BENGALURU: When Mysureans N Vishal Chowdri and MJ Manoj Kumar were doing their post graduation they came up with an idea to start a company that makes stationary, but not just with any raw material. Thus, Jiiv was born in 2016, with the aim to make these products with recycled and eco-friendly materials.
Pencils made of such recycled paper have the same strength as wood pencils, says Vishal. It can be easily sharpened using regular sharpeners and also with blades. According to them by making one box of paper pencils one can save 540 gm of paper, 0.01 per cent of trees, 0.5 kilowatt hour of electricity and prevent a lot of carbon dioxide being released in the atmosphere. Jiiv manufactures newspaper pencils, newspaper colour pencils, seed pencils (with seeds in them), paper pens and scented pencils. The founders claim that the scented pencils are first-of-its-kind to be launched in the market.
They make pencils using waste newspapers. They have even tied up with several NGO’s across the city to buy newspapers from them. These NGO’s collect newspapers from people across city and sell it to them.
The duo have visited several schools and have conducted workshops and seminars to educate children about the advantages of using recycled pencils, and how pencils can be made in their home as a Do It Yourself (DIY) project.
Jiiv was started with a investment of ` 25 lakh, and they have availed working capital loan under MUDRA. Vishal Chowdri is 27-years-old and an MBA graduate who had earlier worked in Google India, prior to starting Jiiv. Sharing his experience, he says, “Though we have been associated with many schools, initially we faced the problem in marketing the product, as people do not accept new products easily. Another challenge was to get approvals from various government departments. Now, slowly, people have started recognising Jiiv, and are accepting our products. We have catered to nearly 2.5 lakh people till date.”
While stationary is used by people in their daily lives, the startup’s target customers are children aged nine to 15 years.“Jiiv means life in Sanskrit and we are giving back life to waste products. With the launch of recycled products we stand by the pledge taken by Mysuru regarding the 4 R’s — Refuse, Reduce, Recycle and Reuse,” adds Manoj Kumar.
All the employees working under them are rural women. With attrition being high, they are trying to understand their problems and overcome them. Several investors have shown interest in the company. They have been supported by lot of MNC’s like Himalaya, Intuit, Adobe, KPIT Technologies, Youth for Seva.
A box of 10 newspaper pencils costs ` 50 and a box of 10 seed pencil costs ` 70. The seed pencils contain seeds of vegetable or medicinal plants seeds like Thulsi, Ashwagandha.Their advice to start ups is, “Work hard and put your sincere efforts and have lots of patience as you will have to go through lots of ups and downs. The journey is an emotional ride.” The unit is located in J P Nagar,Mysuru. Contact: 9900088110 / 9740042426