Tims Magazines – short for This Is My Story Magazines – entered the personalised magazine business just a couple of months before the announcement of the nationwide lockdown on 23 March 2020. The parent company is Tims Memories and Tims Magazines is its first sub-brand.

The standout feature of the magazine is that it uses 100% personalised concept, content and design as per the requirement of the customer to produce a customised magazine, which is usually a memoir for the loved ones, according to the founder and co-founder duo Devanshi and Hrutul Patel.

The love story
The journey of the magazine begins with a love story. To be precise, it begins with a humble gift – a customised DIY magazine named This Is My Story – which Hrutul made for Devanshi for her birthday, of course after a prolonged procrastination and overthinking.

Hrutul was designing posters when something struck his mind. He started typing a fictional note portraying Devanshi as a Bollywood star. After eight hours, in the morning, he wrote 21 paragraphs depicting her imaginary film career, scandals and achievements with four images, all put in a randomly-sequenced PDF with a reference of a magazine in mind, and with a random title This Is My Story.

“Trust me, it was the most random gift I’d ever made,” says Hrutul. Later, Devanshi, after a series of joyous tears, saw a business potential in this gift. Rolling up her sleeves, she developed a business model and a very simple, direct and literal name – Tims (abbreviation for This Is My Story).

“We amalgamate sweet, unforgettable memories fused with unique designs and out-of-the-box concepts. One can eternalise any phase of their life such as childhood memories, wedding stories, love tales, success stories, and travel memoirs into a magazine,” says Devanshi. “It can be a gift to your parents, wife, friend, colleague, client, and pet or maybe yourself as these personalised magazines blend in really well as a unique decor idea.”

“To avail a personalised magazine, all one has to do is to share their pictures and special memories with our concept strategist over a 15-minute call and witness nostalgia become a constant companion in their life, in the form of Tims magazines,” says Hrutul.

Devanshi is an engineering graduate and has been a creative producer of a Gujarati film Bau Na Vichaar. She’s primarily the senior curator, editor-in-chief and content/design strategist for marketing campaigns at Tims.  

Meanwhile, Hrutul has an educational background of science, commerce and arts combined. He is also a director, writer and music composer of Bau Na Vichaar.

Although the print industry is facing turmoil, and digital disruptions have become ever more rampant – especially during the pandemic – the idea to print customised magazines was “to replace the meaningless show-pieces in every household and replace it with Tims magazines depicting different phases of that family’s life.”

Devanshi believes, “In this digital age, souvenirs represent important memories and direct a sincere and necessary flow of nostalgia in everyone’s life. Having the convenience of storing thousands of photos on your phone has faded away the importance of cherishing valuable memories.”

Devanshi Patel turned a whacky print idea into a niche business

How the magazines are made
According to Devanshi, concept, content and design are 100% customised from scratch as per the client’s taste. At least 10 people are involved in the whole process (single shift), excluding the 20-odd freelancers who also contribute to the magazine.

It starts by a concept call with the storyteller (client), conducted by a concept strategist, followed by the writer elaborating the brief and concept into articles. The content curator adds more bling to the content with interesting elements and refined vocabulary.

Later, the content is sent for approval. Once approved, photos shared by the client are selected and edited, followed by the designer conceptualising and executing the layouts. The final PDF is proofread by the editor-in-chief (Devanshi) and design improvements are also taken care of. After the client’s final changes are carried out, the magazine is printed and dispatched to the client.

For printing the magazine, the company has roped in a printing agency based in New Delhi, which the founders did not want to disclose. “All the dispatch PDFs are emailed to the printer by 12pm every day. The magazines are delivered to Tims office by 3pm, and the product is dispatched to the client,” says Hrutul. “Storytellers (clients) can choose between glossy and matte laminations for the magazine. However, the paper quality is standard.”

The magazines are digital-printed using HP DesignJet T830 36 thermal inkjet printer for printing A4 size magazines with centre pinning.

A year of growth
Speaking about the growth of the company, Devanshi says, “Our company started operations two months before the official lockdown. The lockdown, however, has been beneficial for our growth as people got more time to look back at their memories.”

On a typical day, according to Devanshi, an average of 8-10 different magazines are dispatched. “It started off with four projects in January 2020, and we are projecting to do more than 10,000 projects by the end of December 2021,” she forecasts. The company clocked a turnover of Rs 67 lakhs in FY20-21.

Hrutul Patel believes that the segment will gain more market share in the years to come

The price of the magazines ranges from Rs 900 to Rs 15,000. It costs Rs 900 just for a cover page of the magazine, followed by Rs 1,300 for four pages, Rs 2,300 for eight pages, which goes up to Rs 14,900 for 48 pages.
Orders can be placed for a single copy as well as hundreds and thousands of extra prints. “We are capable of printing 500 individual and separate projects a month. The growth cycle of our HR team shall make us capable of printing more
than 3,000 magazines a month by the end of December 2021,” she adds.

Putting a smile on client’s face
Hrutul says, “Customers are usually surprised as the product is completely different from what the majority assumes. Only after the final delivery, every storyteller (client) realises that the magazines are indeed 100% customised from scratch as per their taste and memories.”

However, due to its unique nature of business, the company’ biggest technical and management challenge was to marginalise the production process with reasonable cost. However, this did not compromise on efficiency and uniformity of the system to produce magazines on a daily basis at a growing pace without losing the quality in any project.

Speaking about the growth of personalised printed products, Hrutul believes that the segment will gain more market share in the years to come. He says that with the rise of easily available and abundant digital content, demand for “products with physical-emotional value are only set to scale”.

Currently, the company is working on its brand magazine. “A magazine about our magazines,” says Hrutul.

Hrutul strongly believes that Tims Magazines is also on its path of massive growth. “Tims is a brand, which will eventually expand its roots into multiple customised products with different product brands, customising memories globally,”
he concludes.