Bistriti Poddar On Starting Non-Fiction Conversations' Community

Bistriti Poddar feels that conversations are not only life changing but also perspective-changing, stereotype-changing and status quo-changing. Her quest to find such real-life conversations and bring them to people gave birth to her venture - Paperless Postcards.

"Paperless Postcards examines life closely and brings to you witty, deep and thought provoking conversations that alter the rules, norms and standards," she says.

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Starting up

Her eight years of experience in digital content and strategy, where she mentored and led multiple teams, helped her in starting up.

"The digital space was getting saturated with memes and frivolous/intimidating content. I wanted to disrupt that and create something that was meaningful, impactful and relatable. There’s nothing more powerful than experiences that are sourced from life. Hence we leveraged that. Paperless Postcards is the country’s first and the largest social community of non-fiction conversations," she shares.

At Paperless Passports, she spearheads a team of 17 writers, designers, digital marketers and strategists.

Paperless Postcards team

Original conversations

Finding original conversations isn't an uphill task for the team. "Life has enough inspiration if we pay attention," Poddar says, adding that she met a snob marketeer recently who asked her if anyone had told her that she was arrogant.

"I said, ‘Yes, all insecure men have!’ We put it up on our community and it became one of our all-time hit conversations."

Pic credits: Paperless postcards FB page

Designs

"Paperless Postcards has not just created buzz because of its content, but also because of its design. We have created a unique brand positioning through our thematic design. We source and curate conversations from real life and then thoughtfully design them into themed digital postcards that are created in-house," Poddar tells SheThePeople.Tv.

"We have a highly engaged community of 6+ lakh organic followers garnered over a span of 1.5 years. Paperless Postcards clocks 5 million impressions and reaches out to 3 million people a week," - Bistriti Poddar

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The main source of revenue for the venture is workshops and collaborations.

"We are working on a merchandise line up too. In the near future, that will also be our revenue generator," she informs us.

The team has also conducted 15 exclusive workshops on the case study (success story) of Paperless Postcards at some of the biggest IITs, IIMs and other colleges.

Hurdles

No journey has ever been smooth and Paperless Postcards' journey is no different. Talking about some obstacles she faces, Poddar says they are a bootstrapped initiative because of which they have to grapple with a lot of financial issues.

On perseverance

She, however, believes that when your determination and passion are larger than life, things do work out in your favour.

A book of conversations in the pipeline

The team is presently working on their first book, which is a compilation of their best ever conversations.

"It has been very creatively crafted and will be launched in the next few months. It’s going to be one-of-a-kind, just like our community," Poddar avers.

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