Back in 2007, when Kishor Fogla and Sunny Padiyar were still in college interning with various agencies as a designer, they detected two major problems in the ecosystem. Firstly, agencies were keen on satisfying the clients instead of solving the issues. Secondly, the mid-sized design studios in India had to cater to the clients abroad, while major corporate houses with loads to spend would generally opt for agencies based abroad.
Interestingly, this scenario led Kishor and Sunny to start Yellow Slice, a Mumbai-based UI/UX design company that emotes and innovates user experience by incorporating research and user-centric innovations.
A design house that solves problems
People often mix design with art. “Art depicts the emotion/thought of a person regarding a topic or subject, while design is diametrically opposite and is devoid of the designer’s emotion,” says the co-founder.
The thin line of differentiation between these two got blurred. However, Kishor puts forward the idea of design as a ‘problem solver’ for his clients. “For us, everything starts from solving problems, i e the user-experience design that we specialise in”, he adds.
User-experience design is mostly about mobile application designs, web interfaces, and even product-based designs. Apart from that, the UI/UX designs also have a wide gamut of micro-services to offer like UX audit, UX research, and UX testing that’s been done by Yellow Slice for several established brands in the industry.
Yellow Slice believes in creating experiences by understanding user behaviour, competition, and mediums. Here, Gypsy, the project management tool for design that helps in managing costs, deserves a mention. Users only need to enter the various stages of the project along with their costs and timelines and Gypsy would state the delayed cost of the project.
From front-end development to infographics, and icon designs to illustrations, Yellow Slice makes sure that the users’ interests are prioritised, and the entire business model works around business-centered designs. For instance, Yellow Slice UX design doesn’t imply standard deliveries of wireframes or visual designs. “It would rather mean reaching the ultimate stage of the solution before which the team has gone through multiple rounds of extensive research following STEP,” says Sunny.
STEP is a research methodology followed by Yellow Slice which means soak, think, execute, and proof. “We take small steps in attaining the ultimate goal or KPIs that businesses might have. Besides, yellow is the colour of knowledge, creativity, passion, and enthusiasm, and thus we make sure that these values are inculcated in our team members while they perform their daily work,” adds Kishor.
In addition, Saturdays are usually Yellow Days that are reserved for learning a new skill. Anyone from within the team becomes the leader of the organisation and runs it as per his/her idea for that single day. This in turn helps a free-flowing of ideas while keeping the team intact. “We are committed towards the betterment of human experience and these learning sessions help to do that under the camouflage of fun activities,” shares Kishor.
Getting an edge with a .in domain
Kishor feels that opting for the .in domain helped to boost the local SEO in the Indian context. Besides, while targeting the Indian clientele base, nothing works better like the .in domain while establishing the company’s name as an Indian product.
Kishor also perceives that the .in domain gives an edge to small businesses and budding entrepreneurs to compete with the larger organisations. “While bigger organisations are focused towards the global perspective, smaller businesses get an edge by the .in domain to reach out to the targeted and niche audience,” he says.
The National Internet Exchange for India (NIXI) is helping many businesses across the country to get a .in or .Bharat domain. Enterprises irrespective of their scale and size can avail a .in domain with the help of NIXI. It is affordable and can be availed in more than 22 languages for businesses coming from all regions of the country.
Growth and revenue
Kishor believes that the digital space received a major boost post-pandemic. “I guess our business got positively impacted by the coronavirus. We have witnessed a significant amount of business reaching us, increasing the sales,” he adds.
Yellow Slice is anticipating almost 300 percent growth by the end of this financial year. “In the previous two quarters, we have surpassed the yearly revenue and are hopeful that in the next two quarters we would be doubling the revenue,” he shares.
The next schema of things they are pinning for is the innovation labs. India has a dearth of proper innovation labs on the global front. Kishor plans for the implementation of at least one innovation lab where they can take up projects for the public domain and large corporate houses, where even petty digital issues can be solved. “10 years down the line, the digital spectrum and the face of the world would witness a massive change, and we need to be prepared for this change,” adds Kishor.
Global expansion is certainly on the cards for Yellow Slice. “Currently, we are planning to open up offices in Germany, the USA, and Ireland, and aim to become a global design studio,” says Kishor. He further aims at reaching a position where they can be heard and seen better, thereby opening up avenues for acquiring new global projects.
The ‘Shaping India Inc’s Online Growth’ series chronicles the journeys of startups and SMEs in India and how creating an online presence on the .in or .Bharat domain powered their success stories.
