Papyrofix plans to set up a viral content platform

Digital content creation and management

Shounak Pal, Prantik Mukherjee, Pritish Ranjan, Shubham Bajpai shares similar passion, professional expertise. They had faced similar challenges as students. Turning their shared emotions in creating a platform that addressed the issues and provided solutions, Papyrofix was launched. This is a startup focusing on document creation, editing and content related services, in 2016.

Kolkata-based Shounak Pal narrates the entrepreneurial journey of four young men in an invigorating chat with Baishali Mukherjee:

The inception

Shounak Pal

Our entrepreneurial journey started in winter '16. Our passion and professional experience in the field of document creation was the main trigger. All the founders have experience in the similar field. They have suffered similar problems during thesis writing as well as editing. These problems faced by the students prompted us to go for this idea.

‘Papyro’ means paper in Greek. Papyrofix seemed an appropriate title for a startup focusing on document creation, editing and content.

Headquartered at Kolkata, Papyrofix is focused to make its mark in the domain of publishing. Papyrofix is designed to cater to a considerably wide range of services. This includes content development, proofreading / editing, web development and instructional design.

We started with an investment of around Rs 50,000 to setup the website, get the company registered as well as other legal and documentation works. The team included seven passionate individuals. We depended heavily on self-promotion via social media which is paying-off now.

We are a company which caters to creative needs of our clients. But we want to emphasize on the fact that we have a component of technology as well. In the coming years, we will use technology better to enhance our performance.

The services

We primarily provide content development services to varied clientele and make sure that the content delivered by our team is of best quality. Contents developed by Papyrofix are made to pass though multiple quality-checks manually, as well as via computer systems to nullify the chances of the occurrence of any error before any content or piece is sent to the clients. Our vision is “To deliver the best as we promise and to make it big in the markets we operate in.” This only becomes possible with the contribution of the team members who strive to cater to the needs of the clients and deliver the best of services for them.

Papyrofix is a bootstrapped company. We have not approached any organization/investor for funding. We have built the company block-by-block by serving clients efficiently.

Growth chart

We have only gone up in our short period (five months) of existence. However, the scale and speed of our rise has been limited due to insufficient funds. Our team members are relentless in their pursuit of increasing business in order to increase the company fund. We plan to use the earnings for further growth and expansion.

We have successfully created a niche clientele with our deliveries. Currently we are working with around 20 clients from around the globe. We get business from Singapore, China, Japan, UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand and India as well.

These organisations and individuals have now become our steady source of revenue. To grow further, we are recruiting as many writers as possible to bag bigger consignments. We are also planning to increase our area of expertise as well as services that we would be providing to our clients. We have plans to launch Data Analytics, App and Software development services also for our clients in the near future.

Success milestones

A Canadian startup founded by an Electrical Engineer of Indian origin has approached us to manage its official website. We are actively in talks with them while we gradually provide our services to them.

In the coming months we are planning to expand our startup. We also plan to setup a viral content platform in due course of time that would attract huge traffic.

Operations

Currently we have eight-ten writers working with us. We hire employees based on their writing skills. Our in-house writers’ hire new resources based on the sample content provided.

We have one office in Kolkata. Rest of our employees are placed across India. We co-ordinate via social media and different online platforms.

We are planning to take on market competition on the basis of work quality and frugal business models. The quality of work along with the experience of our writers gives us an added advantage. Our services being pegged at an affordable price is an added incentive for clients. High Quality and Low Price is something which is very advantageous for our business.

Business challenges

The very first business hurdle we faced was visibility. To become visible to relevant clients we took help of social media. Our exhaustive social media promotion helped us find the right customers. In addition to these, we faced funding issues. Though small, the core members had to invest quite an amount so that the basic needs could be met. Currently we have a regular inflow of cash from clients and hope to maintain the momentum.

Content creation and content management for multiple clients constitute our revenue streams.

Future plans

We are planning to grow and are instrumental in creating a comprehensive base of regular customers. With the revenues earned we will foray into newer horizons and acquire a wider repertoire of clients.

Is there any content creating site that has drawn you with its unique appeal and innovation? Do share your views.