3,000 taka at the start, 1.5 lakh ornamental fish and 50,000 a month now

With the campus shut during COVID, this student at Begum Rokeya University in Rangpur came across a video on ornamental fish breeding and started at home with 3,000 taka and some auto-breeding fish. His first problem was not the fish but the buyers: he did not know whether anyone locally would want them, until an acquaintance who heard about it bought a batch and the demand proved real - before long he could not supply enough. His family opposed expanding, because a bigger operation meant a bigger possible loss, so he borrowed 20,000 taka from an acquaintance, brought in koi carp and comet, and learned to produce fry himself by following YouTube with no training at all. He then stocked a 45-shotok pond and sold that crop after five months at a large profit, which brought the family round. He now runs 3 ponds and 18 tanks holding about 1.5 lakh fish across 15 to 20 varieties and earns 45,000 to 50,000 taka a month. By his own estimate the country imports about 200 crore taka of ornamental fish a year from Japan and Thailand.