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We are pleased to report a unique venture founded by six of our 2nd year Ceramic Engineering students. The new start-up website, called “Padhaku Joker” is catered to the needs to today’s students to seek guidance on various coaching classes available for preparing for IIT-JEE, AIEEE, PMT, etc. national level entrance-examinations for various profession courses. The idea itself is quite innovative.
Below please find brief introduction of team members and questions posed by Chronicle. The report was forwarded by Priyesh Ranjan. Email: 2priyeshranjan@gmail.com or editor@padhakujoker.com.
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A) A Brief Introduction of the team:
(All team members are students of Part- II (08-09), Department of Ceramic Engineering, IT-BHU, Varanasi.)
 | 1. Priyesh Ranjan 2priyeshranjan@gmail.com +91 9889864690 Priyesh did work on marketing strategies and consumer behavior at XLRI, Jamshedpur in 2008. He has been associated with Suzikline, a marketing consultancy firm, for a brief period. He also works as a freelance writer. |
 | 2. Sanchit Khandelwal. sanchitkha@gmail.com +91 9936439307 Did work on finances at IIM- Lucknow in 2008 and also associated with a project of RFID at IIM-Kolkatta. Good command over various computer languages. |
 | 3. Anuj Tejpal tejpalanuj@googlemail.com +91 9889864702 Anuj has been associated with IISc Bangalore and University of Illinois, USA in pursuit of his projects on particle physics. He has worked on projects at various IITs. |
 | 4. Pranav Kumar pranavcera@gmail.com +91 9889819613 Pranav has been associated with CGCRI, Kolkatta in 2008. He has worked on computational implications in material science at IISER, Kolkatta. He is also a freelance Writer. |
 | 5. Yogesh Shukla yogeshukla07@gmail.com +91 9889516784 Yogesh has worked on project at IIT Kharagpur. He is top-ranker of his class and winner of National science Olympiad in secondary school. |
 | 6. Akshay Dhar aksh.dabbu@gmail.com +91 9936439342 Akshay worked at HSIL, Ghaziabad as a marketing intern. He has been associated with CGCRI, Kolkatta in 2008. He is an avid blogger and loves counseling students on career related issues. |
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B) Chronicle posed some questions:
1) When was the website started? How was the idea conceived?
The Website was formally launched on 1st June, 2009. Padhaku Joker was borne out of a passion to be the change rather than to demand it. Six incipient engineers studying at ITBHU and hailing from various parts of the country, came together to create a multipurpose platform for young students. The platform, as conceived by the team, is designed to meet the needs of school students & adolescents vying for various professional courses. Nowadays, the educational scenario has become much more demanding & complicated. Everybody wants to be an achiever & have a good job with high salary. Instant gratification, as people term it. But at times the keys of success and locks are a complete mismatch. In regard with that we have closely seen widespread dissatisfaction amongst students of all ages. Their demands remain unmet due to methodological shortcomings. We felt a need to mentor them.
2) Is it for-profit or non-profit business? What is your business model?
For us it is more of labor of love. But yes, Profit is also on our minds. We plan to convert this into a business with a heart. The source of income is monthly rent from banner advertisements that are of varied nature categorized according to size and prices. Our marketing strategy is already in full swing and we have already got one sponsor (Ad can be seen on the site). Talks with few more sponsors are going on and we are expecting to book some more ad slots. Besides we are also considering of having few alliances & tie-ups with organizations having similar wavelengths.
Our expenses include normal running expenditure that any business usually incurs. In addition, we have also taken some help from few professionals in site designing. So we paid them fees for that. Also we have allocated a share for publicity & promotion of our venture.
The good side about our venture is that it required not-so-high capital to start. It was pretty less to fund it from our own pocket without burning any holes. But we have spent a lot of time in content design and it has taken lot of mind-boggling sessions at a point when all team members were at different parts of the globe. Since May 8, 2009 we are not together and we have effectively used internet to reduce distances. Our venture was started at a time when we were only virtually together. This proves that how far internet has gone and education has to be taken to new heights with it. So we believe that Internet has more to offer and its potential is endless. Internet-ocracy is the call of hour!
3) What type of service do you provide to readers? In what way do you help them?
We believe in a short, simple & an effective approach to reach to our users. We are primarily offering services to School students and students vying for various competitive exams. In order to address their needs, we provide specifically tailored information on various career issues to them.
