Dipti Gore
I love reading books. And just like most forms of entertainment, some books are to be kept in the collection for ever and some book we don’t mind giving away. Being an avid reader constantly in need of something good to read, I do end up spending a huge amount on buying books. I always wondered if there was a better way of managing my hobby in a more cost effective way. Sudentdesk.in now solves this problem for many readers like me !
[box type=”shadow” align=”aligncenter” class=”” width=””]Studentdesk.in is a platform where readers can buy, sell, exchange their books, magazines or any other reading material. The company focuses on enabling transactions within a city or institution.[/box]
“I used to wait for days to be able to buy used book from seniors or find someone to exchange my “Revolution 20-20” with “The Alchemist” because buying new books was very expensive.Buying and selling used books was such a tedious task that not only consumed a lot of time and energy but was also financially less rewarding due to the commissions involved.”
says Karan Pujara-the founder of StudentDesk.in. Karan the started StudentDesk in 2014 during his final year of engineering.
“I saw the possibility of democratizing knowledge and learning by enabling every individual and home to contribute and access to a centralized library.Our main aim is to reach each and every college across India and also to make Studentdesk India’s biggest online open library for used book.”
Karan is currently operating the company from Ahmedabad. The company faces some direct competition (For example Fratmart) and some indirect competition from players such as OLX and Quickr. However Karan believes that it is the company’s promise to always give their services to their users free of cost is what makes them stand out.
“We are trying to solve a real pain point and are committed to providing cost saving on buying/ selling/ renting books and will therefore always remain free for the users.”
The much required push to the company came when after their initial success of Studentdesk, they started their crowdfunding campaign on start51.com and successfully raised Rs. 1.44lac which was 44% more than what they had applied for. StudentDesk today is a team of 5 and is present in 30 cities across India.
The journey from starting from a dorm room to growing to 30 cities was not an easy one and there have been many learning along the way for Karan, some of the most important being.
“Don’t waste too much time in thinking about your idea. Just start working on it. Also, never hesitate to say “hi”, Go and interact with like minded people, share your views, tell them about your product”
In the coming few months, Karan and team are planning to expand to a lot more cities in India. For expanding StudentDesk at a huge scale will require some manpower and the company is therefore looking for funding at this point.