One Young India
Early EntrepreneursCredits

Early EntrepreneursCredits

Picture, video and data credits

Every picture, video and dataset in this course:who made it, where it comes from and the licence that lets us show it.Thank you to everyone who shares their work freely.

The course home

A wooden handcart piled with cabbages, bottle gourds, snake gourds, carrots, beans and green bananas on a sunlit street.A vegetable cart on a street in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh.Photo: "Vegetable Cart in Guntur" by Gpics at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.

Part 1: From problem to product, and the lean startup

An old shoemaker's workbench laid out with pliers, hammers, awls and pincers, its drawers open on boxes of nails and tacks.A shoemaker's workbench from around 1930, shown in the Museum Burg Zug, Switzerland.Photo: Roy Egloff, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.
A bare dirt track worn straight across a grassy park between two paved paths, with trees beyond.A desire path in Belém, Lisbon: a shortcut nobody built, worn into the grass by people's feet.Photo: "Desire path" by Metro Centric, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The title page of an eighteenth-century French book, Essai sur la nature du commerce en général, with a small printer's ornament.The title page of the Essai sur la nature du commerce en général names no author.Scan: Unknown author, public domain (author died more than 70 years ago), via Wikimedia Commons.
A long hall of stone columns and vaulted ceilings, lined on both sides with tall glass cases, in black and white.The model room of the US Patent Office in Washington, D.C., in the nineteenth century.Photo: Brady-Handy, public domain (author died more than 70 years ago), via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India.
A man in a suit writes on a board while he talks to a farmer seated on a horse-drawn farm machine in a field.A census enumerator interviews a farmer in his field during the 1940 United States census.Photo: US Census Bureau, public domain (US government work), via Wikimedia Commons.
A carved wooden printing block with rows of flowers and leaves, its raised pattern worn dark, on a checked cloth.A carved wooden block for printing patterns on cloth.Photo: "Textile printing block wooden" by Oxyman, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.
Brown signs on a post in Singapore, among them a crossed-out red circle reading Illegal Hawking and a dog-on-leash sign.Signs on a post in Singapore, one of them against illegal hawking.Photo: "Singapore Prohibition-signs-13" by © CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.
Eric Ries, in glasses and a brown jacket, smiling as he speaks on a stage.Eric Ries at a Lean Startup conference in London.Photo: "Eric Ries" by betsyweber, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India.
Hand-drawn sketches of web pages spread on a wooden table, with one person's hand holding a pencil over them.A paper prototype of a website's pages, sketched by hand and spread on a table to be tried before anything is built.Photo: Sage Ross, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
A library due-date slip covered in blue stamped dates, row after row, under the printed heading Date due.The due-date slip in a library copy of Journey Through Genius, stamped again and again from 1991 to 1995.Photo: Nerd271, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India.
VideoWhat Is Thinking on the Margin, and How Does It Solve the Sunk Cost Fallacy?From the channel Marginal Revolution University. Watch the full video.
Tram tracks on a cobbled street divide at a set of points, one line curving left and one right, beside a pale building.Tram points on a cobbled street in Wrocław, Poland.Photo: Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
A concrete highway deck on tall piers that stops in mid-air, with a basketball court on the ground below.The unfinished section of the Dunn Memorial Bridge between Albany and Rensselaer, New York.Photo: Schvaxet, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
VideoIt's not you. Bad doors are everywhere.From the channel Vox. Watch the full video.
A green sign on a glass door reading PUSH in English, with the same word in Hebrew letters above it.A PUSH sign, in Hebrew and English, on a glass door in Jerusalem.Photo: "Jerusalem hebrew Push sign" by Djampa, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Part 2: Customers, value and pricing

