimbu paani. Each glass would be sold for Rs 5. So if I sold all the glasses, I would easily make Rs 5,000. But I didn't have the cash to start off. I had Rs 100. So I approached my dad with my plan. He liked the idea, but suggested sharing it with my friends and getting money from them. He said if my plan was so good, anybody would give me money.

Photograph: Associated Press/ Jens Panduro

1 | 2 | 3 |  

e-mail: Yogesh Chabria

Suggest a story idea! Write to us!