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Meet our two protagonist in the tale — Shashaank Shekhar Singhal and Ravdeep Chawla — two friends from the Class of 2007 in an engineering college in Chandigarh, sharing their passion not in their choice of subject, Electronics, but also in matters of the palate — FOOD. Self-confessed foodie, Shashaank can be found eatery hopping when not engrossed in designing. And so is Ravdeep, whose creativity is routed through the epicurean alley (read stomach).

Three years down the line these two friends also share their baby — a website called Design Chords. The co-founders Shashaank is its CEO and Ravdeep its CTO. Ravdeep also started his web gaming auctioning firm, koolistan.com in 2009. Both the batch mates also had their initiation with McKinsey and Company and their formative base rests on the many trial-and errors with McKinsey’s Fortune 500 clients! But that’s another story…

The young promoters now promise to help both ‘been-there-seen-all’ as well as wannabe designers sell their creativity in the best of markets! Not convinced how? Okay…do you a fresh design in mind? Want to sell it? Not sure who’ll buy it? Not sure where to sell it? Don’t fret… The world spins on all new ideas — the more all-encompassing they are, the better their sustainability and acceptance. And if these ideas can blend in a crowd — you have a winner in you — a sure-shot CROWDPULLER!

Design Chords — the duo’s site is a one-stop-e-shop for all design-related solutions. This web-based design online marketplace is a melting pot of design concepts — of buyers and sellers — a virtual bazaar through creative CROWDSOURCING. They aim to pool in fresh design resources from across the globe in this one-level playing field.

After Design Chords was launched in last week of February, there was no looking back for the two. Design Chords’ innovative concept “CROWDSOURCING” which aimed at unfurling untapped potential from among the masses in one platform, was a runaway success. The site not only helps crowd stay connected but also shares and benefits from brilliant innovative ideas. Design Chords will also start personalised creative spaces for designers which can be very helpful for new designers and marketers to get in touch and work with each other in tandem.

“We have built an online platform for companies for their creative requirements like graphic designs, illustration, print ad, viral videos, logo design, GUI, and product/package design. Clients can post a creative project on the website and the global pool of designers help these clients by sending them design ideas as per the requirements,” said Shashaank. He added that clients review the design idea, give their feedbacks and end up buy the design idea they liked the most.

And it’s not just the client that benefits the most in the bargain.
The designers are rewarded for their creative talent too who get an opportunity to showcase their artwork to global audiences even if they don’t have sufficient professional experience. “The minimum price for posting projects is 50$. We also have a minimum guarantee of full refund if client’s project receives less than 20 designs,” Ravdeep quipped in.

Overwhelmed with the response they have received so far the duo is excited by future prospects. “We have worked with 2-3 clients and they received more than 25-30 designs concepts for their projects and the response has been amazing. In fact a logo project worth Rs5,000 received 101 design ideas!”

Very down-to-earth and pragmatic, the duo’s expectation in terms of moolah is very grounded. “Our startup is too young to make any accurate fiscal predication for this year,” they said. But quickly chipped in (in case we got their attitude wrong) with: “But the idea is to obtain seed funding and achieve revenues in access of 500,000$US in two years of operations and scale up from there.”

Finally, in child-like simplicity they wanted to spread the good word to all marketers, advertisers and designers — “Give Design Chords a try and build your own account. We will really help you tap into the creative work of international designers at much affordable prices than ever before.”
Can you resist the impulse to help these two lovable ‘Idiots’? Start designing, then…