Tomatoes, okra, beans and ridged gourds heaped on a blue sheet at a market stall, under the pan of a hanging balance.Tomatoes, okra and gourds at a market stall in Howrah, West Bengal, under the pan of the seller's balance.Photo: "Vegetables 0006" by Biswarup Ganguly, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India.
A pavement book stall piled high with second-hand books in stacks and on shelves, a seller reading inside.A roadside book stall on College Street in Kolkata, photographed in 2022.Photo: Billjones94, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.
A tin-walled repair shed hung with old tyres, inner tubes, rims and chainwheels above a workbench and stacked wheels.An old bicycle repair shop: tubes, rims and tools for one kind of machine, and nothing else.Photo: "Old Bicycle Repair Shop" by Michael Coghlan from Adelaide, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.
VideoThe paradox of value - Akshita AgarwalFrom the channel TED-Ed. Watch the full video.
Dozens of uncut diamond crystals, clear, grey, yellow and brown, scattered on a black surface and magnified.Uncut diamonds from Russia, magnified.Photo: Jerry Cone, public domain (released by its author), via Wikimedia Commons.
Alfred Marshall in old age, with white hair and a white moustache, in a dark coat, in black and white.Alfred Marshall, photographed in 1921.Photo: Emery Walker, public domain (author died more than 70 years ago), via Wikimedia Commons.
VideoElasticity of DemandFrom the channel Marginal Revolution University. Watch the full video.
A chalkboard price card stuck into a heap of custard apples at a fruit stall, with grapes behind.A chalked price card for custard apples at a market in Málaga, Spain: 4.95 euros a kilo.Photo: "Malaga Markets, Spain" by David Mapletoft, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
A tall stone slab, broken at the edges, covered in faint rows of carved Greek letters, in black and white.A fragment of the Edict on Maximum Prices of 301 CE, found at Aigeira in Greece and kept in the Epigraphic Museum, Athens.Photo: "Fragment of Edict of Diocletian limiting prices for products and wages found in Aigeira 301 AD" by TimeTravelRome, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India.
An empty railway compartment with blue bench seats facing each other, metal luggage racks above and a barred window.Second sitting on Indian Railways: bench seats in an open compartment.Photo: Kishlay RF, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
A closed railway cabin with red upholstered lower berths, folded upper berths, a small table and a mirror.AC first class: a closed cabin with four berths.Photo: "Indian Railways AC first class 4-berth cabin" by Prateek Karandikar, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
A blue umbrella printed with golden wheat ears lies open on a pavement stall among folded umbrellas of many colours.Umbrellas laid out by a street seller in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, as the monsoon begins.Photo: Sindugab, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India.
George Akerlof, an older man with white hair, speaking at a conference in a dark jacket.George Akerlof, speaking in 2025.Photo: Xuthoria, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.
VideoAsymmetric Information and Used CarsFrom the channel Marginal Revolution University. Watch the full video.
Open sacks heaped with red, yellow and brown spice powders, a steel scoop standing in each one.Spices heaped in open sacks at the flea market in Anjuna, Goa, where a buyer can look, and smell, before paying.Photo: "Indian spices for sale at the Anjuna flea-market, Anjuna Beach, Goa" by sara marlowe, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
An old French poster: a man on a ladder pastes up a red bill reading La Publicité en France beside other posters.A French poster from around 1880 for a guide to advertising: a bill-sticker on his ladder, pasting up posters.Poster: F. Appel, Paris, public domain (author died more than 70 years ago), via Wikimedia Commons.
Michael Porter, a man with grey hair and glasses, speaking in a dark suit and red tie.Michael Porter, speaking at the World Economic Forum.Photo: "Michael Porter" by World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.
A wide moat of still water in front of a fort's low stone walls and battlements, with trees and hills behind.The moat and walls of Vellore Fort in Tamil Nadu, dug to keep attackers away.Photo: FailedEngineer2027, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.

