Stoodio Iterati
After the stint with Kodo in Mumbai, Roopal, my partner and I embarked on our maiden entrepreneurial journey. We launched Stoodio Iterati, our lean design studio in late 2022 to cater to small businesses, NGOs and boot-strapped startups that could use solid but affordable design expertise. On a shoestring budget, and 0 capital, we delivered 6 brand identity, web design and UX projects that generated a modest revenue of ₹1M in 9 months
Overview
Stoodio Iterati came into being stoked by curiosity and a strong desire to do creative and design work with freedom, autonomy and experimentation to address what I called the “design-deficiency” issue in sparsely resourced small businesses, individuals and bootstrapped start-ups. While we were on a bit of a mission, we were fully awareness of these risks, when we launched the studio:
- No entrepreneurial experience
- Zero capital
🔧 The set-up
- Drew up a business plan
- Incorporated Stoodio Iterati as a private limited company
- As directors, defined our roles - Roopal, business development, me, creative direction and design ops
- Set up business banking and Paypal
- Software subscriptions
🧁 Day-to-day ops
- Lead generation
- Writing proposals and contracts
- Discovery calls with prospects
- Project kick-offs
- Invoicing, client-partner communication and collections
- Design execution
- Project delivery and close
- Rinse & repeat
⭐ Getting help
- Scouted for freelance talent and established a Lead UX designer + researcher + UI developer pod.
- Learnt on the go, tapped into online resources and;
- Sought advice from my network and the larger design community
Design philosophy & values
Early on, we decided we will take a traditional, hand-crafted approach to brand identity design, and use my quirky, bold, visual style to create compelling and unique brand identities starting with the identity of our own studio.
We wanted to do this for small businesses and startups who were open to experimentation and allowed us the autonomy to try things out while we solved their pain-points through deep research, rigour in design thinking, quality of design execution.
Similarly, we wanted to make research-driven, product & UX design expertise accessible and affordable to early-stage startups and small businesses. As we engaged with our client-partners, we wanted to:
- Be holistic and start with the big picture
- Be transparent & direct in communication
- Create value as equal partners and not as service providers
- Probe, before we proposed
- Measure outcomes, not deliverables
Case studies
✍🏻 Stoodio Iterati brand identity design
⚖️ Humanising Law and Justice: CLTC brand identity design
🧳 A full-fledged mobile app design for an investor pitch
Outcomes & learnings
Stoodio Iterati stayed afloat for 9 months and we broke even. It was the journey that mattered and the fact that we did meaningful work for those who trusted in us. Successfully launched 3 websites, 3 new brand identities and 3 UX projects leading to happy client-partners and a revenue of ₹1M.
Stoodio Iterati is on the back burner, not entirely extinguished!