BOOTSTRAP BUSINESSES

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My first step was to call upon my small $1,000 savings account as collateral on a loan for an equal amount of cash. In this way, I reasoned, making loan payments each month would be a form of forced saving ... and, after I'd repaid the money, my $1,000 would be there to use all over again.

Next came the search for appropriate bookstore housing. After a good deal of checking around, I located what I'd been looking for a 900-square-foot building that rented for $200 a month. Using my borrowed "seed money", I furnished my place of business with $150 worth of fixtures, procured from an old book dealer ... $300 in paperback/hard -cover inventory, gathered here and there around town as the result of a small classified ad . . . and a variety of homemade store signs. My final Investment went toward the purchase of city, county, and state permits ... a set of business cards printed as bookmarks ... and a little local advertising.

In four short weeks my project had gone from the idea stage to an open bookstore: I was finally in business for myself! In the first month, my bookstore pulled in $293 ... and—in eight weeks more—both my gross and my Inventory had nearly doubled! I was in my glory ... but, alas, winter had ended and it was time to move on to Indiana as my wife and I had planned. So we sold our little enterprise to a local business broker for a whopping total of $5,000!

In Indiana at last, my family was able to make use of its bookstore profits to purchase four wooded homestead acres. I've taken a job working for someone else now. But pretty soon I expect to have some "seed money" built up once again ... and when I do, MOTHER's sure to have another business opportunity awaiting me.

Who knows ... the next time you hear from me I could be cookin' up a homemade breakfast from my newly opened health food restaurant!

John D. Long
Bloomington, Ind.

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