For generations, the topic of setting up a business would have always found its way into conversations. You can be a Gen Z, Millennial, Gen X, or even a Baby Boomer, but at least once in your life, you would have sat down with a friend and discussed an idea for a new venture over a cup of chai. Maybe the place and the business idea change from time to time, but the dialogue, “Macha, namba en intha mari oru kadai arambika kudathu?” (Buddy, why don’t we start a shop like this?) would have remained the same.
I remember my undergraduate days. At least once every two weeks, I would pitch two business ideas to my best friend: a pani puri stall and a Xerox shop. Irrespective of the day of the week, the dead-end Xerox shop near my college was always crowded. At one point, the shop even felt like a networking ground where students from different departments crossed paths. But every visit to the shop came with its own struggle. Looking at the endless materials we printed and xeroxed every single week during our three-year course and the costs that probably added up to at least one-third of our semester fees — I would persistently ask my friend if we too should open a Xerox shop someday.
Though it was just a two-minute walk from campus, getting there was never easy. We had to literally plead with security guards, call faculty in-charges to vouch for us, and run back and forth while scrambling to meet assignment deadlines.
For most students, this exhausting ritual has remained unchanged for years. It is this very gap that Chennai-based entrepreneurs Pranav Senthil and Subeshwar P are attempting to resolve through Qwikprint, a startup building automated self-service printing kiosks that promise printouts in under 60 seconds. “India is still a very print-dependent country. There are approximately 3 million Xerox shops across India. Even if you take any rural place, there will be thousands of Xerox shops, and you’ll find a minimum of 20 to 25 Xerox shops around universities, government offices, RTOs,” says Pranav.
For him, the idea was born out of his own frustration. He recalls, “On our college campus, we had around 18 Xerox shops, and all of them would still be crowded. It didn’t matter whether I wanted one printout or 100 printouts, I still had to wait 45 minutes.” Similarly, Subeshwar’s motivation stemmed from a situation where he urgently needed to print a medical insurance bill, but ended up spending nearly an hour searching for a shop and waiting for the printout, making him realise how inconvenient and time-consuming printing still is. The founders had two questions as their problem statements: Why are there so many Xerox shops? Why is there still a requirement for many more Xerox shops? “Even though there are many shops, the process is still very slow. Even if there are five shops, there will still be a line in all five shops, which creates the demand for a sixth shop,” says Pranav. He compares their model to the transformation ATMs brought to banking decades ago. Inspired by the rise of quick commerce platforms, the duo began questioning why printing still consumed so much time for students and office-goers alike. Currently installed across campuses such as Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Dhaanish Ahmed College of Engineering, and PSG iTech, the kiosks allow users to upload documents through a web app, customise print settings, make payments digitally, and receive printouts instantly through an OTP-based system.
The startup also addresses another overlooked issue: document privacy. In order to ensure that uploaded files remain inaccessible to anyone except the user, the founders have integrated document encryption and privacy-focused systems into the kiosks. What started as a college-age experiment has now grown rapidly. Launched in June 2025, Qwikprint has expanded to nearly 45 kiosks across India, including Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, and Delhi, with more installations planned in West Bengal and Maharashtra. The startup has also gotten opportunities in countries such as Belgium, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Yet, the journey has not been without challenges. Still in their early twenties, convincing suppliers, universities, and franchise partners to trust them proved difficult initially. “Building credibility and convincing people that we would actually deliver was one of the biggest challenges,” says Pranav. The founders also encountered difficulties in building the hardware side of the business. While software development came more easily due to their previous startup experience, finding manufacturers to produce small-scale prototypes was a struggle. “A lot of suppliers were ready to manufacture 100 or 200 machines, but very few wanted to work on five or ten MVPs (Minimal Viable Products),” he explains.
Despite the hurdles, the response from students has been overwhelmingly positive. Beyond convenience, the kiosks have become part of campus life itself. “Students upload everything on their phone, walk to the kiosk and get the printout immediately. They don’t have to worry about whether the Xerox shop will close at 8 pm or whether they have to wake up early before class just to get something printed,” says Pranav. For the founders, the vision is just to make the process less tedious and more accessible. “I see Qwikprint becoming available in every university, hospital, government office, and other public spaces, making printing and essential services quick, accessible, and hassle-free for everyone,” says Subeshwar. After all, somewhere between crowded Xerox shops, last-minute assignment submissions, and business idea brainstorming, two young entrepreneurs managed to find an opportunity hiding in plain sight.
