If you could start a new business right now, what would it be?
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I wrote a full business plan today: members, rules, running costs, the lot. Then I gave it away for free. No, I have not lost my mind. Yes, you can have it too.
Turning the giveaway into the closing twist.
A Business Plan, With One Condition
If you could start a new business right now, what would it be?
I have an answer, and I have worked it out in some detail: what it is, who it serves and how it pays its way. Let me lay it out plainly, the way a founder would. There is one condition attached, which I will come to at the end.
1. What it is
A neighbourhood time bank.
Members trade skills by the hour. One hour spent teaching someone to use a smartphone earns one hour of learning to cook, play the keyboard or fix a leaking tap. Every hour is worth the same, whether it belongs to a surgeon or a student.
The currency is time, and nobody gets more than twenty-four hours a day.
2. Who it serves
It serves retired people with skills and time but fewer opportunities to be asked for either. It serves young people with energy and technical skills but little money, and newcomers who know nobody on their street.
A Tamil saying traditionally attributed to Avvaiyar puts the case in one line: what we have learned is a handful of sand, and what we have not learned is the size of the world.¹ A time bank lets a street pool its handfuls.
3. How it runs
A simple app, or even a paper ledger, records hours given and received. A part-time coordinator matches requests with offers and checks that members are who they say they are.
The coordinator’s pay comes from a modest annual membership fee. Local businesses can sponsor the initiative, and schools or other institutions could use it to support approved community-service activities.
Costs stay low because the value comes from the members’ time, skills and willingness to help one another.
4. What it refuses
It would take no commission on hours. It would not sell members’ data or rank them with stars.
And it would never let anyone buy hours with money, because the moment time can be bought, the rich will own the calendar.
5. An old principle behind a modern design
The idea that knowledge grows when shared is very old.
A popular Sanskrit verse describes the ways learning surpasses other forms of wealth.² Thieves cannot steal it, kings cannot seize it and brothers cannot divide it, and unlike material treasure, it grows through use and sharing.
An Islamic teaching holds that when a person dies, their deeds come to an end except three, one of which is knowledge that continues to benefit others.³
The Panchatantra shows how stories and knowledge can travel across cultures. Its fables moved from India into Middle Persian, then Arabic, and subsequently into other languages through translation, adaptation and retelling.⁴
6. The honest objection
Time banks are not new. Versions of time-based exchange have existed for decades in many countries, and some have struggled to remain active once the founding enthusiasm faded. Hours can be difficult to balance fairly, and generous members can tire of giving more than they receive.
Every founder also knows the old saying that ideas are cheap and execution is everything.
All of this is true.
7. The condition
That is exactly why I would not start this business myself.
I would give it away.
Everything above is yours to copy, rename and run on your own street, with no licence, no fee and no credit required.
When Jonas Salk was asked who held the patent on his polio vaccine, he famously replied, “Could you patent the sun?“⁵
A time bank belongs to the neighbourhood that runs it, and a founder who does not live there would be the wrong owner.
If ideas are cheap, giving this one away costs me little. If execution is everything, then it belongs to whoever lives on the street and is willing to knock on the doors.
At this stage of life, I am less interested in owning things than in seeing them used.
My contribution is the blueprint.
Yours can be the first hour.
What idea are you holding on to that might do more good if you gave it away?
Notes
¹ “Katrathu kaimann alavu, kallathathu ulagalavu”, a saying traditionally attributed to the Tamil poet Avvaiyar.
² A well-known Sanskrit subhashita, or verse of wisdom, widely taught in Indian schools.
³ Recorded in the hadith collection Sahih Muslim.
⁴ The Panchatantra is a collection of Indian animal fables. Its stories were transmitted through Middle Persian and Arabic and later reached other languages through translation and adaptation.
⁵ Jonas Salk is widely reported to have used the phrase “Could you patent the sun?” when discussing ownership of the polio vaccine.
John Britto Kurusumuthu
Rise & Inspire · riseandinspire.co.in
In response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt — 28 September 2026
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