There are great business ideas and then, there are ideas that just sound cool enough for one to just get hooked into it.
PhokatCopy, a student startup (from IIT D) subsidizes photocopying for students and in return, serve them ads. The company has tied up with photocopiers in IIT D, IMI, DCE, Delhi School of Economics etc and has bagged advertisers like Coffee Day, Apple resellers, Career launchers etc.
Here is how Phokatcopy works
Essentially, Phokatcopy service enables you to avail certain discount per photocopy and for every 20 sheet that you photo copy, you get a pin card. You need to register the PIN via the website/sms, accumulate points and redeem them via advertisers’ service.
Given the number of photo copies that happen during exam times (and even otherwise), expect this service to get bigger (and viral).
Neat idea, and most importantly, targeted towards a segment which is most money conscious and enjoys freebies to an unimaginable extent!
What’s your opinion?
Note to Phokatcopy team – do not approach VCs at this moment. At this point, they will ask you questions which you won’t be able to answer (expansion/scalability plans etc). First, focus on building a local ad based service – measure results/define advertising metrics/identify competition/figure out your margins.
They subsidize through ads on the back side. But there is no back side in most cases. Students ask for photocopy on both the sides of the paper as that is cheaper.
A watermark ad could have been better. Where they just supply ad watermarked paper to the photocopy shops.
Anyways, this will surely be viral.
Wish you luck guys!!!
Quite a creative idea.
useless crap…
Just like facebook also started in college campus and was in implementation around colleges for years before public appearance…phokatcopy can also do the magic.
Go on boys…create history.
I got an opportunity to meet these guys at barcamp Delhi. Unfortunately, this idea seems to be purely crap.
Guys, you are too late – students are moving to e-books …. and you are focusing on the stone age xerox. 
Aei Phokatchand! Tune kuch kiya hain kya kabhi life mein? Phokat mein inki le raha hain, Phokatchand
IIT Delhi,
Final year student,
Masters in Mathematics
and Computing
comes up with …..
Drum Roll Please!
“Phokatcopy”.
What an anticlimax !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Atleast he got into IIT, u moron! So, you keep beating drums all your life …. dhakkan! If you don’t get what is ‘dhakkan’, then google it ‘dhakkan’.
Kesava. I got a “”startup”" idea for you. Free toilet paper with ads on them. You and this phokatcopy dude can share business leads. I won’t be surprised if you are already pitching this idea to VCs. I hope you have the required intellect, education and experience. Nothing less than a phd from MIT will do. Good luck.
AMAZING IDEA!
1. PhokatCopy targets the ever elusive youth market that pretty much every advertiser is wanting a meaty piece of (youngistan, anyone?)
2. It makes a daily burden (photocopying notes is going to continue to be a tradition for years to come – no one brings e-books/laptops to lectures just yet) cheaper and gives the kids talktime – which is what they want!
3. It’s innovative and a completely new medium. With all the talk of blue sky marketing – what could be a better example?
4. It’s viral!
Kudos to Mr PhokatCopy!
good idea ! i can assure you , e-books, a 100% shift is still a long way for every student . instead , you should source the raw material your self , i.e: the printing paper , and work out an arrangment with various vendors .Also , you can have advertisments on the sheets the print out are being taken out on .
The idea is fantastic , but you need to be a little more dynamic , and study various permutations and combinations .
This can be huge if pursued properly. all the best ! for any further suggestions you can write in to me at : aashuagrawal@in.com
Does having Advertising in the revenue model means easy money??
good idea indeed.
for every 20 sheets, a pin card, accumulate points and then redeem.
Much hassle for a cup of coffee?
Naah!
Just a good point for Ad. think of something else.
As per Harsh Narang (Founder):
The photocopier has to pay around Rs 120 for 500 sheets; but PhokatCopy delivers the sheets — pre-printed on one side with advertisements — at the rate of Rs 20 for 500 sheets.
PhokatCopy, in turn, charges Rs 625 for 500 sheets from the advertisers for distributing these sheets. The printed ad pages are also supplied by the advertisers.
So, for every 500 sheets, PhokatCopy gets around Rs 645; of this, it has to give out goodies worth Rs 250 to the end user. Thus, it earns around Rs 325 per 500 sheets. Since it claims to exhaust around 6 lakh sheets a month, its monthly income turns out to be Rs 4 lakh.
[b]Now,
the cost is Rs 1.25 per page, so for every 20 sheets it comes to Rs. 25 per person for one time photocopying.
Now thats quite expensive for advertiser.
So if a student does some 100 sheets, then the cost comes to Rs. 125 per student… now thats very expensive for advertiser. what if student goes for more than 200 at one go…
Also its going to be on back page and not a high quality full colour display ad like in newspaper or a magazine.[/b]
i would love to understand the way the total costing is worked out , Choks.
Hi Mansi,
I have already explained the total costing in the above message as information provided by the Phokatcopy.
Hey sheel from where you got all this information anyways !?
Wow.. well but curious how he is planning to do it in the large scale as than only it will be of any use to the advertiser..
hi…
i got this info from other website afaqs(dot).com
Completely agree with the costing part Choks .. and personally speaking .. its kind of difficult to convince the advertisors .. However .. just for the sake of argument ….
1. the advertisors have a niche market
2. Cost per person is high , but the absolute amount is too low for that calculation ..
3. Most important argument , this is especially good for local businesses .. ( although there website shows that companies like Dell are also in … ) , for example a newly opened restaurant or coffee shop or even a pizza delivery shop nearby , .. such businesses rely only on word of mouth as advertising in google may not be most effective ( although cheap) , TV /Radio is unaffordable ..
having said that .. if they are doing good … then i think the credit goes to there sales team .. everything else has a strong economic incentive to refuse ..