Design and Construct – This construction tech startup does it all, right from designing to construction

• ByStartupStory     |    October 14, 2021

“Building a startup is just like building your home, it needs immense confidence in oneself and your team. Always be customer-centric as well as team-centric. It is important to gain the trust of your customers and the team. Money can come later, but the brand is important,” Priyadarshi Mishra, founder of Design and Construct, said in an interview with Startup Story Media .

The journey to building a dream home with the perfect design and decor of your choice isn’t easy. Finding the right contractor who will put your ideas into execution, or even an efficient interior designer who considers your preferences is often a painful job. Even if you manage all that, later the toughest part arises where you have to manage and struggle with frequent delays, unexplained cost overruns, and multiple vendors at the same time. 

Bengaluru-based banker turned entrepreneur, Priyadarshi Mishra realized firsthand that there was a huge void in the housing industry, where architects typically outsource construction work to a general contractor who usually remains unattended as the work progresses. Realizing this, Design and Construct was founded to bridge this gap by providing a single technical platform for synergy and coordination.

Design and Construct were founded by Priyadarshi Mishra along with Neha Kukreja, Syed Suhebulla & M S Krishna Varun in January 2021. It is a leading individual construction company dealing with the aspect of end-to-end residential and commercial construction needs such as interiors, remodeling, adding floors, and even painting with an option to personalize your needs, creating a synergy between the teams to ensure proper coordination. 

Priyadarshi Mishra with over 16 years of experience across different verticals and profiles ranging from credit cards & banking, real estate & construction, started Design and Construct with a two-seater coworking space along with few employees. Within less than a year, the firm has grown to a team of 50+ employees and expanded its business to three cities, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Mysore with 60+ customers onboard.

“It is a very big achievement for us to be recognised as a brand in such a short period. We started our first project in Hyderabad, and from there on there was no turning back. We undertake all types and sizes of projects and offer services to all categories of customers. We serve as a single point of contact, from the moment of idea and design of the house, according to specific requirements. For many of these stages, we work together with different architects and designers. We then make a detailed budget proposal, followed by a project schedule. After the booking is done, we do the construction, buy the furniture, home accessories and other required materials and finally transfer the house to the owner,” Priyadarshi said.

The company provides a unique tracking system for the customers to track the progress of the project without having to travel to the site with the help of top talent in the industry. They also have loan partners who help customers with getting Loans, mortgages, and other financial services for the construction and designing needs of the customers.

Along with development and growth, the company also faced many challenges. In the words of Priyadarshi, “Our initial challenge was to get the services that we are offering because this market is still dominated by local contractors. Getting materials was also a painful job because of which the project timelines were delayed. The biggest concern was to make them understand that we can do the job hassle free within the given time frame. The second challenge was to get each customer into certain packages with the right and affordable budget. But over a period of time, through advertisement, social media marketing of our successful projects, our company was recognised and trusted by people and eventually gained more customers.”

Priyadarshi also talked about the hazards that they encounter due to the ongoing pandemic. “Many of our labourers went back to their home and could not return, so we had to struggle in terms of availability of labourers during the pandemic. Also, the cost of the materials started to increase. To maintain the same material cost and supply of labour, we started many initiatives. We started providing our labourers on-site with food and medicines. And we also started buying and accumulating materials in bulk so that we can counter the increasing price,” he added.

According to Market and Research, the Proptech segment in India has grown exponentially in the last few years and is expected to reach $1 Tn by 2030 from only $120 Bn in 2017. PropTech attracted $551 mn investment in India in 2020. Design and Construct compete with hundreds of companies in the building, construction and home decor segment.

According to Priyadarshi, the main competition stems from the conventional method of contracting, where individual contractors for civil, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, painting and carpentry services work separately on a project.  “But we stay ahead of them by offering all services under one roof for the timely coordination, follow-up and cost control of a project. We make our clients aware of the benefits of working with a design and construction company that covers all aspects of the home building process and delivers a unified product. The other PropTEch players in the market don’t possess the uniqueness that our company offers because we offer our clients a one-stop solution with in-house team architects, project managers and construction experts, and we also provide a platform to clients to manage and track all the progress on site.” he said.

The brand claims to have received positive feedback and acquired 50+ customers in the very first few months of its launch. 

Design and Construct is currently a bootstrapped company. “We are not eager in terms of funding. Whatever funds we are raising are just for growth and expansion to streamline supply chain management, start marketing with digital campaigns, and improve customer service by leveraging technology,” he mentioned.

“We are aiming to be the largest technical construction company in India and overseas and to be a million-dollar company in the next 5 years. We are planning to expand our services to seven more cities by October 2022, constructing 200+ homes every month,” he added.

Find more about Design and Construct,

https://www.designandconstruct.in/

https://www.facebook.com/designandconstruct.in

https://www.instagram.com/design_and_construct.in/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/designandconstruct

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