BeshiDeshi was founded by Zeeshan Khurshed Mazumder in 2018 as an ecommerce platform to bridge the gap between Bangladeshi artisans and market, promoting "Made in Bangladesh" products. Bangladesh has a rich heritage of artisan and locally made products that has meaningful market demand, yet artisans routinely face myriad of challenges, from access to market to training to design and finance.
This is not a new problem and BeshiDeshi is not first organization to take a stab at it. The difference is that while most other initiatives trying to address these challenges stumbled or failed to scale, BeshiDeshi has managed to build a successful operation and a comprehensive model.
When we first covered BeshiDeshi in 2019, it was a fledgling e-commerce platform with 350 artisans and 12,000 products. As it grew, the company saw that quality product images are a challenge for many of these artisans. After trying a few approaches, it introduced a mobile photography training course, teaching artisans to capture professional product images using their phones. Today, almost all of its product photos are taken by mobile phones by the artisans.
A few years into the business, the company realized that artisans have to design and make products that are in demand and match the current design trends to attract customers and gain popularity. Thus it launched a design consultation and course to teach design thinking to artisans so that they can align their crafts with market trends.
In 2020, when COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill, the company found out that access to finance is a huge challenge for artisans. To address the challenge, it quickly launched a financing program supporting artisans with working capital. An initiative that has since evolved and expanded into an inventory investment program connecting retail and institutional investors with artisans. The journey of BeshiDeshi has been a journey of focused yet constant evolution.
BeshiDeshi has since evolved into a comprehensive ecosystem addressing many of the challenges artisans face in Bangladesh. Today, the company has more than 4,000 craftspeople and over 30,000 products on its platform and has become an important player in Bangladesh's artisanal economy.
BeshiDeshi’s journey offers excellent lessons on how to navigate complex markets, maintain quality across a distributed production network, achieve operational efficiency, and more importantly, it shows what it means to do things that don’t scale.
Building a venture is a complex problem. Naturally, there are many different ways to do it. But successful companies like BeshiDeshi that have solved for their market provide us with ideas about what works and what does not. In most instances, successful businesses seem to be built on timeless ideas, often considered boring, rather than flashy innovations or trendy quick fixes. BeshiDeshi's journey reveals several fundamental principles that are frequently overlooked but essential for building sustainable businesses.
BeshiDeshi's journey reveals several fundamental principles that are frequently overlooked but essential for building sustainable businesses.
For instance, deliver your core value proposition well, everything else will follow. If you claim, you do “A” for your customers, make sure you deliver on that claim. For BeshiDeshi, one of its core deliverables is generating sales for the artisans who sell through its ecommerce platform. From the day one, it focused on delivering on that promise to that extent that every other action can be traced back to this goal. The result: it attracts more artisans through word of mouth.
Another such boring idea is controlling cost and staying lean. Now controlling cost is neither sexy nor an easy thing to do. But BeshiDeshi has done it religiously from day one and to an extraordinary extent by staying lean, improving organizational efficiency and running a highly cost conscious operation.
We recently featured a fascinating two-part interview with BeshiDeshi founder and CEO Zeeshan Khurshed Mazumder, which is full of such boring but essential lessons across entrepreneurship, venture building, and operations. In this article, we distill some of the most important ones around building a successful business. You can read the interview in full here and here.
1. Focus on Your Strengths: Success comes not from copying trends, but from focusing on what you're good at and trying to build something around it. Each person has their own specialty, and entrepreneurs should work on that instead of just copying what's trending in the market.
2. Master Financial Planning and Cost Control: Financial planning and controlling costs are two important aspects often overlooked. Controlling costs means being mindful of where to spend money and where not to. A lean and frugal operation is the best strategy in every situation and market. BeshiDeshi has practiced this principle by operating from modest office spaces, staying lean, limiting unnecessary technology investments, and scrutinizing every expense against its ability to drive value.
3. Deliver Your Core Value Proposition Well:If you claim you do "A" for your customers, make sure you deliver on that promise. For BeshiDeshi, one of its core deliverables is generating sales for artisans who sell through its platform. From day one, it focused on delivering on that promise to the extent that every other action can be traced back to this goal. The result: BeshiDeshi attracts more artisans through word of mouth
4. Start Small and Seek Sustainability First: When starting a project, avoid the mistake of thinking everything needs to be perfect. Resist the temptation to overspend. Entrepreneurs should always start small, find a way to be sustainable, and then figure out how to grow exponentially.
5. Prioritize Survival Over Immediate Profit: Avoid excessive spending at the beginning. The more operational costs are reduced, the greater the chances of long-term business sustainability. Profit will come eventually if you survive; surviving is the key thing. Building a successful business is what truly matters, not having a high-profile office or a large team initially.
6. Deliver Consistent Quality: Maintaining exacting quality is critical for customer satisfaction. While handmade products might have small deviations (5-10%), customers always expect consistency. Delivering the exact same product as shown in pictures and descriptions is crucial, and struggling with this hampers growth and causes customer dissatisfaction. Professionalism in delivering consistent products is key to competing in the market.
7. Build a Lean and Efficient Organization: Avoid unnecessarily increasing headcounts; focus on improving team productivity instead. Encourage team members to wear multiple hats and operate at their best. Invest in in-house training and support to help people grow.
8. Hire for Willingness to Learn and Culture Fit: Do not solely focus on educational credentials when hiring for the core team; common sense is highly valued. Willingness to learn and resourcefulness are highly valued traits, often more important than prior experience. Assess how well a candidate fits into the team culture; culture fit is critical.
9. Cultivate a Positive Organizational Culture: People in an organization often adopt the approach of its leaders. A friendly, collaborative environment where people feel supported, there is no shame in learning, and non-judgment is encouraged leads to a great retention rate. Providing easy access to leaders helps maintain a flatter structure.
10. Develop Clear Operational Processes: Define and document all processes collaboratively with the team, rather than having processes dictated from the top. BeshiDeshi develops processes as challenges are encountered. Over the years, the company has developed processes for almost all of its operational aspects, improving its operational efficiency across board.
BeshiDeshi's success didn’t come from any revolutionary technology or massive funding rounds. Instead, it shows that mastering fundamentals, financial discipline, quality control, organizational culture, and operational efficiency, creates sustainable businesses. By understanding the details of operations and focusing on continuous improvement, the company has created both a successful business and positive impact for thousands of artisans.
The next time you're tempted by the latest business trend, remember that sometimes the most powerful strategies are also the most boring ones. As BeshiDeshi shows, doing the fundamentals exceptionally well may be the most effective strategy of all.
