Speaking about the idea behind the
Dfizz, Patkar said, “Most of the small scale businesses in India have
revenue of 1-10 lakh per month or even less. How will they spend 30-40K
per month only on social media manager? It is difficult even when they
know it will benefit them.”
Thus, Patkar launched Dfizz, with an aim
of creating a platform that minimize the cost and offers virtual
solution that helps in an immediate creation of a website, integrated
CRM solution and virtual Social Media manager for a SME or a startup
firm.
“We understand these concerns of a
startup, which also led to the conceptualization of Dfizz.com. An
efficient tool that creates and maintains a strong presence of their
business on digital platform. These businesses can now focus their
attention to on-ground business activity while Dfizz.com will take care
of their business on the online platform automatically,” added Patkar.
Social media & digital market industry
The importance of digital social media
marketing has grown four-folds in the past few years due to the increase
of Internet penetration in India. According to Patkar, every big or
small business requires social media presence in order to catch their
prospective customers. Also, it is a great tool to cultivate community,
drive engagement and manage reputation within the minds of the end
consumers.
Patkar further informed that, Indian
organizations use social media much more than global average and those
of their counterparts in emerging markets. In line with Modi
Government’s digital India and Make in India initiative, Dfizz caters to
Indian markets and their requirements by reducing the manpower cost and
at the same time it is effective and quick.
Opportunity v/s challenges
According to Patkar, with more than 10
million registered and unregistered SME’s in India, the opportunity is
very big in this space. Government of India and other organizations such
as Google, Facebook etc. are focusing on getting at least 20 per cent
of these businesses online in next 5 years. SME’s and start-ups lack
the technical knowledge, have limited funds or resources to hire Digital
Marketing experts or to buy expensive CRM.
However, the major challenge is the
trust. Speaking about the challenges, Patkar said, “It is surprising
that when we speak with people regarding the things one can do
automatically through Dfizz, they do not believe us in the beginning as
they think physical presence on the job is more important even if in
reality the resource is wasting time and money on doing basic things
that can easily be automated.”
Meet the team Dfizz
Dfizz team consists of small bunch of
passionate people from different backgrounds. Innovations, sales and
marketing are managed by Patkar himself. Vishnu N, CTO, handles the
technology research and designing of the system with web developed
Akshata Shelar. Apart from these, there are 3 software engineers and
team of 3 marketing and sales experts.
Real estate developer by profession and
social worker by passion, Nandkishor Patkar, Mentor/Director provides
wisdom and business knowledge.
Journey of Dfizz
After completing his MBA from San
Fransisco, Patkar came back to India and immediately started working on
an E-Governance project for Ulhasnagar municipality. However, at the
same time, due to his family background, he was also interested in Real
Estate – basically on how to implement technology for growth of the Real
Estate business.
Hence, the idea of starting up a digital
solutions company in the name of Arkbel Innovations Pvt Ltd. which is a
parent umbrella brand. “I always aimed at innovating products for
various sectors with different domains under the brand name. We then
introduced PropXS – Axis of technology for Property i.e. for Real Estate
Business. Under this brand we handled real estate companies – manage
their sales, marketing, land, selling, buying, lead management, and
enquiry management etc. – Enterprise Resource Planning software for Real
Estate, expressed Patkar.
One services led to the other and
eventually stepped into Social – Digital space by helping the clients
with support for creating their website and handling Digital Media
Campaigns for new project launch.
Last year, Patlar was helping a friend
start his restaurant in Karjat, he first began by designing his website
and then prepared digital marketing campaign for him. Simultaneously he
searched for website building tools, created his FB page, etc.
Eventually, the demand for all these products led to the evolution of
Dfizz.
Business model
Dfizz is following a subscription based
revenue model. The brand is looking for mass customer base and wants
target audience to experience the effectiveness of its product in India.
One can use it for a month or a year depending on the budget as well as
requirement. There is no setup cost or initial investment for resources
or need of any hardware. Dfizz is even tab and mobile friendly. Dfizz
also offer customization for specific requirements from clients.
The vision
Patkar informed that at moment the
venture is not looking for any kind of merger or acquisition. However,
in order to improve Dfizz, the brand is looking at raising funds. The
funds will be used in to hire subject matter experts and also will be
invested in sales and marketing to reach out to target audience.
“Our vision is to simplify digital
marketing and we are always innovating. We are now in 6th iteration and
would keep on incorporating new methods, new platform as we grow. Next
we are planning to add Admin module for companies who serve SME’s. They
can manage multiple campaigns at reduced overhead cost with less number
of experts/ employees. We are also developing automated paid campaign
for SME’s and Startups. We see Dfizz as the most used product online by
SME’s across India in the next two years,” concluded Patkar.
