Contractors Take Center Stage as Mistry.Store Changes the Renovation Game
Vaibhav Poddar and Bhanu Mahajan, co-founders of Mistry.Store
We’ve all heard stories (nightmares?) from people who are in the process of building or renovating their dream homes. Finding the right professionals to partner with on this momentous project at the right fee, understanding the different types of materials available in the market, and not having any price benchmarks for items like plywood and tiles due to the market’s fragmented nature.
India’s home interiors market was worth $25BN in 2020 and is projected to reach $38.2BN by 2027. This growth is driven by the booming real estate market and factors such as rising urbanization and improving income levels, among others. Despite this growth and potential, the interior market is fragments and unorganised. Traditionally, home interior professionals - designers, contractors, electricians, and others - have their own pool of suppliers for materials and tools. Even though it works for these individuals, it is far from being efficient and is plagued with issues like price opacity, counterfeit products, poor customer service, and ad-hoc professional fees.
Mistry.Store is building a one-stop shop where contractors and professionals can have a one-stop shop for buying hardware products, renting tools and equipment, and managing consolidated delivery. They aim to simplify the material purchasing journey by creating a tech-enabled solution, especially for home interior professionals, who can use this platform to improve their business.
Unlike Livspace and HomeLane which aim to replace interior decorators and contractors for the home owners, Mistry.Store focuses on material supply, and does not participate in the construction work. While this market is highly organized in Western countries, no player has emerged yet in the Indian market, owing to local and market dynamics.
Since their inception, they have:
Launched India’s largest collection of brand catalogs across the categories of flooring, plywood, paint, wooden materials, hardware, and plumbing
Onboarded 2500+ professionals like architects, interior decorators, and contractors on their platform
Maintained a consistently high feedback rating of >4.4 / 5
Used their learning from the market to launch targeted campaigns such as a “sampling van” - a van that carries samples of building materials to enable professionals to check and suggest products for their ongoing projects
Unlike a B2B sales approach that other players in this space have employed in the past, Mistry.Store takes a D2C approach to capture the end customer. The founders used their learning from the healthcare industry to zero down on their target audience of interior professionals. “Startups are either B2B or B2C. For a pharma firm, B2B would be the distributor, while B2C would be people like you and me. But where does most of the marketing effort go? It’s the doctors. Now, doctors are neither B2B nor B2C. It’s a very strong influencer sitting in the middle,” says Vaibhav, the co-founder. In the case of Mistry.Store, influencers are the contractors or designers who generally influence customers’ decisions on the selection of products for their home interior work.
The founders Vaibhav and Bhanu along with their team have demonstrated razor-sharp focus when it comes to achieving product market fit. They have an iterative process through which they are creating the best possible product to serve their customers. With Mistry.Store, the founders aim to develop the first platform in this industry that not only offers the best products at the best prices but also enhances the knowledge and productivity of their target audience.
