Ab Sab Padhega — Why We Started KitabKopy and What It Means
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Ab Sab Padhega — Why We Started KitabKopy and What It Means
I grew up in Deoria.
If you're not from eastern Uttar Pradesh, you might not know Deoria. It's not a famous city. It doesn't have malls or big bookshops or the kind of infrastructure that people in metros take for granted. It's a regular small town — full of hardworking families, full of students who have real ambitions, and full of parents who quietly sacrifice a lot so their children can study.
I was one of those students once.
And one of the things I remember clearly from those years is how difficult it was to find the right book.
The problem nobody talks about
When a student in Delhi needs a reference book — say, RD Sharma for Class 10, or HC Verma for JEE prep — they walk to a bookshop, find it on the shelf, and come home. The whole thing takes an hour.
When a student in Deoria needs the same book, it's a different story.
Maybe the local shop has it. Maybe they don't. Maybe they have last year's edition, and they're not sure if this year's is any different. Maybe you have to ask them to order it, and wait a week or two, and hope it actually comes. And if it doesn't come in time — before your exam, before your coaching starts, before the chapter begins in school — you make do without it. You borrow from a friend. You skip the reference altogether.
That's not a small problem. That's a student starting from behind before the race has even begun.
I saw this happen around me growing up. I saw it happen to my own cousins, my neighbours' children, students from villages nearby who would come to Deoria thinking the town would have what they needed, and often leaving empty-handed.
It bothered me then. It bothers me more now, because I understand what those missing books actually cost — not in money, but in preparation, in confidence, in opportunity.
What my father taught me
My father is a straightforward man. He didn't give me big speeches about life or business. But one thing he always said, and showed through how he lived, was this — do the right thing, especially when it's inconvenient.
He was the kind of person who helped people around him not because it was profitable, but because it was the right thing to do. A neighbour needed something, he helped. A student in the family needed guidance, he sat with them. He didn't wait to be asked twice.
I think about that a lot when I think about why I started KitabKopy.
Because honestly, starting an online bookstore in a small town is not the easiest business decision. There are faster ways to make money, simpler businesses to run. But this one felt right. It felt like something that needed to exist.
And that feeling came directly from how my father taught me to think — not "what's the most convenient path" but "what actually needs to be done."
The idea behind KitabKopy
The idea was simple. Almost embarrassingly simple.
Students across India — not just in metros, but in every district, every small town, every village with an internet connection — should be able to get the books they need, delivered to their home.
No middlemen. No "come back next week." No settling for the wrong edition because the right one isn't available locally.
Just: find the book you need, order it, and it comes to you.
That's KitabKopy.
We started with academic books — textbooks, reference books, lab manuals, guides. The books that students need to clear exams, to prepare for competitive tests, to keep up in class. The books that, in a city, are completely unremarkable to find, but in a small town can sometimes feel out of reach.
Why "Ab Sab Padhega"
When we were thinking about what KitabKopy should stand for — what the one line should be that captures everything — we kept coming back to this feeling.
Everyone should be able to read. Everyone should have access.
Not just students whose parents can drive to a big bookshop in Lucknow. Not just kids in cities with good infrastructure. Everyone. The student in Kushinagar. The girl in a village outside Gorakhpur. The boy in Deoria who wants to crack JEE but can't find the right book.
Ab Sab Padhega.
Now everyone will read.
It's not just a tagline. It's the reason this business exists. It's the standard we hold ourselves to every time we pack an order, every time we answer a message, every time we decide whether to stock a new book or add a new delivery area.
Does this help a student who wouldn't otherwise have had access? Then we do it.
What KitabKopy is today
We're still a small team. We're still based in Deoria. We haven't moved to a fancy office in Noida or rebranded ourselves to sound like a startup.
But today, students from all across India order from KitabKopy. From UP and Bihar, yes — but also from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan. Students preparing for boards. Students preparing for JEE and NEET. Parents ordering storybooks for young children. Coaching institutes ordering books in bulk for their students.
Every order that comes in — whether it's one book or twenty — feels like the idea working. Like proof that this thing we built is actually useful.
We've made mistakes along the way. There have been delayed deliveries, out-of-stock situations, orders we couldn't fulfil as quickly as we wanted. We're not perfect. But we take every complaint seriously, we fix what we can, and we keep improving.
Because the students ordering from us deserve that.
What comes next
We want to grow KitabKopy — but growth for us doesn't just mean more revenue or more orders. It means more reach.
More students in more towns being able to find the books they need. More parents who don't have to worry about whether the right edition is available locally. More coaching centres in tier-2 and tier-3 cities that can get their books sorted without a headache.
We're working on making the website easier to navigate, adding more titles, improving delivery speeds to more pin codes, and making the whole experience — from searching to receiving — as smooth as possible.
There's a lot still to do. But the direction is clear.
A message to every student reading this
If you're a student somewhere in India — in a big city or a small town, in a coaching centre or studying at home — I want you to know that KitabKopy was built for you.
Not for a specific kind of student. Not for students who already have everything figured out. For every student who is trying. Who is studying hard. Who needs the right resources and shouldn't have to struggle to find them.
You deserve access to good books. You deserve a fair shot.
That's what we're here for.
Ab Sab Padhega.
— Ashish, Founder, KitabKopy.com Deoria, Uttar Pradesh