The MINIMALIST is a Mumbai based venture, started by two 4th year IITians Chirag Gander and Sahil Vaidya in 2015. Himanshu Gander is serving as the director of the Minimalist of the Corporate Centre from 2018. This start-up deals in Branding and Communication, Interaction designing and Digital Marketing. It started as a Facebook page for designing thought-provoking ideas and content, and evolved into a design & digital company that now works with brands globally.

The MINIMALIST:

• Is working globally with over 200 brands including Coca-Cola, HCL, ICICI, Abott, Aditya Birla Payments Bank, MI, Blue Star, MTV, MobiKwik, Minute Maid, etc.
• works in Branding and Strategy, Interaction Design, Digital Marketing, Social Media, Product Design and Development, UI/UX, Media Planning & Buying, Communication Design, and Digital Films.
• was listed amongst the top 25 start-ups on LinkedIn.
• Has been actively noticed by media like Zee News, Business Line, CNBC, TEDx, The Financial Express, YourStory etc.

The journey of the two founders from a facebook page to establishing their successful venture: THE MINIMALIST.

Both the founders were 4th-year students studying in their respective fields in IIT Bombay when they decided to make a facebook page. Sahil was an enthusiastic person with a keen interest in drums and enjoyed writing witty content for humour. The other founder Chirag was quite famous for his designing skills all over the college.

The founders met through a short trip during their internship period. With the increasing popularity of social media platform, they noticed that people were starting to interact with each other and sharing their opinions. So, together both the founders started a similar page on Facebook named 'The Minimalist' to share their thoughts and short witty content. Chirag was handling the designing and Sahil wrote the content.

Soon, most of their content started going viral and grabbed the attention of a large group of people on a regular basis. With the increasing focus on the page, founders had to face the trouble of dropping marks. It was a terrifying time period when they had to choose between their passion and their college.

However, they kept their passion intact and pursued both of it together. By the end of the college, there were around 25-30 people working together with the founders on the page. Both the founders had supportive parents and a hospitable environment at IIT, which helped them continue with their passion.

Later in 2015, Sahil and Chirag then decided to convert it into a firm, which was bootstrapped. They realized a lot could be done on combining the unique designing skills of Chirag and the humorous content writing skill of Sahil. Although both of the founders were of entirely different background and had no idea how the industry for designing worked, they were eager to learn and follow their passion.

The idea behind 'THE MINIMALIST'

The Minimalist works with the idea of telling the story through visual designing, without having to say about it. This start-up uses advanced and unique designing skills along with digital marketing to create an impact. The Minimalist follows a Unique Selling point, different from its competitors. It due to this reason that it has survived the major competition and emerge as a successful company.

India has been evolving on a global level with the changes that have been made in the past few years. With the increasing focus on Digitization, India has been more dominant in accepting designing and importance of it. The Minimalist has been actively engaged in providing the right platform for it.

What differentiates THE MINIMALIST from its competition?

The MINIMALIST team believes that the key to effective designing is understanding the needs of the clients and differentiating it. Each customer has different preferences which should be analysed for the best results.

"Clients in India are entirely different from those abroad. We had a client in Saudi Arabia, who wanted to design his application, so we sent over a team member to understand his needs. We wanted to analyse his requirements and ensure that he was highly satisfied with it. We learnt that the Internet penetration was low over in Saudi Arabia and it was the Demographic that decided how we worked." says Sahil.

Struggles involved in starting their own venture: the founder's desk.

The Minimalist was started Sahil and Chirag during their final year of college. It was a tough time since the grades were dropping at college and they wanted to pursue the passion. With passing time, the problem shifted on handling a large number of people involved in the company.

It was important that the founders hired the right set of people for the job and train them. They wanted to ensure that the core value of provocation was followed along with delivering the best quality of work. There were other problem including fighting and surviving the competition. It was the passion, dedication and hard work of the founders and team members that kept the company alive.

Now, The Minimalist is among one of the most successful companies in Brand Designing and Digital Marketing. It not only survived in the market but emerged as one of the top listed companies.

How to handle the workload and manage people alongside the work culture?

The Minimalist has a different work culture than prominent in most of the firms. The founders believe in the open culture at the workplace. There are no cabins or doors in the offices so that people could freely interact with each other. The offices are designed with games and beanbags to promote a fun and relaxing environment.

Every idea is discussed with all the team members and plans are build after ensuring that all of them are satisfied. The team members are shuffled after a time period so that no one gets bored sitting at one place and doing one single task. Training workshops are conducted on a regular basis in order to stimulate the work.

Message for the budding entrepreneurs

“You will always face struggle while doing something you are passionate about, but that should not hold you back from giving your 100%. Pursue your passion, make a plan and work on it. Just be enthusiastic about what you want to do and give your best at it”- SAHIL VAIDYA.