August 21, 2009 by admin
“PhokatCopy” is a pro-student initiative providing free photocopies to students, subsidized by advertising initiatives. Let’s hear more about this innovative idea and its journey from conception to implementation from its founder, Harsh Narang, a final year student at IIT Delhi.
ECell: Can you tell us in 1 sentence what exactly PhokatCopy is?
ECell: Can you tell us in 1 sentence what exactly PhokatCopy is?
Harsh: PhokatCopy is a pro student initiative which has the premise of ‘Free Photocopy’, offering students photocopying services at no cost, subsidized by revenues gained through advertising initiatives on the back page.
ECell: What made you come up with this idea?
Harsh: I have never maintained a notebook since class 8th. Naturally, I’ve relied on photocopies all my life! Once in IIT, needs increased further and at times I used to get upto 500 pages photo copied per semester! Then one day somewhere in January 2008, I saw a poster on campus advertising for Vishisht, a Business Plan Competition in IIT D itself. This competition gave me the impetus to come up with this idea and formulate it into a Business Plan.
ECell: When did you launch this service and what has the response been like?
Harsh: We started distributing sheets in August and so far the response has been enthusiastic, both from the students as well as the photocopy operators. We in fact have outstanding orders from the Photocopy shops and are looking for more advertisers to fill that gap.
ECell: What is the current state of affairs with PhokatCopy?
Harsh: Today, PhokatCopy is a private limited company-all the paper work is done. Over the last three months we have collaborated with colleges and advertisers. We have tied up with approximately 25 colleges, mostly from Delhi University and are in touch with advertisers from various segments of industry ranging from education to telecommunication and even food and beverages. Recession is a common word today and primarily because of that, it has been tough to get money from companies-however we have over all got an extremely positive response from lot of them. Current advertisers include Cafe Coffee Day, Career Launcher, Fastrack and Nirula's.
ECell: What is your source of capital for this venture?
Harsh: Most of the money has been raised personally, with my dad being the primary investor. We are in talks with a couple of investors now, to scale the business up.
ECell: What difficulties did PhokatCopy face and what are some of the roadblocks currently, if any?
Harsh: A pertinent question every advertiser would ask was guarantee of visibility. However we developed a way to ensure that. As part compensation, we would be giving company vouchers to students on availing the photocopy service from our outlets. These would be redeemed by a specific process which would ensure visibility to the advertisers.
Also, one of the major problems we face is to build a committed and dedicated team. Getting people to believe in your idea and get them involved in a start up is surely a tough task-you will always encounter skepticism. It can never be a ‘One Man Show’ and therefore
one always needs a strong team by his side.
Also, one of the major problems we face is to build a committed and dedicated team. Getting people to believe in your idea and get them involved in a start up is surely a tough task-you will always encounter skepticism. It can never be a ‘One Man Show’ and therefore
one always needs a strong team by his side.
ECell: What is the current roadmap for PhokatCopy?
Harsh: 4.7 million students-photocopy 450 pages a year on an average when they have to pay for it-it’s a big market. This works for me as well as for the advertisers-who are perhaps the most important part of this venture-after all, it’s them who are paying for the photocopying. A lot of firms these days are anyway targeting the youth through their advertising campaigns. Take for example Virgin mobile or even Pepsi’s Youngistan campaign.
If things go on well, we would like to introduce a social angle to our venture too. We plan to start an NGO which will build a book bank, collecting old textbooks from private schools and make that accessible to kids from government schools and at a later stage even have our own PhokatCopy stationery etc distributed or perhaps sold at a highly subsidized rate in these schools.
If things go on well, we would like to introduce a social angle to our venture too. We plan to start an NGO which will build a book bank, collecting old textbooks from private schools and make that accessible to kids from government schools and at a later stage even have our own PhokatCopy stationery etc distributed or perhaps sold at a highly subsidized rate in these schools.
Compiled By:
Amit Aggarwal
for ECell, IIMC