Home Startup Stories DesignPac: Story of a freelance designer who started his own company

DesignPac: Story of a freelance designer who started his own company

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Before starting a designing company, Suman Jung was a freelance designer who used to earn handsomely. But, he slowly started to feel that freelancing is not that secure job. So, he thought of co-founding a designing company together with brother Pujan Adhikary, and provide a unique type of services.

DesignPac was formally launched on July 4 to provide designing services in packages, unlimited designs on a monthly basis.

“Generally, design services are not provided in packages, but we came up with this unique business model. After paying a monthly subscription fee, we do provide unlimited design services to the clients,” shares Suman.

The company that started with almost zero investment from a small rented room in Tokha is seeing a rapid growth.

They mostly hire freshers in the team as interns and provide an opportunity for them to work and grow in a professional environment.

Any of the design works would be delivered in a maximum duration of 3 days, on the basis of orders for designs. To add more, unlimited revisions of the designs are possible, and next order from the same client would be accepted only after the completion and delivery of the first order.

Suman and Pujan had together worked with over 60 clients as freelancers and they were successful to turn many of them into the clients for DesignPac. They find the response from the clients so far very exciting.

Talking about marketing and promotion of the startup company, suman shares that they are doing social media marketing and writing blogs on a regular basis that would help attract clients.

Ensuring correct designs

Before ordering a design, all the users have to fill up a form and provide all-round of requirements, tell about their brand, choose the color they would like to use in the design, its style, and the targeted audience for the designs, etc. “Taking these things from a client ensures that we would be making such designs, which makes our clients feel ‘WOW! This is the exact design we wanted to make’,” shares Pujan.

Difference between designing for a Nepali client and a foreigner

“In Nepal, the majority of the companies still prefer in-house designers, as doing works and giving feedbacks for revisions are very quick and easy. It is also more secure. Added to this, the price of hiring an in-house designer is not that high compared to getting work done from a design-company,” Suman says, adding, “So, the majority of our clients are from abroad for sure.”

“We’ve recently started providing services to Nepali clients too. To begin with, we’re working on branding and developing designs for the mobile app of a startup company,” he says.

Difference between freelancing and starting a company

“While freelancing, we had to be at access to the clients all the time, as they could order for works anytime. But, after starting an office, we can say that we work on business hours only. We can bring the clients to a shape. While freelancing, we had to do everything urgently. Now, we can work from 10-6 only,” says Suman. “Being a freelancer is almost like being a one-man company. So, it’s easier after starting a company as you will have a whole team to do the work,” he adds.

“But, after starting a company, there are lots of things for you to handle, from managerial and office-operation works to many others,” he further shares.

The journey so far

“It is quite satisfying. But, we’ve yet not reached the position we had expected to reach while starting the company. We had set a different roadmap while we started with 5 co-founders. As three of them left the company shortly after its formation, it was pretty hard. The path was broken after that, and we somehow diverted our focus,” says Suman about the journey so far.

They currently have 6 members in the team and have already worked with 15 clients so far.

The challenges

“For us, it was very hard to get clients in the beginning,” Suman shares the common challenge that every other startup companies have to go through. “Until we have a client, we can’t produce good designs. And, showing our past performances is the best way to reach our future clients,” he adds.

“The designers also have to provide immediate results, whereas none asks a developer to deliver something in an instant,” he shares the challenges that designers have to go through. “Knowing what exactly clients want is also a challenge for a designer. Until we show a design to a client, they also might not know what they want exactly. So, it’s pretty challenging,” he adds.

The future

In the duration of 5 years, they want to create DesignPac as a brand and make a mass of people know that it’s a professional designing service providing company that provides its services on monthly subscription basis.

As they also run Cinqsnipe Technology, a development house, they want to bring all people interested in graphics designing to the company and provide them an opportunity to grow. They also want to produce professional designers from the company.

To the emerging entrepreneurs:

“I want to request them not to start a company until they are ready. You have to make a plan and devise a roadmap. You need to figure out what you will be doing, what sort of challenges you might encounter, and how you will tackle these. You need to think about all these things before you make a jump. And, after you jump, don’t stop. Just keep on working,” Suman shares to the budding entrepreneurs.

“To add to this, I advise them to start a company only after they have a specific vision. Be specific on what sort of services you are going to provide, and what sort of problems you are going to solve. Know whether your idea works or not. Ask yourself why you are providing the services, and why should one come to you for the service. You need to be able to describe the whole services of your company in a single sentence,” he further advises them.

(Photograph: Pujan Adhikary (left), Suman Jung (right) )

Startups for a better Nepal!

Presentation: Basanta Kumar Dhakal