A month back, I set off on a not-so-common path with a good friend of mine, Raunak, who is a skilled programmer. Basically, we wanted to improve one of the key portals of Nepali market—online shopping.These days, we find that a number of so-called "online stores" have sprung up in the cyberspace. But most of them are basically platforms which connect random sellers with buyers, with no control on the authenticity of goods. This has bred distrust in e-commerce. Instead, we set out to deliver a refined shopping experience to people in Kathmandu. Thus, we created ShopLife, a website which only sells genuine premium products, and delivers them within two weeks. We also offer items which are not available in Nepal. For that, we had to close deals with many suppliers who were supportive towards us despite our age.
One of the recent updates to our website is this feature called CustomBuy. Basically, you can order things which are not in our product listing and place a "Custom Wishlist." So instead of expecting a relative abroad to gift you a product in six months, you can get the best deal for that item at your doorstep within two weeks.
"The biggest risk is not taking any risk...In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks," says Mark Zuckerburg.
More than a startup, I feel that ShopLife is a risky experiment in creativity. We've learnt that in today's times, opportunities are limitless. Many criticize the Internet's role in distracting the youth. There cannot be a greater farce. The knowledge that you can extract from the Internet is infinite. We're teenagers just into high-school but we've started an online venture right from our computers. How cool is that? Well, consider this: Nick d'Aloisio, a British teenager, created Summly when he was 15. It was an app which was bought by Yahoo for USD 30 million, and subsequently remade it as News Digest, an application which summarizes news for you. I'm not advocating dropping out of school. That's clearly academic suicide. All I'm saying is that we need to re-align our paradigms to our ever-transient digital arena.
For example, on a recent weekend, instead of wasting my time stalking people on Facebook, I went along with my friend to meet a customer. He happened to be a person in the tech industry. He had ordered an Arduino microcontroller. Arduinos are the most important devices for small-scale robotics. Unfortunately, one cannot get it easily in Nepal. Instead, you find these duplicate 'Nepaluinos' here. So when the customer received this item, he was truly ecstatic. He assured us that he'll be fetching more accessories through our site as he was happy. And we are happy for being able to assist tech enthusiasts of our country who are the pioneers of innovation.
Additionally, we're also selling Kindle e-readers in a bid to improve the reading culture in society. Furthermore, we're donating a portion of our profits to Dorm Nepal in rebuilding homes for earthquake victims.
Entrepreneurship is a noble pursuit as it can create jobs and improve the lives of many. Schools need to raise their bar from teaching only "input and output devices" to teaching useful topics in Computer Science. Only then can we harness our intelligence for the good of our motherland. Sure, it's a challenging climb, but the view from the top is marvelous.
Avaneesh is an AS-Level student at St Xavier's College in Maitighar, Kathmandu, and cofounder of ShopLife (shoplifenepal.com), a recently established online shopping venture that strives to make their service customer-centered and assure punctual home deliveries.
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