The team behind Designdewz are on a mission to bring 30 million untapped Indian SMEs Online through their design and digital crowdsourcing platform. The startup has attracted over 50+ startups and SMEs in this journey so far and have emerged as differentiated crowdsource platform which becomes design & digital team of their customers 24/7 on monthly subscription! In this article, the team has shared their views about their journey since inception and how they founded the secret sauce which they say is the core attribute of the Indian economy which their rivals has failed to consider. Let’s see what they have for us in this article below:
The heavy task of bringing millions of SMEs digital requires big workforce and Crowdsource (let the freelancers grow your platform) seems best solution. But nowadays, the possibility of encountering an article on some new freelancing marketplace is common now. The growing number of freelancing platforms for hiring creative people has shown that there is an immense need of freelancers in this space, which not only supports other Startups or SMEs but also work professionally with MNCs. But what is more important to note down is that, no freelancing platform has emerged as the leader of this vertical and provides best value to its users. Still Big No. This is where this Startup comes to the rescue and shows the secret which they have discovered to lead this freelance economy from totally different perspective.
First, let’s see how existing freelance platform normally works:
Upon hearing the word Freelancing, the normal picture which gets drawn in our mind is there might be a platform which offers connection between Freelancers and Customers for a varying fee to run their platform. If you too got the same image when you thought of Freelancing platform then it is totally cool because No platform has ever shown courage to differentiate themselves and get deeper into the attributes of their targeted potential users. Every single freelancing platform works like a marketplace where we can buy the service or hire some freelancer but only after paying certain fee before launching our contest.
The freelancing platforms relies heavily on the number of freelancers on their platform and promote their platform making this point a USP. But what’s amazing to note down is that, driving more freelancers to your platform requires more sacrifice on the earning margin of the platform. So, what do they do? They increase the pricing of the listed service to get a better margin at the end and so and so on which results in skyrocketed pricing for normal service.
Now, the problem with Platforms which target Indian market as well:
I mentioned “Indian market as well” because the existing freelance platforms has never gone deep into the attributes of Indian market. They have just targeted it bluntly without even knowing what this market actually contains in it. India with all its glory, believes in making relationships. Indian people value relationship much more than advantages. Indian SMEs are not so interested to look at your features or USPs but wants someone to solve their itch and do it for longer term by making a good business relation with them. They value those stakeholders who not only provides value but also understand their dilemma and commit their services in such a way that the former gets the most of it and enjoy immense growth by their added value. They love making long term business relation to avoid frictions in future. All the existing platforms has capitalised on fancy USPs but never ever thought of bringing satisfaction on this very crucial point in their targeted user’s life.
What should have been done: Ventures who were keen in solving design & digital itch of this nation, should have understood this basic and core attribute of the target customers and should have design their service in such a way, that it scratches target customer’s itch not just one time but always when the itch arrives. Long term business relation is the key. Not just a marketplace.
But what have been done: Various fancy marketplaces have arrived which runs 24/7, connecting designers with customers for a minor fee but they don’t stretch on making steady continuous business relation with their customers which can include price negotiation from customer to mutually arrive at a price to continue for a longer term.
Now What this Startup focuses to solve and Why?
Deepak Pandey along with his team have founded a startup with an amazing business model which differentiates them from the existing cluttered platforms. After talking straight with the potential users and stepping inside their shoes for almost 2-3 months, the team came with some conclusions which also gets supported by the reports and analysis from leading surveyors of Indian market. They have targeted Indian SMEs and on a mission to bring more than 30 millions of them digital through their platform known as Designdewz.
As per the Designdewz team, the majority of Indian SMEs (more than 75%) honours Long term business relation and chooses their vendors by taking satisfaction as the criteria and not features and choices and options or USPs. It’s the matter of “Who understands my business and my dilemmas well and then provide me something which can really add value to me”.
The team also strongly supports the facts such as the total number of SMEs in India has exceeded 50 million and it runs this economy singlehandedly plus provides more jobs than others. Out of 50 million SMEs, only 10% has shown some signs of digital readiness and rest is the untapped market. One more interesting thing to note down is that majority of SMEs and small business are from rural areas than urban and works with least or without use of English language. They understand and prefer their local language in doing business. What’s more amazing is that, among these SMEs, a majority of them uses Internet over mobile devices than on PC or tablets.
