Think of design/furnishing your office/home, think of Furnish Me
Now a days, people love furnishing their space, whether a office or their residence and why they don’t, we all deserve a place reflecting positive vibe & energy. But due to lack of creativity & new methodology among traditional architects, contractors & vendors you may not achieve your dream design. Considering this genuine problem, Akshay, Amrita, Anurag & Amlan started Furnish Me– a creative solution to design/renovate your space. Apart from their happy clients, this move by team Furnish Me is recognised by Startup India as well.
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In a discussion with team Furnish Me, Akshay explained why they have dived into this furnishing space & shared more about their journey so far. Check whole conversation here :
Q. How will you Introduce Your Startup to the world?
Akshay: Furnish ME is a solution to the experience which the client goes through while designing/furnishing his/her home or having the project executed. In general cases , building your dream home is like a hustle or tug of war among Architects, Contractors, Vendors and logistics, as a result you end up losing your project, your money and most important your time. We come into the picture here to help you out.
In other words, Furnish ME is a design and decor start-up catering to residential and commercial needs for people shifting to their new abodes or renovating their old ones. We are a group of young like minded people who are set to make the difference in the industry with the furnishing ability of our designs and quality.
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Q. Tell your readers about your achievements till today (Be Honest)!!
Akshay: Achievements can be in number of projects delivered, or in number of funding acquired or may be no of trophies won, for us achievement is the number of smiling faces at the time of furnishing project handover. Well out of 50, 45-46 faces were happy and contended. Well we have been crowd funded by friends, relatives and peers..
Q. What’s the most important thing you’re working on right now, and how are you making it happen? Explain Business Model & Revenue Model.
Akshay: The most important thing we are working out right now is to reach to every individual, corporate who even thinks of getting his land, office, home, space designed/renovated/improved. Think of design/furnishing, think of us. We are in 2nd stage of expansion. We are bootstrapped since inception and that has been a really big challenge for us.
Q. What’s your take on your segmented/targeted Market (who are your customer and how big is the market)?
Akshay: We provide Architectural Design, Interior Designs, Landscape, Restoration, Renovation and Project Management solution for all of them. Our dedicated team take care of all these stuffs. We provide a detail BOQ which is bill of Quantity with the design solutions. The client gets to know the actual cost of the project. Addition to that we provide Project Management Consultancy (PMC) which is the USP of our start-up.
We take care of the project as our and charge a nominal fees over it, our customers are from age group of 50+ who are about to retire or newly settle down people from age group 35+ . Corporate clients, Start-ups, Hospitals are some of our clients.
Q. Introduce you core team and why you have selected for this role ?
Akshay: We are a very small team of core 4 people, 3 architects and one mechanical engineers striving towards the change in way people needs small to big solution in the real estate and design needs.
Amrita Jena (Chief designer) – An innovative thought process she has, her way of thinking is innovative & different which help us to make the project quite unique.
Anurag Verma (The transformer)– He believes in turning the pieces of paper into reality , having good on site skills , his presence reduces the tension of the clients.
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Amlan Jena (An engineer by profession but a problem solver by nature) – He visualise the solutions in different ways through which we can address the problem faced by our clients. His promptness & innovation in solutions help the client base to grow.
Akshay Kapoor– I look more over the business growth and strategy making and a QA- quality analyst for both the designs and site. An architect by profession, I try to introspect each problem with a different angle.
Q. What are the challenges you have faced and what are the current challenges? Mention top three challenges for both.
Akshay: Bootstrapping- A challenges in itself.
Cash Flow- People in east are smart of getting the work done and turn deaf ears to you. So, the cycle of cash flow breaks which delays the project
Brain Drain- Consistency of people, is one of the reasons for less number of people staying up in the state
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Q. Why you have started up? Be specific with your reasons!
Amrita: We started Furnish ME on 13th of October 2016, giving solution to the problems faced by us while renovating our house, says Amrita. We faced the same tussle and at the end spending money lot more than required. This was the budding point when we had decided to put up this as a solution for all the people who can avoid such situations and build a better home, office, shops or buildings.
Having done more than 100 projects in Bihar itself we are now providing services in Bihar, Odisha, Delhi-NCR.
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We provide Architectural Design, Interior Designs, Landscape , Restoration , Renovation and Project Management solution for all of them.
Q. Is your venture funded or bootstrapped, if bootstrapped, how you are managing the funds?
Akshay: We are bootstrapped since inception, and cash flow management is always an issue. Nerves feel the pressure as the month end nears. We have arranged little amount through friends and relatives. Quality work leads to decent payments, is the strategy as of now. We plan to raise an small amount soon.
Q. Where do you want to see yourself in next 5 years?
Akshay: Talking about the last financial year, it was wonderful for us. We were growing at a rate of 25% M.O.M., over work proved and people started trusting us. Our expected growth rate by this year end is to touch more than 10 completed projects per month. We are in talks with few organisations for seed funding as we are in our expansion stage.
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We understand the creativity demanded by our customer, thus always try to rehabilitate the current trends in interior or exterior design. Post 5 years we wish to be completely profitable and wish to have more than 70 parallel projects running.
Q. Please share your learning for fellow Entrepreneurs?
Akshay: Few things I have learnt is: spent time in research, distribute work to more people, hire interns, give people a chance, and spent the minimum on monthly fixed expenses like rent. A start-up should learn to save or you never know when black clouds will cover your venture.
Team Entrepreneur Bus wishes a very good luck to Akshay& team Furnish Me to achieve their goals in coming days. If you wish to get featured your Story/Interview on our platform, please fill this form : shorturl.at/jsJP1