How solving a problem for my college mates gave me a glimpse into the world of tech startups
Prelude :
Let me begin by stating that it would be a long stretch for me to even call the humbe website I built for a few hundred people while still at the university, a legitimate startup .
Heck , I didn't even code it ... just went on Google Sites and used predefined templates to put together a functional static website .
At that moment , it was more about solving a problem I had myself, so that others like me would not have to struggle with it as much as I did.
However , it did use digital technology to address a pain point , so I'll stick to calling it a tech - startup !
Scenario :
Every year students have to appear for 2 main exams , a unit test and submit a couple of assignments that are taken by 180 people of a specific Course ( MCA )
As per exam paper trends , About 60 - 70 % of the Topics / Questions are repeated from the last 5 years papers in every subject
Theoretically, if you come prepared with the answers to the past 5 years' exam questions, then you will be able to pass the exam without buying any books, making notes, or attending classes (of course, you should keep attendance in mind)
The Problem : Digital Copies of Question papers are non-existant , and the only way to get ones hands on the previous years papers is to go to the 2nd floor of the University's Library and take a zerox of each and every question paper .And this needs to be done by everyone who wants to benefit from the question papers .
So , theoretically , 180 people will have to go through this arduous process EVERY YEAR
What I did not consider at the start :
How would I scale it ? ( will it even scale )
What's the monetisation stategy going to be ?
How will I market it ?
What I did cosider at the start :
Will people actually benefit from it ? ( does solving the problem have value )
Will it make the life of even 1 person a bit better ?
Will it solve a recurring problem ? ( i.e Will solving this problem have a long term impact , albeit , for a small group of people )
Some metrics :
Starting Assumtion : Maximum Number of people estimated to be helped at any point in time : 60 * 3 = 180 ( 3 batches of classes )
Actual Number of page visits per month on average : 33.52 ( Google Analytics )
Actual Number of unique visitors throughout the lifetime of the website : 1106 ( Google Analytics )
Maximum number of people to ever visit the website in a given month : 120 ( Google Analytics )
Money spent on marketing the product : 0
Simply put , the problem that I was trying to solve was the lack of digital resources for students to study for upcoming exams.
To address this problem, I decided to create a website that would host digitally scanned exam papers.
I used my own Google Drive to store the scanned papers, and I made it simple for students to access them through the website.
The website was designed to be user-friendly and easy to navigate, mobile responsive , with a clean and modern design.
The website gained a lot of traction since its launch.
It has received positive reviews from students , who have found it to be a helpful resource for their studies and their careers.
The website has also received favorable reviews from users on Quora and Facebook.
Quora : "
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However, the website did not generate any sponsorships / income for me. ( but then , that was never the objective )
In conclusion, my startup project was a success ( or at least how i defined success for this particuar project ) .
I was able to solve a real-world problem by creating a simple website that hosted digitally scanned question papers that catered to the needs of a few hundred students .
Concluding Thoughts :
How would I have scaled the startup, had I chosen to !I could have made the website usefull for all the students at the university ( More than 1,000,000 students ) by making it easy for individuals from all courses to submit scanned papers to the website
Which feature would have made the website 10X more usefull ?M.L algorithms that would have scanned question papers and predited the questions to be asked with high accuracy for all courses .
How could I have monetise the startup ?Google Ads
Ed-tech sponsorships
Mentoring Framework ( 1 to 1 ) from industry exprets
Premium Question paper generation with highest % of accuracy
How would I have marketed it ?Posting about the website on Facebook groups of all the courses , along with the accuracy of the website to predict upcoming exam questions would have generated suffiient buzz and impetus for people to start using and contributing to the website
( p.s : I did not purchase even a single text book during the 3 years of my masters and solely relied on Google Search+ Digital Question papers to prepare for my exame )
( p.p.s : I spent no more than 6 hours of prep time / subject using the exam papers and scored above 60% in aggregate)
Click to View the Website: In case you wanted to have a look
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