Founded in 2010 by Akshata Menon Vig, an architect by profession, and Dev Vig, MBA and engineer by profession, De Space offers customised interior designing solution. In today’s scenario, with the spaces getting smaller, there is a lot of focus on smart space planning and that is a challenge for many homeowners. De Space treats every home as unique space and doesn’t offer schematised designs, but highly customized and personalized ones . The designing is done after a thorough understanding of available space, as well as client’s requirements at length.
The Team:
Typically interior designing firms are led by designers. De Space has laid its foundation on 2 people who come from different domains – An Architect/designer and a Marketing/operations expert. This combination has helped them to focus strongly on understanding their clients’ requirements better, and offer them appropriate solutions.
Akshata is an architect by profession and leads the design process at De Space. She has an overall experience of more than 14 years and has a strong eye for detail that has helped them to create efficient and aesthetic interior spaces.
Dev is an MBA and engineer by profession. He has spent more than 14 years in sales/marketing/consumer insights. His ability to understand consumer psyche has helped in getting highly relevant projects and also a highly satisfied clientele.
Akshata and Dev have invested a lot in building their own team of labors, contractors, carpenters, supervisors that has helped them to deliver the desired quality of service to their clients.
The journey:
Their journey began when the couple bought their first home in 2009 and Akshata worked on its interiors. People who visited their house talked highly about it and inquired if they would take up their home interiors too. It was then when they decided to start their interior designing firm.
Their first project was their own home and when they showed it to a neighbor (who had got his interiors already done), he was so impressed looking at their work, that he strongly recommended them to a close relative. After a couple of meetings, they got their first order and have executed more than 200 projects since then.
The learnings:
On receiving further inquiries, Akshata and Dev realized that this domain (“home interiors”) that it has a huge potential. After some research, they understood that the market is highly unorganized with local contractors ruling it, and consumers, are generally unaware of the details and nitty gritties of the trade. As a result, they often end up spending more money than required. They interacted with a lot of homeowners and figured out that they faced issues such as non-transparency, delays, unskilled labor etc. The clients expressed their desire to hire someone who would give them a turnkey solution without them being involved in the operational aspects. This reflected a clear gap in the market in terms of professionalism and that is when they decided to do their bit in bridging the gap.
In an industry that suffers from trust-deficit, De Space strives to have customers who trust them for their designs, and for their execution.The duo personally spends a lot of time with prospective clients before they sign-up with them, and as a result, have managed to get customers, who understand their approach and trust them, that helping them achieve the desired product.
De Space entered the market with an assumption that high-quality interiors is the need of the hour and they focused a lot on customized designing, catering to the requirements of individual clients. While this definitely was a gap, it soon realized and learned that it is extremely difficult to get skilled labor in this industry. There were orders taken, but never fulfilled as per commitments. So they spent a lot of time in getting the right resources, getting people onboard who could relate to their vision of ensuring client satisfaction. While it took some time to get these resources, today they have a team that works towards their vision, giving a lot of strength to the organization.
The vision and the road map:
De Space would like to be known as an initiative that focuses heavily on client satisfaction, space planning, and high-quality execution. This has been the vision since day zero and all expansion plans revolve around these three parameters. The organisation currently caters to Bangalore market but plans are being worked out to enter other cities shortly. To achieve the same, their first objective is to hire competent resources in these cities to ensure that they are prepared to offer high-quality solutions from day one. The management is clear that they will launch services outside Bangalore only when they are confident that they have the right team to represent in a particular city.
As per Dev – “While it is important to focus on consumer satisfaction when you are about to start a venture, it’s imperative to deep dive and understand the market thoroughly. We have noticed a lot of people start their ventures with a gut feeling that their concept will work well, while the market ends up behaving very differently. It’s very important to stay in touch with customers, understand what they feel, as it gives you the right inputs on where you can improve. This will help you take logical decisions as an entrepreneur, and will also help to ensure you’re in the game for long-run.
For more details, visit facebook page at: Facebook.com/despaceinteriors