How I was inspired into business by playing pool in Zimbabwe three days a week

Having been involved in amateur pool tournaments in Zimbabwe after graduating from college, it got me thinking, was there a business case for the sport in Zimbabwe? I had nothing to do as I was yet to find a job in Zimbabwe. My entire schedule was to drop CVs every Mondays and Tuesdays then waste away the remainder of the week playing pool in clubs. I was hoping to become a Carling Black Label national pool champion. It never happened. I never made it to the championships but I then settled for something better. I converted my pool passion into a thriving business.

Before I talk about the how, I have to go back to how it all started. Pool game is one were the object of the game is to claim a suit then pocket all of them with the cue ball before legally pocketing the 8 black ball. It is not easy to describe with words but I remember how a game would end in less than a minute after accidentally sinking the 8th black ball. I immediately fell in love with this challenging game and one would easily spend $5.00 and not even notice. Time seems to be at a standstill when you play pool and it always a delight to watch someone play. Is it a bating game? Yes but I wouldn’t have made any money from it If I was a bating man. I figured that I could make money from it but didn’t know how. I set to find out and the only way I knew how was to go back and play more.

I noticed that every time I went to play a pool game, I had to wait in line for my turn. The tables were always busy. I did my Math and figured that on a bad day, people would play approximately 30 games. The average pool game is US0.50 and that would mean one will be making about US$15.00 a day.

$15.00 a day sounds little but we played pool in clubs and these clubs open every day. If you do your calculations this gives a weekly income flow of $105.00. Because some pool owners do not own the clubs but rent club space say for $20.00 it brings down the weekly income to $84.00 or a monthly income of $336.00.

Now, buying one commuter omnibus or kombi is equivalent to buying 6 pool tables. My friend owns a kombi and he tells me it averages around $90.00 on a bad day. 6 snooker tables on the other arm averages $90.00 a day. Seems like we have a tie and the tie breaker is business risk. A pool table is always seated safely in a pub whilst a kombi is busy pacing the streets sometimes with careless drivers. Most of the time kombis are running away from the authorities though I never wanted to find out why.

Thus if you have only three pool tables, you would make a net income of $1000.00 per month.

Please put in mind that this is residual income. This is money you make while you are asleep as all you have to do is go and collect your money once every fortnight. I had an opportunity to own a kombi in the past and I settled for this business. I later sold off the business as a going concern after three successful years to fund other projects but I would welcome the opportunity of reinvesting in the Zimbabwe pool game in future. To your continued success…