ZWENDE – Tech Business Model for Customized Handcrafted Products

By BWA Envoy
December 23, 2021
2 Minutes Read

Sujay S and Innu Nevatia met in college, fell in love, got married and decided to set up their new home. The couple had a specific design in mind for the dining table and began looking for it in the market. They desired a TEAL green, which has a distressed finish and a rustic look. The colour wasn’t the only issue so they began exploring branded shops and flea markets in India, but they couldn't find it anywhere else; eventually, they had it custom-made by a craftsman. As a result, the concept of a new business venture called Zwende (www.zwende.com) The company was founded in 2016, and the name is derived from a Spanish word suggested by one of their friends. "Duende" means an inexpressible feeling mostly used to describe performing arts. The main idea and focus of the business are to use technology to help small businesses, artisans, and micro-entrepreneurs in rural India reach a larger customer base, as well as to provide personalized handcrafted products to customers that truly represent their taste.

The business is unique in terms of its product offering. It employs cloud-based technology to drive modularization and digitization; and offers a wide range of digital products without having to keep a large inventory. The technology combines the shoppers' needs for customization and accessibility, with the creativity and craftsmanship of skilled designers and makers. The real-time visualization enables customers to select a product, its materials, art forms, designs, and colours, and then visualize their creation with a 360-degree live preview. As a fully serviced and managed marketplace, it relieves creative entrepreneurs of the burden of setting up their flagship store, keeping an inventory, advertising, client relations, and supply chain. The entrepreneur’s focus is to provide customized art and craft inspired designs that are easily available at Zwende rather than having to go out of their way to find them elsewhere and then have them custom-made by craftsmen.

Despite many challenges and obstacles during Covid-19 2020, the couple expanded their business tenfold because it is an e-commerce online marketplace. The couple got their attention by conducting various free, paid, and virtual live tours of art and craft workshops held by collaborating with artisans on Instagram, Facebook, and a few online corporate events to release the pandemic's stress buster.

Zwende was the first Indian start-up to be featured by Amazon CTO Werner Vogels on Now Go Build and he quoted “artist cloud service”. The couple were also featured on Facebook campaign “Unlock Unlock Unlock – Your idea into a business”. The founders have enabled over 500+ creator partnerships to earn a sustainable monthly income, few artisans earned their first online dollar and some of them have created their own ‘brand’.

The founders: most notable accomplishment has been the empowerment of 6500 rural artisans thus far, as well as their contribution to the preservation of age-old craftsmanship. Giving these age-old art forms a modern twist and global recognition allows artisans to carry on what has been passed down through generations. The founder’s quote their business as “The Indian handcrafting sector has unlimited creativity but limited resources. So, we step in to bridge that gap with our managed services”.