Part 3: Revenue, cost and profit

Tall stacks of mesh sacks packed with onions on a shop floor, with a red weighing scale between them.Sacks of onions stacked in a wholesale shop at Gandhi Market, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu.Photo: "Onion Mandi" by Balablitz, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.
The title of an old printed book in large red gothic letters, Summa de Arithmetica geometria, above lines of smaller black type.The 1523 edition's title page opens with arithmetic, geometry and proportion; the treatise on keeping accounts is one part inside the book.Scan: "Titelbladet till 'Summa de arithmetica ...'" by Stockholms Universitetsbibliotek from Stockholm, Sweden, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India.
A friar in a grey habit points at a slate on a green table, with a young man behind and a glass solid hanging beside.Luca Pacioli with a young man, in a portrait attributed to Jacopo de' Barbari, painted between 1495 and 1500.Painting: Jacopo de' Barbari, public domain (author died more than 70 years ago), via Wikimedia Commons.
A long, narrow palm leaf filled edge to edge with small handwritten Grantha letters, with a string through a hole near the middle.A palm leaf from an Arthashastra manuscript in Grantha script, now at the Oriental Research Institute in Mysuru.Manuscript: Unknown scribe, public domain (author died more than 70 years ago), via Wikimedia Commons.
Rows of empty cinema seats rise from a wide blank screen in a new hall, in black and white.The hall of a new cinema in Amsterdam, photographed on 14 March 1975.Photo: Rob Bogaerts for Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
An engraved plate: above, a pin workshop where each worker tends one machine; below, numbered drawings of their tools.Pin-making, engraved for Diderot's Encyclopédie in 1762.Scan: Designed by Goussier, engraved by Defehrt (1762); file author unknown, public domain (author died more than 70 years ago), via Wikimedia Commons.
The title page of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith, volume one, printed in London.The title page of The Wealth of Nations, printed in London in 1776, in a case at the Dutch House of Representatives.Photo: Danielle Jansen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.
A narrow aisle between cloth shops hung floor to ceiling with patterned fabrics and rolls of cloth, with no shoppers.Cloth shops in the Western Market in 2012, every shelf stacked with rolls of fabric.Photo: "Western Market" by shankar s. from Poona (pune), India, India, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India.
A tailoring machine on an old iron treadle stand against a bare wall, with tall cones of thread beside it, in black and white.A tailor's machine and cones of thread in Rampura Jawaharwala, Punjab.Photo: Gurdeepdali, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.
A square clay tablet covered in rows of wedge-shaped cuneiform signs, mounted on a dark green museum board.A clay tablet from Girsu, in today's Iraq, written about 2350 BCE.Photo: Gavin.collins, public domain (released by its author), via Wikimedia Commons.
An old account book open on two pages of handwritten entries, with columns of sums at the right, inside a museum case.An account book kept in the Concord area of Massachusetts from 1770 to 1775, now in the Concord Museum.Photo: Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Engineers in white clean-room suits work around a gold-mirrored space telescope inside a vast white hall with scaffolding.Engineers in the clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, where filtered air keeps dust off a space telescope.Photo: Chris Gunn, public domain (US government work, NASA), via Wikimedia Commons.
A plastic crate full of round orange clay coin banks, each with a slot in the top and painted stripes.Clay gullaks, coin banks that open only when broken, in Golaghat, Assam.Photo: পাপৰি বৰা, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.

