Paradise Garden takes care of everything right from planning, execution and building the hardscape and landscape to after maintenance of the garden. Designing the garden and lawn area in accordance with local weather and habitat, their experts examine the space, area, available material, soil condition to design the perfect layout for your landscape. They believe in creation of bespoken and luxurious green spaces which allow you to live & breathe your space.
The startup was founded by Zuber Mohammad & Ritesh Rangare. We are publishing an interview with Mr. Zuber:
Q.: What is the problem you are trying to solve? Please share with us any insights that led you to believe that this is a big enough problem?
Ans: Basically, we are working in an unorganised sector. In tier 2, 3 cities people want beautiful greenery in their balcony, terrace, home and as a result they start designing their own garden without having the right knowledge of plantation and designing.They are not aware that there are a few experts who do this kind of work. Mainly landscaping is not a new thing as many builders are doing this on their property site in order to make their property look beautiful. But yes, there is no one who is working for independent houses, villa’s, farm houses as a brand. Despite of having all resources builder’s don’t have any one stop branded solution for this. None of them have any expert working in this industry. So, we work as a bridge to fulfil this gap.
Q.: Please tell us about the founders
Ans: I am Zuber Mohammad, pursuing 2nd year in engineering from sagar institute of technology bhopal. I am leading as CEO in this company. My bro-founder Ritesh Rangare is a serial entrepreneur from same city. He is handling Marketing, strategic partnership, fundraising and scaling of our product.
Q.: List all the names of the core Team Members, along with their Designated Roles.
Ans: Currently we 2 founder’s are handling major departments, we hired few employees who are looking after sales, site supervisor and a customer support team. I am handling product, operations & customer support and Ritesh is helping for Marketing, expansion, fund raising, investor relations, strategic tieups and legal and financial part of it.
Q.: Tell us about the Product / Solution. How did you get your first customer? Explain how you went about the Product-Market Fit Process.
Ans: Paradise Garden is one of the leading landscaping and garden designing company which takes pride in serving commercial and residential lawn care services for a garden that makes you feel closer to nature. With a dedicated staff having experience of more than 40 years, Paradise Garden designs landscape with unparalleled craftsmanship and ensures that it not only adds beauty to your home but also helps you contribute in keeping the environment around you cool and fresh.
We are dedicated to bring nature into the heart of urban communities. We add depth, vibrancy, warmth and colours to the residential & commercial spaces to breathe new life with greens.Our team is creative and committed to assist you for the development of your venture with the unique designs by providing comprehensive value added solutions and professional services in landscape and hardscape. Our mission is to provide a complete solution that will beautify and enhance your environment and aesthetics.
Living in an urban city with a lack of greenery often takes a toll upon your emotional health. Its a relief to know that a Terrace garden can save a day. Bask in the glory of your terrace garden with a cuppa and a book while you watch your kids play. To transform all these dream into reality, our professionals from Paradise Garden will provide you with the best landscape, hardscape, water bodies and gazebos designs etc. that will turn your rooftop into dreams.
It was really very simple, when we launched a social media ad campaign for this, we got a huge response from market. It was like everyone was waiting for this solution. So, we got around 550 enquires for this. I still remember my phone was continuously ringing whole day while this ad campaign was running. So, we paused this campaign in 7 days. There were hundreds of calls each day. And I am the one who was handling this at that time. Our first site visit was for a balcony garden. I went there and understand their requirement.
Most of our client who contacts us are financially well to do so we did not face any problem at the payment level as of now. we took that 1st project for testing only. So, we gave them a fair price, they didn’t negotiate with me as they already know its cheapest price for this task. The client gave us an advance 50% in cheque. We started all custom design and material work on the 2nd day itself. Completed our 1st project in 8 days. The Client was happy and he recommended 2 more sites of their friends and after a few days we received cheques from their friends also.
Q.: What is your USP?
Ans: Landscaping is a 100’s of years old business model. We just reinvented this by adding more flavors in it. Builders are doing this on their site from many years but still, there is no such a national brand to represent this whole industry in multiple cities. Our uniqueness is our research, creativity in landscape designing, our team, brand positioning and our vision. We have an in depth knowledge of maintaining plant to soil health.
Q.: What were your assumptions when you entered the market, learning that you have? Who in your mind is your ideal customer? Do you have at least one of them signed up?
