 popular business idea in the education sector, that is, of a play school. Play school mainly caters to children aged between 2 and 4 years. As the name suggests, to very young children and help them develop social skills and learning capabilities. So if you are passionate about teaching young children and hold prior experience in early child education, then this is the perfect opportunity for you to become an edupreneur. You can either start your own play school or take franchisee of a popular play school brand, like kidsy, your kids or bachpaan. Opening a franchisee doesn't require much planning as the parent company will set the guidelines for setting up and running the school, however, it comes with higher costs. Whereas if you want to start your own school, you will have to manage everything on your own, ranging from marketing to branding to setting up your own curriculum. But don't fret, as setting up a play school is not as cumbersome as it may sound. The first step is to identify a location for your preschool. You will need around 1000 square feet area for a school that can accommodate up to 60 children. We suggest that you locate your school in a residential area because parents prefer sending their kids to play schools in near vicinity. Now let us understand the permissions and guidelines for starting a preschool business. You must get a no objection certificate also known as an NOC from the society for running the play school. Early childhood guidelines mandate one teacher or a trained professional for every 20 students. An important thing to note here is that if you want to teach in your own school, you will need to be a degree or a diploma certificate in free school teaching to be able to do so. Now let us move on to understand the investments that you will require to make. You will require an initial investment for setting up the business, while other expenses will be in the form of operational costs. For setting up, furnishing and decorations will require to shell out 60-70,000 rupees. Setting up the play area with toys and other play equipment will be another rupees 1 lakh whereas educational materials and learning tools in classes is another 25-30,000 rupees. As for operational costs, rent of a play school will be between 30-35,000 rupees. Electricity and water bills can amount to about 20,000 per month. The major chunk of your operating costs will be on staffing which will be around rupees 80,000 for 3 teachers and 2 assistants. Of course, if you plan to teach in your own school, you can save on this amount to a great extent. Also, you may not have to hire more than one teacher initially until your student count exceeds 20. Next, you will spend around 12-15,000 rupees every month on marketing until you get enough students on board, which can take easily up to 6-8 months. Like we said earlier, starting a play school yourself works out cheaper compared to taking a franchisee. Franchisee of most popular play school brands ask for a one-time investment of 12-15 lakh for giving out the franchisee, which is much higher than the cost that we have just told you. Your revenue will essentially be the fees charged to students, which will depend on the kind of services that you choose to provide. So for a regular play school that offers learning activities in a play area, monthly fees per student can range between 2000-2200 rupees. If you also want to provide daycare services and mails, you can charge upwards of 3500 per student. Along with the monthly tuition fee, students will also pay a one-time admission fee that can range between rupees 15,000-20,000 per month. So to give you a fair idea of the profits that you can make, once you have 60 regular students attending your school, you can easily book a profit of 30-35% on the total revenue. A world of caution here that like any other business, the first year can be slow in terms of profit generation. Having said that, pre-school business is also one of the few recession-proof businesses ideas as no parent ever compromises on their kids' education. So once your business takes on, no matter what, your business will always flourish. So that's about the pre-school business idea. We hope that you liked it and soon take the plunge to start your own business. Meanwhile, stay tuned and log on to www.entrepreneur.com for more business ideas.