Also we provide them a multi dimensional virtual platform to ask queries, discuss amongst themselves and learn in the process. This would have bigger implications in guiding their careers. Imagine a tenth standard student from Kolkatta having discussion with a student from Kashmir and benefits they will have in the mutual symbiotic relation. Besides we are always eager to help our users in solving problems.
4) How did you come up with this unusual (and a bit funny) name for the website?
Well because we wanted people to ask this same question again and again! We have not read any marketing book but we know that brand recall & recognition is very vital aspect of a venture. We want to create a brand, a very strong one. If you have something like Padhaku Joker then it instills curiosity in listener’s mind. Also the name stays longer in the cerebrum. Keeping these things in mind we were pretty clear that we wanted something funny yet symbolic of what we stand for as our name. So that funny thing led to Joker and that symbolic thing led to Padhaku. After all engineering students (Pseudo-IITians) also possess a sense of humor!
5) Do you provide coaching for exam or just point toward coaching classes?
We strongly believe the latter is very important. At times it proves to be a turning point. Selection is the first step of execution. The Education Industry (we are also a part of it) is cluttered with coaching institutes. It’s hard at times to decide where to go. Through us students would be able to know the ground situation (through experienced eyes of ours & other seniors) prevailing there and then weighing pros & cons they can have better judgment.
6) What are you plans for future activities? How you devote your time for the website along with your study?
There are a lot of plans on our minds but it would be immature to divulge those at such an early stage. For us Padhaku Joker is the focus for next 2-3 months. Meanwhile we have thought of going for horizontal as well as vertical integration. For now we want to start small, show quick results and then move faster.
We still don’t have any office. If we earn enough to have one then we will surely like to have a splendid one. We have completely converted our holidays into working days. Passion drives us and we are a very committed team strongly gelled by ethos of friendship. We know that if we want to leave a mark we need to do requisite hard work and keep rediscovering ourselves.
Once we are into our college routine, we tend to give few hours daily to it besides working full time on weekends. Where there is a will there is a way. It’s hard but possible to manage our own study with this venture.
7) Any other point you wish to state.
We would take this opportunity to say that we dedicate this venture to our parents, who made us this able!
We have a comprehensive team with members with rich profiles. We have also included a PJ aka Poor Jokes section where we aim to makes people laugh through torture. This is targeted to have some light moments at the serious platform. We also have contests where we try to encourage and nurture writing skills and creativity of students.
Guru Gyan: A section which is there to provide words of encouragement from real achievers from the field of education. We are working on it. We are in talks with some IIT Coaching Gurus, few Profs from IITs, IIMs & UIUC, USA to write articles for us. We hope to take their words to our users.
We also provide Education Loans info to students. Our website contains info about various scholarships and school level nation wide competitions and about engineering colleges across India. We have a special Cover story on that and also on Kota, the Cram Capital!
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Padhaku Joker: An entrepreneurial venture
http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=15772840
Padhaku Joker' is an entrepreneurial venture designed by a team of six students of Benares Hindu University, in a bid to help young students with their queries on professional courses or various competitive examinations..
CJ: A QUANTUM LEAP, 15 Jun, 2009
PADHAKU JOKER is no character from a circus, but surprisingly the name of a venture established by a team of six students of the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IT-BHU). Padhaku Joker is a web portal venture with a two-pronged approach to help students of schools and candidates aspiring for various competitive examinations like IIT, AIEEE, and PMT.
The first approach is to provide them well-tailored information on things important for them and second is a discussion platform where they can ask their queries to experienced seniors, experts and also discuss among themselves. The team comprises of six members, two each from Bihar, Delhi and Rajasthan.
The team launched their portal on June 1, 2009, since when it has received more than 1500 visitors (as it did on June 12, 2009). The team stands for knowledge driven development, for a better tomorrow and for a better India. Padhaku Joker was borne out of a passion to be the change rather than to demand it. The platform, as conceived by the team of IT-BHU students, is designed to meet the needs of school students and adolescents vying for various professional courses.
To help students in the pursuit of their goals, the portal is designed with a short, simple and effective approach to address problems. It offers solutions to most queries that the students ask. Its specifically-tailored information acts as a comprehensive and insightful research desk.
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Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP