As part of our constant endeavour to identify and share some of the unique and compelling stories from the startup ecosystem, we invited yet another passionate entrepreneur Deepmala Rath for an interview with us to understand more about her exciting entrepreneurial journey so far. Deepmala is the Co-Founder of Dezinefy. Let’s learn more about her!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Deepmala:
We are aware of your contribution to the ecosystem, talk us through your startup ‘Dezinefy’ and the problems you guys are solving;
Dezinefy has emerged during the pandemic as a result of two major problems. Like any other industries, in the interior design industry, there were a huge number of skilled junior designers, freelancers and 3D visualizer lost their jobs (as they do not bring direct sales and revenue) as a result of layoffs when the pandemic hit. They either had to take up jobs at a much lower salary or manage with few freelancing part-time work. At the same time, practising designers, architects and studio owners could not get a helping hand and had to take care of the majority of business roles on their shoulders. The designer had to do their own 3d, 2d, site visit, sales and project management. We realised that this is a start and these problems are going to stay for at least some time and any solution that can help both the parties could actually become an industry norm in future, to change the way companies function.
The solution to this was to give the freelancers a source of income by offering them a platform where they could practice their skills and earn from it.”
Whereas for designers who now had to maintain a lean team and could not afford to have a helping hand for the tertiary task of designing, there was a need of a reliable partner to whom they could outsource these activities at affordable cost without spending extra.
That’s when Dezinefy came into the role. Its a B2B E-commerce platform for the exchange of 3D design service and much more, amongst freelancers in the interior industry and designers who own the whole interior designing cycle of sales to execution. Expert 3D visualisers are sellers of their services, whereas customers are designers who either own a business or practice freelance designing and cannot afford to have their own in house junior designers all the time.”
We offer these service at a cut-throat price and ease of access through our platform so that designers can scale from doing 2 -10 projects month on month.
freelancers can at other hand earn 30-40 k doing remote work from anywhere by extending their 3D service to these designers.
‘Dezinefy’ is such a unique name. We would love to know where did the unique idea to start something like this come from?
Being in the industry for 10 years now, I have worked for corporates like future group (Hometown), Mansionly, Arrivae and several E-commerce designing companies like Homelane, Livspace etc. The general trend is to have a junior designer at backend dedicated to a senior designer at the front end, who do their respective roles to complete a project cycle of designing.
The problems in this kind of setups are as follows:
1 – Inefficiency of managing the designer’s timeline and bandwidth as their work output is dependent on the project given in hand.
2 – Fluctuating work pressure on 3D visualizer from sitting idle at times to working day and night to meet delivery deadlines
3 – High overheads of having in house junior designers on the payroll
4 – Waste of time due to back and forth coordination and communication to achieve desired results, as there is no set process of input
5 – Limited growth opportunity for designers who cannot sell or communicate, stay stuck at a particular salary range in spite of years of practice.
Apart from this, there are 3D studios that undertake 3D modelling and rendering services but are expensive and only cater to niche customers.
As there are enough companies solving the problems for customers, I wanted to solve a few ground-level issues for designers who are the backbone of this industry. Starting from 3D visualisation, there are many more solutions coming up at Dezinefy all focused to cater to problems of designers and making the whole process easier for them.
Please share with our audience what is the USP of ‘Dezinefy’
We being a part of the service industry, our USP focusses on giving optimum service to the customers i.e designers, which is basically three things:
~ Affordable and most competitive prices
~ Simple and efficient process
~ Shortest SLA or delivery ETA
And all this without compromising on quality, maintaining market standards to cater to majority customer needs.
How do you find the industry/ niche that you’re in?
It’s very unorganised and there is absolutely no set rules to operate here. Whereas there are companies and many startups at least trying to solve and organise the market, but most of them are focussed on customers satisfaction as that is where a major chunk of revenue comes from. And those company comprises not more than 10% of the total market. Rest of the industry is made of freelance designers, small studios and carpenters.
The problems that the industry was facing a decade ago be it a designer or customer, it still remains the same and there has been no major improvement yet.
Also, this change or improvement has yet not reached to all Tier-1 cities, forget about Teir2 and Teir3.
There are cities where people aspire to spend money and invest in beautiful homes, and budding designers are willing to practice their skills, but due to lack of exposure and absence of resource generally, migrate to metropolitans. The industry needs to develop a lot and come up in order to make it a viable source of income for professionals (Designers) as well as easily accessible, quality resource for homebuyers (Customers)
During this COVID-19 crisis, what are the measure ‘Dezinfy’ has undertaken to continue its own business without disruption?
As the business is born during COVID, each measure is taken to ensure that the model aligns with challenges of the pandemic.
~ Our business model consists of a lean team which is not at all resource-heavy and has minimal overheads.
~ The freelancer model ensures each and every work can be handled remotely, where we don’t need to do physical meetings
~ Every aspect of the business is online and tech-enabled to ensure automation as much as possible.
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives the team?
To be honest we are a pretty young startup, and its too early to say that. We have finished the pilot and just at the verge of launching the tech platform. Challenges that we would face shall majorly be seen after we complete a quarter in the market running this business full fledge.
But yes, with the learning and customer input that we got during the pilot, I hope we will be prepared to iterate and adapt soon to anything. It was a tough decision for me and my cofounder to leave our high paying jobs and start something from scratch, sustaining and carrying on with the decision of building the startup in spite of these tough times, was even tougher.”
But now we have built it and eager to see it grow month on month. It’s much more than a career option, it’s our passion and the only dream for now.
Please share with us about your expansion plans?
Starting from providing 3d visualisation service to designers via freelancers, we will add many more such services which designers generally want to sublet and we can monetise on. Apart from that, we aim to get into affiliate marketing once we have enough designers using our platform and benefitting from it. The idea is to give them a design that can actually be executed using real products. And those product link will be made available through our affiliate tie-ups. Dezinefy would be then a one-stop solution/partner to designers for all designing and execution needs.
How do you guys handle the pressure and manage stress?
It all depends on how we see our work and how we perceive stress. If one aspect gives us stress, we focus on others for a while. Also its absolutely fine if deadlines get little delayed and we take a needed break to freshen up our mind. So I do that and get back to work again, there is clearly no stopping but, I do take out time for myself to rejuvenate, enjoy with family and invest time in making new connections, learning new things, pursuing hobbies.
What is the one strategy that you guys believe has helped you grow as a team/startup?
One thought that has helped us grow is, Idea is worth nothing unless executed well. Although we believe our idea is great and we have heard this from every single person who talks to us. However, executing this to perfection is the toughest and most complicated part. And we strive to improve ourselves through each day by learning from our customers. The zeal to make the product better till we get to the level best, keeps us going.
Apart from that, we aim to be humble, give chance to the right people and associate with like-minded teams to work and grow together.
We would love to know your advice for all those starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?
It’s too early to be advising others as I am yet to achieve so much and we are ourselves starting out. Working or running your own startup is the toughest kind of job. In order to thrive, would like to share my mantra through my learning so far-be open, be honest and work with like-minded people to make the journey as easy as possible.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
