HYDERABAD: You want to get a pen or furniture or say shoes designed as per your taste, but you are unable to find the time or the right designer to execute your vision? All you have to do is share an idea online and get it done by creative designers on icustommadeit.com. To make the availability of products of one’s choice easy, Raj Iyer, an MBA professional came up with this website. Log in and you will be surprised to see that it is not only one kind of product that they offer. The list starts with shoes, goes on to products like pen, jewellery, furniture, accessories, music instruments and more.
Asked what made him come up with the idea, Mumbai-based Raj replies, “I was negotiating with a gentleman to sell my old car, and his finger ring grabbed my attention. It had 3D Lion cub over it. I was curious to know where he got it from. He said he got it customised from his brother. As it would be difficult to get such products, the idea of starting a service, where I can make any kind of customised products available for my clients, came to my mind.”
With over 8,000 items on the website across 33 odd categories, the website barely a month old receives about four orders from Hyderabad everyday and close to 20 from all over the country.
Viewer can use the platform in three ways – buying a stock product from the product gallery, requesting a customised product from product creator, or posting a photo and asking for bids from creators who would like to custom-make that product. “We have around 900 in-house creators and 600 freelance designers,” informs Raj.
To make sure that the products are delivered on time, the website has the option to directly get in touch with creators through their ‘Let’s talk’ option. “This way customers can share their expectations with the product clearly and the creator will also get an idea of how much time they will take to design the product,” Raj says.
Considering the fact that customisation sector in India is still in its nascent stages, the main challenge for the 46-year-old was to “get right information about the wide variety of products that I would make available to customers, sourcing right kind of designers, designing the website and executing the plan,” shares Raj.
Though the process of coming up with the website and running it successfully is challenging for the entrepreneur, Raj is enjoying the entire process. The price range of products that are available on the website starts from `300 and deliver products in a week’s time.