Indian-led startup Desygner cutting everyone’s marketing bill

Small businesses currently have a tough time establishing themselves in this increasingly digital age where there is the need to create eye-catching and simple designs for their website, printed materials and social media channels. The budget to hire a designer might be there initially but the businesses have to pay more every time a change needs to be made or a new version needs to be created. Industries are advancing into the digital world in order to communicate with a greater number of stakeholders. 

Social Media channels such as Twitter are evolving to be less text and more visually stimulating and the marketing budgets being allocated to mobile innovation are growing. Visual story telling is the way of the future for a lot of companies, and they are putting more money into their online marketing than ever before. It is no wonder that more industries are pushing out visually engaging content, as articles with images get 94% more views than those without. Startups, small businesses, retail stores and freelancers do not have the funds to hold their own in this new age. Everyone is looking for a convenient way to create quality content that can be used immediately.  Ravi Kikan is a startup specialist who says that “starting a company is 20% idea/ strategy and 80% execution”. It means that ideas can be replicated but what sets a new company apart is the way that it is executed. 

With startups, it is recommended that between 20 and 30% of their total annual budget is spent on advertising and marketing during their first and second years. However, if a company does not have the startup fund in the first place for a vital area of execution, how is it going to break away from the competition? 

Desygner, co-founded by Indian-born Sayan Bhattacharyya, answers precisely this question.  Based on the Gold Coast of Australia, Desygner is a startup company established by Bhattacharyya, Brazilian native Mariana Aguiar and Englishman Alex Rich. 

“As an Indian living abroad, I always liked the diversity Australia had to offer and for me, it was essential that our team was very multi-cultural. Our developers, designers and marketers are from Brazil, Spain, India, France, Russia, Argentina, the USA, England and Australia, which helped us to build Desygner with a very international audience in mind,” explains Bhattacharyya. 

Desygner is a free design tool with thousands of readymade templates which can easily be tweaked, published and printed in minutes from a computer, tablet or mobile phone. Businesses, social media marketers and freelance bloggers are using the free design software to design their social media posts, email images, web banners, posters and every other marketing material you could ever need. 

Since its Beta launch in December 2015, Desygner now has thousands of designs being published hourly, with thousands of new users signing up every day from around the globe, and with users being spread over 100 countries. 

According to Bhattacharyya, what makes Desygner different is that anyone can make beautiful graphics in minutes with little or no design skills. We focused on developing a stable platform with our easy-to-use editor where what you see is exactly what you get — simply, quickly and for free. 

“You also do not need to pay for content as we offer millions of royalty free images at no charge. I am a great technologist but a terrible designer. We knew we had to get the product to a level where even I was going to be able to create something pretty, and that’s exactly what we did,” adds the Desygner co-founder.

The startup’s team makes it clear that its goal is not to replace professional designers but to allow them to focus on creativity and innovation, instead of spending time on minor adjustments and text changes. “Our ultimate goal is to allow creative and marketing professionals to collaborate, and members of any organisation (big or  small) to make their own versions of marketing materials without compromising on the brand’s visual identity. Getting consumers, designers and adv agencies on board will be key for our next phase of development”, says co-founder Alex Rich.  Because of its technology, promising market space and expanding user growth, Desygner has caught the eye of Indian investors too, who have joined its very first seed funding round. This valued the firm at $10 million. 

Their bet is on Desygner’s monetisation plans, which haven’t been fully disclosed to the public but include new modules with unique and powerful functionality, as well as a SaaS model that will substantially increase results from marketing and ad spend.  Desygner has already got one of the largest US blue chip firms involved as its pilot client for this revolutionary solution to achieve every CMO’s nirvana.