https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/New-chapter-in-book-startup-12839266.php
New chapter in book startup
For $15 a month, college students offer reading suggestions; expansion eyed
By Madison Iszler
Updated 9:40 pm EDT, Monday, April 16, 2018
Mikayla Lansing, left, and Simon Bruno, right, recently won first place at the Capital Region Collegiate Bu-siness Plan Competition for their pitch about Inky's Bookshelf.
Two undergraduate students at Siena College are looking to expand a customized book-of-the-month service they launched last year.
Inky's Bookshelf, created by senior Simon Bruno and junior Mikayla Lansing, is intended to help people find new books to read based on their interests. People snap a photo of their bookshelf and submit it online along with a brief survey, and the pair hand-pick a new title to send them each month.
"We were seeing a one-size-fits-all model, and we wanted people to be able to read what was optimal for them," Bruno said.
The service costs $15 per month, a price point similar to other subscription services. Book of the Month costs $14.99 a month and customers choose from five books. Some subscriptions are tailored for certain genres, like OwlCrate, which ships a young adult fiction book along with items like jewelry and toys to customers for $29.99 per month. Others include additional goodies, like Book Bath Box, which sends bath items corresponding to a certain theme along with books and other products every three months.
After each shipment from Inky's, subscribers are invited to fill out a survey with their feedback. The bulk of the business's customers are not Capital Region residents, and while they won't disclose subscriber figures, Bruno said they will ship out their 400th book this month. So far, only one person has sent a book back.
Inky's started out as a platform for people to submit their poetry and participate in contests and then grew into a subscription service for poetry books. Eventually Bruno and Lansing decided to expand it to include a range of genres and subjects. They get the books through a partnership with a distributor and keep them in Bruno's car, house, his mother's house and space at Siena. The packaging materials are created by a company in California.
Both love reading; Bruno enjoys nonfiction, while Lansing likes fiction and true crime. Beyond helping people find books that align with their interests, the education reading provides was another piece of the inspiration behind Inky's.
"The human mind really flourishes through creativity, curiosity and diversity of thought," Bruno said. "When you're conforming something, it reduces the individuality."
Working with the Stack Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Siena helped them troubleshoot and create a business plan for Inky's, Bruno said. The center's interim executive director, Daniel Robeson, said he liked the idea behind Inky's because it involved technology and reading.
"It's got science and cutting-edge technology, but at the base it's about people who love to read," Robeson said. "The project really allows Simon and Mikayla to be 360 players."
Students at the center come up with a wide range of ideas, but the common threads between projects that succeed are the energy, discipline and persistence of the students behind them, he said.
"The students never give up," Robeson said.
Bruno and Lansing are now working to scale the business. They've won several competitions, including first place and a $1,000 prize at the Capital Region Bu-siness Plan Competition earlier this month, which has provided funding for the business. On April 27 they will compete with students from across the state for cash prizes during the final stage of the annual New York State Regional Business Plan Competition.
If they take home a prize, the funds would be used to develop software to help determine book recommendations based on customer data, build their subscriber base, increase their marketing efforts and work on the shipping component of the business. The software in particular, which Bruno is in the process of building with a partner, will help streamline the curation process and analyze customers' interests and habits.
"We're trying to adapt the idea of a book club for the 21st century," Bruno said.
One of the biggest challenges the pair has faced is balancing classes and homework with working on Inky's. After graduating this spring, Bruno plans to start working on the business full-time and to hire several other employees this summer.
"So far we've been bootstrapping," he said.
miszler@timesunion.com • 518-454-5018