The team states that Indian SMEs are very cautious on their costs and cannot easily be converted to choose a premium service over other. They love negotiation and always do in every business decision. They just cannot go with the stated pricing on your website. They believe in hearing voices over call or looking face in personal meeting than watching client testimonials. They believe and honours the Human side of every vendor and straight away rejects others who doesn’t reflects this value.
This Startup doesn’t wanted to become the next mere freelancing platform but wanted to serve as the reliable team to satisfy this very core attributes of Indian market which has not been targeted well by International and National Freelancing platforms. Deepak Pandey along with his team, are on the mission of providing much needed daily services and has focused on 2 core categories which are: 1) Design (includes Graphics & Illustrations, 2D-3D Models and animations, Architectural designing, Workplace and Marketing communication designing) and
2) Digital intelligence (includes Designing and development of Website and Applications, Chatbot development and Virtual reality)
“The real twist of this startup is that their services look traditional but they offer it on crowdsource basis and work as the creativity team of their customers 24/7.”
Although this startup runs with the help of their 25+ professional freelancers scattered around the nation + inhouse talents, they work as the team for their customer and charges monthly fees for that. How cool is that? The team at Designdewz believes that the services which they provide requires understanding in depth and commitment which can never be honoured truly if they sell this like some product in a marketplace. Every potential customer is different than others and carry different expectations and strategies and how can we expect to sell same service with same pricing to everyone?
Designdewz and its unique model:
Designdewz likes to work as the creativity team of the customers for longer term while making use of its scattered workforce. They have packages to choose from which only takes a confirmation call from their side to get started. Their pricing is adaptable in the Indian market. Their way of going crowdsource is far different than their rivals and their simplicity is their biggest USP. As we know, simplicity is contagious. When a user opts in for their service, the whole process only takes a minute and requires less information to be feed by the user when compared to rivals taking more than 5 minutes with pages to fill by the user!
Although they are new to this space, they have attracted and served over 50+ startups and SMEs so far. While visiting their website, one can feel that they have kept it really simple when providing their service. They’re developing their new platform with more functionalities and the new website will be live in a month. When asked about their future plans, the answer we got is:
“We’re developing our new platform which will make it easier for new users in viewing our work and choosing to get started. It will be live in a month. As we all know, the internet consumption is moving from PC to mobile devices at a rapid stage, we’re also working to develop our own Design assistant (Bot) with support of Indian languages, which will not only help other freelancers in their daily routine but will also educate the potential segment about the importance of going digital & Visual appeal for any company to succeed.”
The team at Designdewz is confident in their differentiation and has a mission to bring more and more SMEs digital and help them grow digitally. They have targeted 30 million SMEs to get on track till 2022 and they’re growing well with Maharashtra as their starting point.
Thoughts from the Founder: Deepak Pandey
We are overwhelmed with the positive response we got from the users. When we started, we didn’t even bother for having a website first, we just wanted to test our solution before betting any penny. Cold calls and Emails (Using Gmail ????) to the target users helped us making initial sales of our packages. We started with only graphic & Illustration, but later expanded our service line up as we saw that, not just Indian SMEs, but no entrepreneur or business will like to get every other service from different & different vendors. They asked us if we can do that too, we affirmed them and expanded our service offerings. Now after closing deals with over 50+ startups and some major corporations, we feel happy for our differentiation and what role we’re playing in bringing a real digital revolution for Indian SMEs. We are not just a Graphics crowdsourcing platform but provide full digital service and take responsibility of our work when we work as the creative team of our users. Although we’re still very new to this segment have just appeared on various social media platforms, we hope we’ll find great response for our differentiated approach gradually.
We often get asked that Google too have set on a mission to bring most Indian SMEs digital and how tough we find competing with them. My answer to them is that: We’re not competing with google, we’re just doing our best karma which we feel great to do. Google on its part, is also doing great but their casual approach to this task with their very simple and dead themed website templates, which they think can bring more business online, is not up to the mark and we are adding more value than them in life and business of our users. Period.
I would personally like to Include one suggestion for wannabee entrepreneurs, that, “No matter what, only you yourself is responsible for your growth and wellbeing. Focus on your inner voice, your gut, your beliefs and work furiously with these.”
You can follow and connect Deepak Pandey at:
Linkedin.com/in/dgreatone21
Twitter.com/dgreatone21
If you love the uniqueness of Designdewz, then feel free to connect with them below.
You can say hi or join their design brigade at:
Facebook.com/designdewz
Instagram.com/designdewz
Linkedin.com/designdewz
Twitter.com/designdewz
Website: www.designdewz.com
Email : [email protected]
