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Throughout his school years, Harsh Narang was always more inclined towards extracurricular activities than studying. Two years ago, during his final year at IIT Delhi, Narang came up with a deceptively simple idea for a business plan competition: To give advertisers a medium to reach a vast student population, while providing the students with free photocopying services. He called the venture Phokatcopy.

Narang went on to take part in several entrepreneurial competitions across the IIMs and at Symbiosis. And last year, he finally incorporated Phokatcopy.

“Ever since school, I have never maintained any notes, because I have very bad handwriting. Instead, I used to depend on my friends and photocopy their notes. In college, for the business plan competition, I wanted to identify the area where I spend a considerable amount of money. We do six courses every semester, which leads to a mountain of books and a heap of photocopied notes,” Narang explains.

Today Phokatcopy is a youth-oriented platform for advertisers which operates across 30 colleges in Delhi. Narang has roped in advertisers who want to target students aged 18 to 25 for their products. They place their ads on one side of a paper, while the other side is left blank for photocopying purposes.

Phokatcopy has several companies convinced about the potential of such a focused, niche form of advertising. “Initially, it was tough convincing the likes of Vodafone and others [about this idea], as it was a new medium,” Narang admits. “But as long as we could demonstrate that it is cost-productive in terms of the target reach, people did try it out; we went the extra mile to convince these companies. Apple, for example, managed to sell 14 laptops under their special discount scheme [when they advertised through Phokatcopy], as compared to two laptops in the previous year.”

As of today, Narang has seven advertisers and is in talks with many FMCG companies. He earns revenue by charging advertisers on a per-page basis, after discounting the cost of printing, distribution, etc. “The revenues earned are ploughed back into the company. As for any startup, the initial phase was very difficult,” he says. “I never hired anyone. But students who heard about the idea and got excited about it joined the company. As a startup, you do need some working capital—and getting money out of advertisers is not easy.”

Narang invested about Rs.3 lakh into the startup—part of this was his prize money for winning the competition at IIT Delhi, and another part was contributed by his father. The company’s name, he thinks, is the biggest brand he has built. It always excites people, even companies. “The name Phokatcopy came to me when my sister and I were sitting together one Sunday afternoon,” says Narang. “This name popped [into my head]. It sounds like photocopy, and also seems to get the message across.”

Five months into its operations, Narang has recovered his investments and is expanding Phokatcopy rapidly. “It’s a student-run organization where no one draws a salary. And we intend to keep it that way for some time,” says Narang. “Demand is not an issue—in fact, we constantly run out of sheets. We do not plan to expand the demographic, since the student demand is enough for us. But we do want to have a pan-India presence.”

Unperturbed by the low barriers-to-entry that his business has, Narang is overflowing with ideas. “Planting trees and [providing access to] recycle bins are some of the things that I want to do. Hopefully, we will have the money to carry out all these ideas soon.”

©Entrepreneur April 2010

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Harsh Narang, IIM, IIT, Phokatcopy, students