We are publishing an interview of Mr. Rajat Gupta, Co-founder, ArchPhillic.
Please tell us about the founders
We are a team of 3 NIT Warangal graduates hailing from different parts of northern India. Shubham Saxena, a mechanical engineer, has deep interests in new technologies and is always looking for new real life problems to solve. Rajat Gupta, metallurgical engineer, loves to design and interact with people to verify what problems needed to be solved. Arpita Saxena, a computer science graduate loves coding and is looking for optimal solutions for the problems identified.
What is the problem you are trying to solve? Can you share with us any insights that led you to believe that this is a big enough problem?
We are trying to bridge the visualization gap that exists between an architect, a builder and the end consumer. What an architect imagines, what a builder builds and what a consumer buys are three totally different imaginations. Thus we provide visualization tools that bring imaginations to sight. This was verified by our first customer Mr. Raghu, who was building his own home. He and his wife were in doubts of what their dream home would look like by looking only at the floor plans provided by the architect. When they finally visualized the same house using our solutions, all their doubts were resolved and are now really happy to build their home and eagerly waiting to move in.
What is the uniqueness about your Startup?
Most of the existing players in the market target already constructed properties. We provide solutions where properties are not even constructed, where the user can customize the interiors enabling them to fully interact with their property. We provide solutions using the widely accepted channels like web, desktop and phones. Adding to that we use virtual reality which serves as the best technology for visualization. Adding to that, our team having different backgrounds in various disciplines of engineering is dedicated, connected and motivated to solve these problems.
What is the revenue model? What is the logic behind it? What is the model you are following – Free / Freemium / Premium etc. ? Explain your thought process.
We charge the builders for the properties they are selling because any discrepancy that might occur in visualization will be from this end only. We follow production model, the builder pays for the solution built for their property.
Who are the consumers that you are targeting? How is this going to affect them?
We are targeting builders who have upcoming projects which are open for sales. Visualizing using our tools helps increase the conversion ratio and helps conveying the property better.
What is the big picture of your startup? Will it lead to something bigger? If so, how?
We bring imaginations to sight. Every field that requires imaginations to make crucial decision or takes a heavy investment, will have our visualization tools to help make smarter decisions.
What is the success story of your startup in your own words?
The biggest challenges for us was to identify the platform where a person can bring his imagination to reality. Another hurdle was to manage the hardware resources which were expensive and also to learn the technology and software to build the platform.After a thorough research, we came up with a Virtual Reality solution which gives the best immersive experience to visualize the whole space. Since we didn’t have the funds to buy the resources, we asked our alumni to help us. But they were unable to help us at that moment. So, we sought our friends for help who pooled in to help us. Because of their help and support we bought our resources which could have been very challenging otherwise. Coming at iBHubs, we were able to develop our product with the help of infrastructure and resources provided by them. failures are always a part of a journey and we have had our fair shares of failures too. In the beginning, all was just a mess. There was a team that had to be formed, with the right people with the correct mindset. The product that we had visioned was not even near to what we initially made.
Learning a completely new discipline for most of us was challenging. Sometimes, the morale of the team went down and needed motivation. The customers had a completely different expectation of the product so we had to redesign the product to adjust the customer needs. Only after a lot of iterations and perseverance were we able to come with a product that we can confidently showcase to all. Success is yet to come.
Any other information about your startup that you would like to share with us.
We have got our early customers and validated our business model.
Thanks Rajat. Best of luck!