In India, we do not have a Do-it-yourself (DIY) attitude, especially towards furniture. We normally go out to a store and buy furniture or find a shop which makes one and gets it custom made. And it is not like people don't want to or they can't, it's just that things have never been this way. Whereas the west has a completely different outlook, they try and do all of this by themselves. We can also observe this from the different sitcoms we watch that they make some of their own furniture, like the coffee table in HIMYM or the entertainment centre in Friends. This startup wants to bring that culture to India and give people a chance to get their hands dirty.

THE IDEA

Ubyld is India's first DIY (Do It Yourself) focused online furniture store. They provide DIY kits  using which one can awesome looking affordable furniture in a jiffy. This is a very popular thing in the west and they want to bring it to India as well. Also, this way the furniture is more affordable compared to a readymade one as there are no making charges or delivery charges involved here. They also cater to the readymade/pre-assembled segment with their range of vByld furniture. All of their furniture is made with 100% upcycled wood.

MEET THE MAKERS




The idea was a combined effort of three co-founders. The founders themselves are DIYers and crafters. The three founders are Denzil D'Souza, Pradeep Nair and Shobha Nair.

The three of them have had over 4 decades of experience in large IT, manufacturing, customer service and sales based organization bring about a balance of skills to the founding team.

USP



Currently, they are India's only Do-It-Yourself (DIY) focused furniture shop, so there is practically no competition out there yet. Also, they use only 100% upcycled pine wood – arguably the most sustainable furniture place in India. This DIY feature provides uniqueness to the furniture as opposed to the ones mass produces by large corporate chains.

TARGET MARKET



They found that the Indian market was looking for DIY activities, especially the young generation, so they brought in kits using which people can build a whole range of sturdy furniture for their home or office.
Their primary customer's are the people who look for affordable and sustainable furniture. The DIY part is the feather in the cap where the pride of ownership increases when one makes a beautiful piece of art of their own

FUNDING

Till the time of writing this content, the startup founders are currently working on a bootstrapped phase.

PLAN OF ACTION

They broke even in their first month of operations and have over 15% repeat customer rate. Their DIY kits are at homes in all the major cities of India. They want to change the mindset of the Indian society towards DIY furniture, which for now is just focused on readymade furniture. With the new generation being active and enthusiastic it might not take much time for this trend to catch on after all.



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