At BrilliantRead Media, we always strive to bring some of the unique and powerful stories from India and around the world to empower and motivate our growing community of entrepreneurs, coaches, investors, management students and aspiring entrepreneurs. This week we invited Dev Vig And Akshata Vig for an interview with us to know more about their inspiring journey. Let’s learn more about their interesting entrepreneurial journey so far and the way forward!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with them:
Talk us through your background and your journey as an entrepreneur, please;
Akshata – We (Dev and I) co-founded this venture de space in 2010 when we did our first home on a shoestring budget. With my qualification as an Architect and experience as a corporate interior designer, I embarked into this journey of being an entrepreneur with Dev’s support (His expertise and qualification being primarily in business development and marketing, and a perfect combination of engineering+MBA), who at that time was heading business development in his corporate career.
Our apartment received much appreciation for the overall design philosophy and space management and aesthetics. We started getting enquiries and since then there has been no looking back!”
Why entrepreneurship over a corporate career?
Akshata – When I took a year-long sabbatical after a 6-year long career as a corporate interior designer and then did my work as an independent entrepreneur, I realized there’s much more soul to this self-employed status and “being your own boss” than the corporate employee which wasn’t as motivating and as creative as this! Similarly, Dev realized his calling when he jumped full time into de space after 10years of his successful star-studded corporate work experience
How is your product different from traditional products? Tell us more about your product and your startup’s journey this far?
Akshata – Our endeavour at De Space is primarily to create unique spaces for each individual that are personalized, well managed, functional and aesthetic. We focus a lot on creating something different from the conventional and hackneyed options available off the shelf.
We strive to provide thoughtful and innovative solutions for everyday needs in a household with an aesthetic outlook, and not delve too much into only the cosmetic aspect of the space. The other very important part of our work is our focus on a smooth client experience from the time they enquire till handover. This different approach has made us what we are. Thus, we see this philosophy working very well for us.”
Please share with us some of the challenges you faced in your journey;
Dev – Every journey generally comes with ups and downs and so was ours! The biggest challenge we faced was to find the right resources that understand our commitments and resonate with our vision of achieving the deadlines and expected quality of services and products. So we invested a lot of time to find, train and collaborate with like-minded people, partner them and let them be comfortable enough so they could settle well in the De Space ecosystem.
What is your Business Mantra: Money or Emotions?
Dev – If you are running your own venture, you will be surely emotional about it. And money definitely is important. But for us, our Business Mantra has been to be passionate about what we do. It’s this passion that drives us every day. To treat each project like our baby has helped us to scale new heights, and we believe this is the mantra that has worked well for us
How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
Dev – Pressure and stress are freebies life provides you and these are almost invincible. It’s imperative to manage these else before we realize it takes a big toll on the quality of our life.
Perseverance and a cool mind are all it takes to keep these monsters at bay taking a break from work calls, spending quality time with family and friends, taking timely vacations to work like magic to combat stress at work.”
What has worked well for you so far?
Dev – Our strong belief in our work philosophy (of unique and innovative designs), and a strong focus on overall client experience has helped us to build a lot of trust amongst our clientele and has brought us a long way.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
Akshata – There are no alternatives to hard work, integrity and belief in yourself. With these three keys, you are bound to unlock the door to success. Support from your loved ones, family and friends takes you places thereafter.
We would love to know your advice for all those starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?
Akshata – Listen to your heart, put your soul in whatever you do and your mind will never let you down
Given the rapid pace at which the world is changing, what are the leadership traits that are necessary for success?
Dev – People management and good communication skills with a strong belief in your vision are essentially important traits of a successful leader.
What are the business mantras you have embraced as you sought to establish your success story?
Akshata – Understanding people and their wants and needs and nurturing old and new relationships have done wonders to our business and we embrace them strongly, never to let them go!
What are your future business plans, any new model that you are working on?
Dev – Over the due course of time, we noticed that investment in a home primarily depends on two aspects:
1- Client’s budget
2 – Builder’s reputation
What goes missing in the selection process is to check for the effective layout of the apartment/villa. The effective layout comprises a lot of factors such as the potential for having functional storage space, basic Vastu compliance, overall usable space for the money being spent. These components impact us immensely in our daily lifestyle and we felt they must be an integral component of a home selection plan. Hence we have launched a service wherein we help the clients to make an apt selection by studying the layout of shortlisted apartments/villas in detail and preparing a detailed analysis/comparison of shortlisted units, mentioning pros and cons of each apartment as per client’s lifestyle, storage requirements and Vastu beliefs. This helps the clients to take a cautious and effective call in selecting their dream home. We strongly believe this new vertical will add a lot of value to our forthcoming clients.
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.
