Designs Are The Key To Branding, Marketing, DesignHill Believes, Right Designs Can Help Brands Tap Right Clients & Build Right Brand Image

It is rightly said, ‘what we see through our eyes, stays with us for a longer time than what we hear and what we read.’ Our vision is the most intimidating and intriguing aspect in the whole of universe. It is the power of our vision where in we get the empowerment of understanding things through our eyes. This is why, books have pictures, websites have graphics, and more. In the era of technology and internet, we come across various visions which are attractive and we just cannot put ourselves together to forge them from our mind. Well, these are graphics.

Today, Inventiva is about to cover a story of two individuals, Rahul and Varun, who created a magnificent platform for bridging the gap between graphic design solutions and the people in need of graphic design solutions. We got into talk with them about how they started the company and what motivated them. Their skilled mindset and innovative thought process have made their entrepreneur model a huge success all around the globe to cater the needs of their customers and clients under one roof.

Designhill is a globally serving graphic designing platform which has helped various customers across to provide solutions in the same genre by just being.

Read on to find out more about the success story of Rahul, Varun, and their startup, Designhill.

1) What is the story behind Designhill? How did it all begin?

Designhill is one of the world’s leading online graphic design platform that brings the global graphic designer community and their potential clients under one roof. We recognised that brand identity was no longer just a concern for a large business and there was evident awareness among the smaller and individual businesses as well. This sense of visual makeover among brands globally led to the creation of unique design marketplace. The much-needed platform looks to address concerns of the designers while providing an array of alternate design solutions to business owners at a very affordable price.

It was only basis this understanding that we kick-started the beta version of the online platform back in 2014. Over last few years, we have expanded the range of design services to include design contests, DIY tools, one to one project, etc.

2) Why the name Designhill?

Like any other startup, the initial phase of deciding the perfect name wasn’t easy for us. We wanted something catchy and creative which would resonate with our audience. During this process, domain availability proved to be a concern with regards to the coining of names. Over a series of discussions and domain availability checks, we decided on Designhill. The name and style of “Designhill” are catchy that distinguishes us from our competitors. It has earned worldwide recognition, credibility and trust among our customers.

3) What was the objective and vision of the company?

Designhill is a complete online graphic design platform for small businesses, including SMEs, doctors, lawyers, photographers, real estate companies, technology businesses start-ups, mom & pop shops, etc. Our objective is to provide them quality solutions at an affordable price with whatever graphic design needs they have such as logo design, website design, packaging, brochure designs, and many more options.

We bootstrapped the business and hit the magic $1M ARR number in a short span of 14 months. We are currently growing at 21% MoM, and we aim to expand 10x within the next year.

4) Tell us about your target markets? What is the current market space?

While we started from India, major chunk of our clients and vendors are based out of USA. Further we’ll continue to develop our strongholds in India, Canada, Australia and U.K.

As an industry, the online graphic design space is worth $64B -marking 25 percent annual growth. Owing to the rapid globalization, increased internet access and relevance of visual identity, the industry is set for the continued momentum.

5) Tell us about the other players in the market.

Online graphic design platform has a very high entry barrier as it is extremely difficult to create a community of high-quality designers who would be willing to create designers at an affordable price while at the same to attract business owners who are looking for quick and affordable graphic design.
And it is for this reason Designhill is India’s only and one of the world’s largest graphic design platform. Though no other graphic design platform is able to provide all the services as Designhill however 99designs.com, fiverr.com, freelancer.com, upwork.com can be considered as competitors

6) How many graphic designers you have currently on board? How many clients you have, nationally and internationally. Tell us about your target audience, customer base, traction & growth?

Designhill is a strong global network of over 1 lakh designers from across 100 + countries. Our offerings are not restricted to a big business but also best suited for individual with bare minimum budget. Our customers are spread across U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia and India among others. Until now Designhill designers have catered to over one lakh clients globally.

7) What is the unique selling point of your start-up? How is it different from other competitors?

The key differentiating factor for Designhill is the extremely talented pool of global designers catering to the businesses of all sizes. The global network brings in a deep understanding of cultures and audiences which results in “locally” relevant design solutions. All that a brand needs to do is drop a brief along with timelines and the designers from across the world will put forth custom made designs for selection. It is an easy one stop shop where business will find a range of brand identity solutions that otherwise would be a very costly affair in an agency set-up.  In addition, we provide round the clock customer service to facilitate the design transfer process. 

8) What were the initial challenges and how you overcome them?
Initially, it was a challenge to attract the right set of talent and though online marketing tactics somewhat helped us to onboard then we were sure it was only the offered solutions and experiences that would sustain the both sides. Over the time, we have tried to enhance our credibility and support among the two groups. Our round the clock customer support service is one such initiative. Further, the creative content and world class designs on offer helped us build the required trust in the platform.

9) What are the funding details? Do you have any plans to raise funds in the future?

Designhill is a self-funded bootstrapped business with annual growth of 21 percent. Considering the growth and design services portfolio expansion, we see no immediate requirement to raise funds. However, we aim to increase 10x within the next year and believe the same can be achieved through continued trust and efforts of available talent and satisfactory customers. We’ll continue to focus on the two groups to fund the future growth.

10) What is Designhill Logo Maker? Why have you launched Logo Maker?

Logomaker is an AI backed logo designing tool that offers 1000+ logos at an affordable cost within minutes. It is one of the many services provided by Designhill for the MSME’s or start-up entrepreneurs who are looking for a cost-effective and quick designs for their business.

Constant listening to our customers made us realize for a pocket-friendly graphic design solution, especially in India. We aim to ease off the pressure from our clients by offering real time design solutions without compromising on the desired quality.

We started Designhill with a mission to disrupt the graphic design space and offer cost-effective design solutions. We understood that small businesses and start-ups especially in India need more pocket-friendly graphic design solutions. Through the launch of our AI Logo maker, we aim to facilitate and disrupt the way businesses, start-ups, and entrepreneurs approach their graphic design visions and challenges

11) What is your goal for the next five years?

Our end goal is that when someone thinks about sourcing a graphic design (no matter what kind), Designhill is the name that pops into their heads. The online graphic design industry is growing at a very rapid pace, much faster than the offline graphic design industry, and there’s still no “Google” or “Amazon” in this space. We want to own the design space both in India as well as globally.

We plan to roll out a multi-lingual/multi-currency website sometime this year and that should be a game-changer. Although we’re based out of India, we’re a global platform, so we need to have a presence in every country in their local language and currency. Once we’ve successfully achieved that, we should have a much wider footprint and presence.

12) Was the journey worth it?

We have been through a lot of highs and lows, but it has been an exciting journey. We had many new learnings at every step we took and somehow that was worth it. We started Designhill at a very early stage of our career and being a disruptor in the graphic design space there was no one to help us. We had our set of setbacks, but we were also determined to find the solutions to every problem on our own. We slowly grew the business by offering other design services under the umbrella of graphic design such as logo designing, website designing, brochure designing, and many more. Today, we rank as top 3 in the US market and aim to strengthen our hold in India. We have a strong global network of over 1,00,000 designers from across 150 + countries likely Australia, South America, Canada, India etc. We are working hard every day to set new benchmarks in the coming years.