BiblioArcadian- For all things Books
Hi Guys!! I am a freshman at Bennett University studying Computer Science Engineering. Recently we got an assignment to write a blog post presenting a start-up idea of our own and how we would like to design, implement, and launch it. So, here we go.
I have been in love with reading since I reached middle school and could issue books on a weekly basis from the school library. I managed to find the Hardy Boys series in the library and fall in love with the series reading over 40 books of the series over the years. But there were not many students who felt the same there were not many people I could have talked about what I have read or am reading and wat to read next. Me being me I had almost no intention of surfing the internet for anything other than playing games on cartoon network’s website and Facebook and searching on Wikipedia to copy for the holiday projects till I reached High school. I found out that there are communities of Book readers just like me on the internet but whenever visited those places I always thought this could be better so, this is my idea how that can be, this is my start-up idea.
With BiblioArcadian (Biblio for books and Arcadia for paradise in Greek) we would like to bring together booklovers from all around the world. Does not matter if you are a diehard or a casual. BiblioArcadian will be a place for people to share what they love, feels about the book that you read. This will be a place for anything and everything books related you want to do.
More people are reading books than ever before, in United States alone 689.45 million books were sold last year, and the publishing industry was worth $92.8 Billion which is estimated to come down to $89 Billion due to the nCov-19 pandemic. But the industry is expected to recover back to $92 Billion worth in 2022. Naturally, people like to discuss what they are reading and therefore, more than 50 million people visit different platforms to discuss about books they have read, update their booklists and to get new recommendations every month, and with number of readers which is only going to grow from here, the online readers community will only grow from here.
This is not a first of its kind idea, but I can promise this will be the yet. I do not want this to be just a website to make a list of your TBR (to be read) books and read books and if you are lucky enough to come across a decent group where you can interact with other people and discuss about books, because it is all what the existing websites are. BiblioArcadian will be a place where the whole community comes together not just in the sense of visiting the site but in matter of actual interaction. We will have site wide BOTM (Book of The Month) and of course with it a BOTM specific review page and distributed chatrooms separately in spoiler and no spoiler (that is very important, I do not like spoilers), monthly TBR twins with a random person across around the world with people who wants to read the same book as you. This does not mean that we are getting away with no groups, groups will of course be there and with addition to that since friends like to compete, and nothing beats a healthy competition we will also be adding a challenges with a set time duration , these might be simple as -> Who read more to those which will really make you work like -> Choose a word from each book you have read in a certain time interval with whom you can associate a myth, whoever gets more word wins, etc.
And the normal should have features will obviously be there like Keep track of what you have read (read book shelve list), currently reading and would like to read books list. Get personalized book recommendations to expand your library based on the books you add to your shelves. Exclusive interviews and blogs from your favourite authors. And for those who have these on other platform they will be easily able to transfer their existing lists to us easily we will make sure of it.
I have been fascinated with Booktubers lately and the work they have done (P.S — I learnt the word annotation through them, and I am a completely in favour of annotating of the books I love that is what makes a book my own). Therefore, I would like to there be a place in BiblioArcadian for them do to do what they do best, post videos, interact with people and I hope even live stream and hopefully with that increase their revenue.
BiblioArcadian will be a new company with a way better user interface than anybody else. Our first target will be the younger generations those who will join the world of reading every year the Gen Z’s and the Gen Alpha’s followed by the current adults’ millennials and our elders (the reason I am sure most of you all fall in love with reading in the first place). This does not mean that there will be total ignoring of a particular age group, books always have something for everyone, and we will try to do the same.
Above was the part which introduces what the idea is now let us get to what work will we be putting in.
Technical Skills Required ->
We will be a primarily a web-based organization so web development will naturally be an important and a necessity. But we will also have apps for mobile devices so, android and iOS developer skills will be also required. Along with these DBMS, Algorithms and Machine Learning skills will be required to as we grow.
Software and other necessities ->
We will be recommending people which book to read a lot so naturally we will be using a Collaborative Filtering Algorithm (CFO). We will be using Django as our basic web framework, and HTML, CSS, JavaScript and react.js for web development. Android Studio with Java for mobile app. Swift for iOS app development. Machine learning with Google TensorFlow. Amazon AWS for Database, Storage and Website Hosting.
Budget ->
We will be starting with a relatively small team and then gradually increase as the time of our organization grows. So, by the time of launching I am estimating 14 people in the team of which 7 of them belonging to the Tech team working on different roles. The other 7 consists of non-tech but essential members of the team consisting of Finance head, Content Strategist/Writer, Administrative Assistants, Human Resource manager. The total estimated Cost to Company (CTC) to the company will be around RS 72 Lakhs.
Since we will be using AWS to host our websites, we will be set for the first year for almost nothing. But we will be spending around 3 Lakhs a month our first 4 months after launching on advertisements on various platforms. There will be additional events after the launch like giveaways, competitions, etc. We will also be renting an office for the start which will cost us around based on square feet that is 3500 sq. ft. (14 personals * 250 sq. ft. each). An office space of this dimension will cost us about Rs 80–90 Thousand a month.
Product Pricing ->
BiblioArcadian is a completely free website and will always be, we will never charge someone to use our website, we are making a community After all. Most of our revenue will be based on advertisements and collaborations with different publishing houses and authors.
Marketing ->
The marketing process of BiblioArcadian will be done in three stages.
First will be advertisements informing about BiblioArcadian, its features, its motto and what we want to achieve via different advertisement platforms on the internet like Google ads, YouTube video ads, Instagram ads (sponsored posts and stories), Spotify music ads, light novel reading websites, etc.
The second stage will start hopefully when we will have a certain user base or reach, basically when we would have created some hype. In this stage we will be starting giveaways which maybe based on the monthly, quarterly challenges or on social media interaction-based challenges, fan-art competitions and more.
The third stage is what I would like to keep going even after this stage ends. We will be starting a monthly box service at a discounted price of course initially which will have some of the book accessories, maybe bookmarks, bath bombs, mugs, spreads, Chibi figures or action figurines and of course the book of the month and some theme based additional specials. In addition to this we would sponsor some events which come across us helping us to become more of a common occurring name.
Risk Analysis ->
Bugs -> In a tech-based start-up the likelihood of getting a bug is always there, and unforeseen bug in the preliminary phase could disturb the whole timeline of the launch.
Market Risk -> People do not always want to change things they have been using for a while for something possibly better but of similar use, this might make it tough to reach out to the existing platforms users.
Other than these I do not see much of a risk in this venture, even these are some speed breakers at the most. I am sure with the right team this is a sure shot success.
This is my vision of making a stronger and more diverse virtual community than ever before for my fellow bibliophiles and giving the best possible service for years to come bringing up new things to do, improving ourselves all while making precious memories we hope you will be happy to look back and reminisce.
Thank You for your time & See you again soon.
P.s — Always keep reading, you will always be improving
Oh, and this is the light novel I am reading right now.
