Interview with Kishan Vadaliya and Karan Pujara, Founders ofStudentDesk.in

I was randomly going through my Facebook news feed one day and i bounced upon a website - StudentDesk.in . So, i was bit interested in knowing what was it. I went through the website and researched a bit about its founders. They came out to be from GTU, from where i completed my bachelor education. Moreover, they are still students now. I was excited to know about them and i had a brief discussion with founders of the website - Kishan Vadaliya and Karan Pujara on Facebook. Both these chaps are out with a purpose. Moreover, GTU is one of the very few State Government Universities in India which promote Student entrepreneurial ship in its curriculum. So, i asked them few questions about their venture and below is the interview with them. Sit back and do not forget to share about this venture which might help young entrepreneurs.

Below is the interview :

1. Can you give brief introduction on what is StudentDesk.in all about?

As our tagline says, “Exchange, Share and Explore”, we are bringing this site to the users for easy and free exchange of used books which we think will be useful to the consumers in this increasing virtual online world.

2. From where the idea of selling/exchanging books came from?

This idea basically originated along with my life in hostel. People regularly exchange books and various other materials during their life in hostel. Student also go in search for books during commencement of new semesters, which gave us an idea of developing a portal which helps the users and facilitates them with easy exchange.

3. Who are behind StudentDesk.in ?

We are a team of two people, I, Karan Pujara and my friend Kishan Vadaliya, pursuing our Computer Engineering in the final year.

4. How are monetizing your website? Through featured listings or only advertisements?

Currently, we are not planning to generate any revenue from this website. We have started it as a user friendly portal and think to keep it that way at least for now.

5. What i love about Studentdesk.in is its simple UI. How are you planning to target placing advertisements which might derail the look and feel of current UI

I must mention that my room-mate Binit Thacker takes a major share in development of this simple and elegant UI. As not to derail it at the very beginning we are not planning to place any advertisements as of now. But  we are very sure that whenever we do so we would do so in such a way that the simplicity and ease of users is not compromised.

6. Your competitions are too big like OLX or Quickr who offer similar services. How do you plan to tackle them up?

We are no market kings to compare ourselves with them but one thing is for sure that our whole-in-whole focus is on books which might prove to be lot more helpful for students and fellow readers to search what they exactly need without getting messed up in all categories.

7. Are you looking to offer more services in future apart from Books?

As mentioned earlier, we are totally focused on books and we see that as a great market as everyone loves to read be it technical books or fictional novels.

8. Are you looking for funding?

As of now, we are not. But if the need arises in future we surely would require some to maintain the quality of our product.

9. What are your marketing strategies? From where you are capturing traffic for your website?

Currently we are spreading the word heavily through social media as it has became an integral part of marketing. We also are planning to visit institutions, colleges and schools to spread awareness of our project so that more and more people can be benefitted with a wide range of books to choose from.

10. How are you going to beat Spam and junk classifieds which might lead to damaging your brand?

Considering our website to be a user-to-user portal, the user is responsible for the entries they submit, so in case of some bulk spamming or junk classifieds or any frauds, user can send a feedback and our moderator will take considerable steps to handle it. Also if any such activity is found on the website, we will use specific methods to take action against it.

11. What are your next moves? Whats next coming for StudentDesk.in?

We are planning to categorize the books considering the fact that the need may arise soon and also we will be adding some more features to make it more user friendly so that the search becomes more efficient.

12. Atlast, Your message to Aspiring young student entrepreneurs like you:

The only message I would want young entrepreneurs to swallow is ‘Never give up. Great things take time’.

These guys were interesting and we wish them all the best for their venture. May they get desired success!