Part 4: Pitching, building a one-⁠person business, and your question

A white board on a ship's engine-room wall with spanners, screwdrivers and pliers hung on painted outlines of their shapes.A shadow board in a ship's engine room: every tool hangs on its painted outline, so a missing one shows at a glance.Photo: Maxschiraldi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
A marble bust of Aristotle: a bearded man with short curling hair and a calm, level gaze.Aristotle, in a Roman marble copy of a Greek portrait, now in the Palazzo Altemps, Rome.Photo: Jastrow, public domain (released by its author; bust after Lysippos, public domain), via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India.
A stepped stone platform cut from the bedrock on a rocky hill, with pine trees above and a low rope around it.The bema on the Pnyx in Athens: the stone platform from which speakers addressed the citizens' assembly.Photo: Tomisti, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Young Richard Feynman, short dark hair and a slight smile, in a black and white identity badge photo.Richard Feynman's Los Alamos identity badge photo, taken about 1943.Photo: United States Army, public domain (US government work), via Wikimedia Commons.
A hand-coloured engraved chart on a grid: a thin red band rises slowly, then a grey band shoots up and falls away at the right.William Playfair's hand-coloured chart of trade between England and America, 1700 to 1780.Scan: Playfair, William, 1759-1823, public domain (author died more than 70 years ago), via Wikimedia Commons.
A typed checklist card headed POST EVA 2, listing switch settings and steps in order, signed at the bottom by an astronaut.A page from the Apollo 17 lunar surface checklist: what to do after the second moonwalk, typed in order.Photo: "Apollo 17 Lunar Surface Checklist" by Steve Jurvetson, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
VideoHow do we heal medicine? | Atul GawandeFrom the channel TED. Watch the full video.
A cobbler's tools on a worn cloth: awls with coloured handles, a broad scraping blade and a heavy iron rod.An Indian cobbler's tool kit laid out on a cloth: awls, a scraping blade and a heavy iron rod.Photo: "CobblerToolKit" by Sultankhadar, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.
A long cargo barge named Levana moored in a stone-sided canal beside a towpath, with trees on the bank.The cargo barge Levana on the Main-Danube canal just below the lock at Bamberg, Germany.Photo: Reinhold Möller, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Long rows of beige desktop computers on assembly lines in a bright factory hall, with red mats between the lines.A production line for personal computers in Mountain View, California, in 1983.Photo: "Cromemco C-10 computer production line (1983)" by Cromemco, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Cube-shaped stone weights in graded sizes, from large to tiny, on a grey shelf in a dark museum case.Cube-shaped chert weights from Mohenjo-daro, made between about 2600 and 1900 BCE to sizes used across the Indus cities.Photo: Zunkir, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Jean Tirole, in glasses, a dark suit and a patterned tie, speaking at an event.Jean Tirole, who with Jean-Charles Rochet wrote the 2003 paper on platforms that must get both sides on board.Photo: "Jean Tirole (cropped)" by Ecole polytechnique Université Paris-Saclay, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Rows of empty thatched market sheds on bare red earth under large shady trees, on a sunny day.The thatched sheds of a weekly haat at Kamakhyanagar, Odisha, standing empty.Photo: "Weekly Haat Sheds - Kamakhyanagar - Dhenkanal 2018-01-23 7059" by Biswarup Ganguly, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
A worn dirt path runs through grass beside a paved herringbone walkway in a park, under palm trees and a low sun.A worn dirt path beside a paved walkway in a Barcelona park: the route people actually walk, next to the one that was built.Photo: "Desired Path in Barcelona" by Kippelboy, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The free preview

An old shoemaker's workbench laid out with pliers, hammers, awls and pincers, its drawers open on boxes of nails and tacks.A shoemaker's workbench from around 1930, shown in the Museum Burg Zug, Switzerland.Photo: Roy Egloff, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India. The crop is shared under the same licence.
A bare dirt track worn straight across a grassy park between two paved paths, with trees beyond.A desire path in Belém, Lisbon: a shortcut nobody built, worn into the grass by people's feet.Photo: "Desire path" by Metro Centric, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The title page of an eighteenth-century French book, Essai sur la nature du commerce en général, with a small printer's ornament.The title page of the Essai sur la nature du commerce en général names no author.Scan: Unknown author, public domain (author died more than 70 years ago), via Wikimedia Commons.
A long hall of stone columns and vaulted ceilings, lined on both sides with tall glass cases, in black and white.The model room of the US Patent Office in Washington, D.C., in the nineteenth century.Photo: Brady-Handy, public domain (author died more than 70 years ago), via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped by One Young India.

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