Interior design is all about how we experience spaces. It is a powerful, essential part of our daily lives and affects how we live, work, play, and even heal. Comfortable homes, functional workplaces, beautiful public spaces—that’s interior design at work. Designers craft spaces that anticipate our needs and appeal to our emotions while pulling from a broad set of skills and technical knowledge.
Sakshi Gehani is one such Interior Designer and the Founder at Innover By Sakshi Gehani, which is a new-age, multifaceted, passionate, and Awardwinning Interior design studio based out of Mumbai. The team at Innover believes that great design should be accessible to all and that everyone deserves to be inspired by the spaces they spend time in! Design exists in every aspect of life and the team at Innover not only design’s spaces but a lifestyle.
Innover was given life to in 2017 with a passionate dream of Sakshi Gehani to create inspiring and breath-taking experiences for clients across the Globe. While design has no language, it becomes the language of a space and at Innover the team likes to beautifully write along their client’s story into their spaces thus creating deeply personal spaces unique to each client, which has in turn helped Innover strengthen its goodwill with its ever growing and versatile clientele. Read along to know more about Innover in the interview conducted below.
Brief us about the featured person and your journey towards starting your business.
Ever since I can remember, Interiors always fascinated me. I would imagine and sketch a makeover for my home repeatedly and keep thinking how I would do it differently each time. I knew ‘this’ was my calling and started working professionally rather young i.e at 19. I was too keen to complete college, step out into the real world and begin creating spaces. I wanted to be able to ‘create’ out of my dreams. After working with 2 design studios in Mumbai for over 4 years and wanting to facilitate creative liberty I decided to take the plunge towards my main goal and founded Innover in 2017. With no financial backing or contacts whatsoever, I founded Innover on my own grounds and principles with the sole vision – Innovate & Create.
What is the current scenario of the industry that you are catering to?
With the pandemic being the current reality of all professions, I would like to look at the brighter outcome of the same. With the amount of time people have spent confined to their homes, the importance of Interior Design has been highlighted for good. People have become more willing to experiment and put in extra thought into the kind of space they live in/work in, the ambience that boosts their mood and the organization and functional needs of a space. As I said, it’s a lifestyle we create, and more and more people have realized its true meaning only now.
Is your startup bootstrapped or are you looking for funding options?
Bootstrapped and built from the ground up! A female led startup, built with sheer passion, some personal savings, and some handy experience as capital!
How has the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic influenced your business operations?
Virtual is God! Most of our design meets are virtual, we have managed to organize small selection set ups on site itself to ensure safety of our clients and team and carry out a systematic coordination between contractors and design team to ensure smooth operations. Our team on site is trained to follow all safety precautions and timelines are given utmost importance to. It is all about trial and error, and then bettering at the new challenges we all have been served with.
As a startup, what steps are you taking to acquire new customers or retain the existing ones in these challenging times of Covid-19?
Social media is a great way to reach out to the target audience currently and serves as a platform to connect with likeminded professionals while showcasing your capabilities creatively. We also actively promoted our virtual design services, to give our clients the opportunity to design their homes while being safe but still being guided by trained professionals. Simply reaching out to your existing clientele can sometimes do wonders and open new doors of opportunity for any startup. You simply need to show up and be visible for them to reach out to you.
What kind of products or services your startup offers?
We offer start to finish Interior Design Consultancy and Turnkey solutions. Our design consultancy encompasses every detail right from surveys, floor plans, conceptualisations to detailed 2d and 3d drawings, services and working drawings, material selections and site visits and design implementation.
What kind of challenges have you faced while incorporating your company?
The challenge I mostly faced was more to do with the mind sets and set norms of the business. Mine is a female led startup, I started off Innover at 23 and hence I had to overcome the doubts of my potential clients initially and build a good will for my work ethic and expertise. The 1st lot of my clients are the ones who helped me lay my foundation by trusting me with their monies and I say this with gratitude that they continue to be my clients till date.
Where do you envision yourself and your company to be in the long run and what are your future goals?
Just creating inspiring spaces and then some more and then some more, building a strong and happy clientele and yes, a female driven design studio is surely the top one on my list. From starting off at the age of 19 in 2013, to founding Innover in 2017 with no backing to bagging two awards in 2020 – 1) Most Promising Interior Design Studio, Maharashtra- 2020 and 2) Listed under the 40 under 40 – Best Interior Designers,2020… this journey for Innover has just begun with this first stepping-stone towards many future goals.
Give your opinion on how to survive as a startup in these pandemic times amidst Covid-19.
If the pandemic has taught me anything at all, it is that you have to keep working on, evolving and improving your offerings. Channelize and branch out, be innovative and build alternative strategies to sell your services/products. You might have a single door, but you have to open up multiple windows for yourself. Also, it is important to be flexible and thoughtful to present your services in a manner that benefit your consumers in the current situation. Any business is a give and take, and we must be focused on bringing to the table enough value for our consumers suiting an ongoing situation to build their faith. You cannot simply sell and expect to sell, it’s the value your brand personifies that sells.
