Kolkata: You can call it a book lovers’ hub, where the donated books are refurbished and sold at a cheaper price. An ecosystem of readers, book donors and suppliers-making reading more affordable and creating a vibrant community of book readers-that is what sums up MyPustak.com.

A start-up by a Marine engineer, who is now into the business of books, collecting books from donors across the country from all segments- academics to story books through a nation-wide logistics network, then refurbishing them in Kolkata warehouse and selling them through his own website and e-commerce platforms at an affordable price, much lower than the market price.

The idea of start-up clicked during his college days, when he first visited College Street, the book hub of new, old and secondhand books in Kolkata, as a Marine Engineering student in the city. The Book Street of Kolkata in the central Kolkata’s College Street, where iconic institutions like Presidency College and Calcutta University are located.

Mukul Agarwal, from Bihar, has made Kolkata his second home and work-place, centre for his successful and sustainable business model, from where his business and love for books got reshaped. The idea clicked from College Street, after a few unsuccessful attempts trying to balance business and job, finally he has made his business model sustainable. Initially he tried to rope in some old book sellers from College Street itself. But that did not work well.

Agarwal was in the Merchant Navy from 2012-2017. In 2018, he incorporated mypustak.com. “My aim was to make books more accessible and affordable. After surveying the College Street book market, I went to survey the Patna and Hyderabad old book markets as well and did a lot of online research,” Agarwal told ET.

“Selling is also done online and then delivered at doorstep. Technology has been used in such a way that the donor can also track where his books are going. We do doorstep collection across the country,” he said

“I wanted to create an ecosystem to bridge the entire gap-between user and donor. A platform for the book donors and buyers-which is completely hassle-free and affordable. A person can fill a form in the website of mypustak.com and books are collected from his doorstep. We have a strong logistic network which is available at 17,000 pin codes across the country and we give free doorstep pickup facilities,” Agarwal said.

Presently, mypustak has a warehouse in Rajarhat. “We are a Technology-driven company which focuses on quality check, refurbishments of the books, listing of books for the websites and tracking is made possible by every donor and reader, who buys the books and who donates them. It has been made possible by our in-house tech team,” Agarwal pointed out.

At present, there are 4.5 lakh website users. The used books and new books both are available in the website. The company has also launched the “Mypustak” app. “There are one lakh readers till date, starting its journey from 2018. We have delivered five lakh books till date and almost in all districts of India,” Agarwal said.

“A medical book which costs Rs 3000 is available at our website at Rs 400-500. Key to our success is user affordability and user experience coupled with good logistics. It is affordable for individual readers,” he said.

“In 2023, we realized the demands for new books from our readers. There are very big marketing models prevailing in the e-commerce domain,” he said. Mypustak tied up with publishers and entered into this new book selling domain.

In the new book segment, another app has been launched called ‘Stockmate’, which helps in supplier onboarding. “Nationally, we have tied up with 50 plus publishers and distributors. We aim to make it 500+ in the coming one year,” he said.