Ans: When we launched this product we expected this will be a middle class product. And our average product pricing will vary from 30k-100k. But after the launch we got a huge response from all premium class category like someone willing to design their farm house, resorts, villas etc. we got huge response from builders also. I think now we know our target audience. We converted a few of them and having advance payment for few more upcoming projects.
Q.: What has been your biggest failure as an entrepreneur and what did you learn from it??
Ans: I started my very first food venture “Bhopali food” which was an online food delivery management system, when I was in 12th standard itself,Starting your own business is hard work and that’s a fact I failed then I started new venture.this venture was solving retail problem then again I failed to survive Some days you will feel you can conquer the world before breakfast, whilst on other days it can feel as if the whole world has forgotten your existence and every task seems pointless.
Look closely at any of the global so-called ‘overnight successes’ and you will find a very different story. Whether its Apple, Nike, Google, Facebook or Starbucks, the list is endless, they all built their brands over time not overnight.
The truth is it took years of hard work, unfailing determination and patience. After failing 3 venture i just started new venture Paradise Garden the success of Paradise Garden can be judged by the fact that we got 550+ enquires & got project worth more than 12 Cr.
Q.: How are you pricing the Product? What is the logic behind it? What is the model you are following – Free / Freemium / Premium etc. ? Explain your thought process.
Ans: Its kind of service + product we are offering. So every project having customised pricing according to the client’s need. We visit client site, we ask their work expectations with their budget. Some people give this work within a budget and some gave us free hand to show our creativity. But we are pro siting our brand and our service as premium only.
Q.: Please tell us about the investors (if any)
Ans: We got many good investment opportunities after our 1st social media campaign. But as for now we don’t need funds to sustain this model in a city. Its completely bootstrap. But we are open for some bigger opportunity, which could help us to launch in multiple cities.
Q.: Is there any interesting success story of your startup? If yes, please write about it. ?
Ans: The only story we have, that we did not expect this response from a tier 2 city like bhopal. We are very happy for choosing this idea as our venture and we’are working hard to give our best.
Q.: Since inception, give us a sense of the value of business done by your venture.
Ans: So when we launched this product, we were not having our company and bank account. And we received around 550+ enquires in just 10 days. We spent around 7000 Rs on a social media campaign. We stopped this campaign and started following all these leads. At the same time people were continuously calling us in between our social media campaign. We converted our 1st client in around 2 days. They gave an advance payment to start this work. So in total we got 3 clients in 1st month. Revenue was around 2.5 lac. Same time we got some big projects but because of lack of experience we were not comfortable to start those projects. So we experimented with our 1st 3 clients. In 2nd month we got an advance of next 3 project of total worth 1 Cr. There is one more project of 12 Cr of a builder, but at present we don’t have such a huge experience to execute this project. So we will take time to start that.
Q.: What is the big picture of your startup? Is this Product/service leading to something bigger? If so, how?
Ans: As i told before, there is no such a company having a national exposure in landscaping industry. No one is operating in multiple cities with same brand name. So our 1st vision is to create a national brand of this. Its like if anyone is planning to create a garden in there space, the first name paradise garden should come in his mind. Its completely untapped and unorganized industry.
Q.: Who do You Perceive as Your Competition? How do you differentiate yourself with them?
Ans: Currently we are not seeing anyone as our local and national competitors. We have a strong aggressive marketing team, so we know there will be future competition for sure. Because most of the previous landscaper were following word of mouth only to build their customer base. But we are marketing is in a very aggressive manner so we are giving some ideas to our new competitors about this industry. And we are ready for it.
Q.: What would be your goal to accomplish in the next six months? Any other information you would like to share?
Ans: We got some franchise opportunity also while our social media campaign is going. But we are focused in Bhopal only for next one year. After this we will start our service in few shorted cities by us.
Q.: What message do you want to convey to fellow entrepreneurs?
Ans: We both founders failed in few of our previous ventures. But, we didn’t stop exploring other possibilities and we landed with paradise garden, a profitable demanding business idea. So, we suggest to our fellow entrepreneurs to just keep walking to know future opportunities.
———————-
Thanks Zuber. All the best!
![[ L to R ] - Shubham Bajaj and Rohit Bajaj, Co Founders - Balwaan Krishi](https://startupsuccessstories.in/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/L-to-R-Shubham-Bajaj-and-Rohit-Bajaj-Co-Founders-Balwaan-Krishi-218x150.jpeg "How This Jaipur-Based Agritech Startup is Bridging the Gap with Innovative Farming Tools")
