When Zeeshan Khurshed Mazumder first appeared in our pages in 2019, his company, BeshiDeshi, was a fledgling one-year-old e-commerce platform with 350 artisans and 12,000 products. Five years later, we find an organization transformed. What began as a modest online marketplace has evolved into a comprehensive ecosystem supporting 4,000 craftspeople across Bangladesh and more than 30,000 products on the platform, with Mazumder quietly changing how rural artisans and thus Bangladeshi products reach national and international markets.
In this first installment of our two-part interview, Mazumder reveals the fascinating transformation of BeshiDeshi from a simple ecommerce marketplace into an integrated platform for craftspeople and Bangladeshi products.
Readers will discover how the company navigated the unexpected opportunity presented by COVID-19, which dramatically accelerated their growth as artisans sought alternative sales channels when traditional markets closed.
The conversation offers valuable lessons in adaptive entrepreneurship and ecosystem building. Mazumder explains how BeshiDeshi systematically identified and solved critical barriers facing small artisans and producers, from developing innovative mobile photography training to creating flexible financing solutions that bypass traditional banking obstacles. Perhaps most instructively, the interview sheds light on how local enterprises can scale impact through pragmatic problem-solving rather than rigid idealism.
Founders and operators will find particular value in BeshiDeshi's creative approach to problem solving, creative business model development, platform building, and overcoming challenges, while policymakers can glean insights into the practical challenges of bringing traditional crafts into modern markets.
The interview is a fascinating read in its entirety. We hope you will enjoy it as much as we enjoyed doing it. Come back next week for the final installment of the interview.
Mohammad Ruhul Kader: Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. You started BeshiDeshi in 2018, and I believe we did an excellent interview with you a year later in 2019. At that time, you had about 12,000 products and around 350 suppliers on your platform. You had already started building your ecosystem—training, capital, and everything else. If we start from there, from 2019, what happened after that? How much has BeshiDeshi evolved over these years?
Zeeshan Khurshed Mazumder: We've evolved considerably. From our initial idea in 2018 to where we stand today, alhamdulillah, the journey has been interesting.
When we first started, our main focus was e-commerce—selling products online. Ninety per cent of our work concentrated on sales, with perhaps 10% devoted to strengthening our artisan base, since our products would come from those artisans.
However, when COVID hit in 2020, we saw artisans struggling without the support they needed. Previously, they sold in local markets or through their own shops; many were medium-sized operations that sold to wholesalers.
Since COVID restrictions made movement impossible, these artisans couldn't sell through their regular channels, creating an opportunity for us to find a new sales channel online. Our artisan base expanded rapidly during this period. Many craftspeople found us, recognising that selling online would be advantageous.
We built a strong artisan network during that time. Although COVID proved devastating for many, it actually benefited our business. Our sales increased three- to fourfold.
Our artisan base grew from about 350 to around 1,500, and that happened without substantial effort on our part. Despite being a small team, we worked diligently, recognising that we had a unique opportunity to grow the brand.
As our artisan base grew, many of them started to tell us that they couldn't find the support they needed in the ecosystem.
They might receive training from an NGO, but afterwards struggle to apply those skills effectively. What would they do with that training if they couldn't make products or sell them?
Many NGOs provide basic training to underprivileged women to create something new, perhaps making jute bags or doing hand stitching. They typically employ a common model: they provide a design template and ask people to replicate it. "Make whatever you can based on this design." However, few of these programmes address how participants might sell their creations.
NGOs rarely provide direct support for that. Instead, artisans must find nearby shops where they can leave their products. Often, they don't determine the price—the shopkeeper or wholesaler does.
Price is a major factor, and lower prices often discourage artisans. When they make a profit, they're motivated to do more work. Without profit, they lose interest in developing new designs or understanding market trends.
As we began receiving this feedback during and after COVID, we realised we needed to focus on ecosystem development.
We sought to collaborate with the private sector because we couldn't do everything alone. Moreover, ecosystem development wasn't directly generating revenue for us. We generate income from sales, but ecosystem building, while expensive, doesn't produce immediate returns. So we began by exploring collaboration opportunities.
Although we received support from a few NGOs, we encountered limited positive responses for broader collaboration. Each organisation had its own vision, and people often told us certain initiatives fell outside their project scope and priorities. While initially discouraging, we realized we would have to develop the ecosystem ourselves, regardless of scale.
We assessed what would be necessary and planned accordingly to build the entire ecosystem.
We started by considering how to elevate those at a basic level (Class 1) to a higher level (Class 3). We established training modules for several areas critical for the growth of our artisans' businesses.
We recognized that photography is essential for online sales. DSLR cameras are expensive, so we became the first in Bangladesh to develop a module for product photography using mobile phones. We implemented it and received positive feedback.
Currently, we have approximately 30,000 products on our website and around 4,000 artisans. About 95% of product photographs are provided by these artisans, all using their mobile phones. This is a direct outcome of our mobile photography training module—an achievement we're particularly proud of.
After developing the mobile photography module, we created design training to provide insights and consultations on market trends. As these support initiatives began showing impact on artisans' businesses, we encountered an even greater challenge.
We found out that many artisans face financial challenges when fulfilling large orders. When large wholesale orders come, producers often need capital to invest in making products. NGOs provide loans, but with high interest rates. Banks take too much time for approval. We saw that they needed fast cash support for working capital when orders came in.
At that time, we couldn't find any meaningful collaboration to address this challenge. Unable to collaborate, we began investing from our own funds.
We set up a separate financial support system, investing against their work orders. With that capital, they could purchase raw materials, develop products and sell them through our platform. After the sales, when we received payment, we would deduct our portion and pay out the remainder to the artisans.
This was a big support for them. They no longer needed to worry about finance and could fully focus on production. We even help them source raw materials when necessary.
For example, if someone in Teknaf needed fabric unavailable locally and requested our help, we would procure it from Islampur in Dhaka and send it to them at cost.
We provide packaging support when they can't find suitable materials locally.
We've gradually developed a comprehensive support ecosystem—from production to photography, financial assistance, packaging, and everything in between. And we've been able to do it successfully at a certain scale.
Now our target is to scale up and reach more people. Throughout this journey, we've worked with a long list of partners. iDE, a global NGO, has partnered with us on several projects and provided substantial support.
Currently, we're working with Oxfam Bangladesh, focusing on training, market linkage, financial assistance, e-learning, and others.
We're working in Teknaf, helping those who lost their homes after the Rohingya camps were established and had to relocate, supporting them in creating sustainable income sources.
We're also working in Rajshahi with a large group of underprivileged women, helping them to build on their basic skills through marketing and expansion support. We've also worked in various other locations, including Rangpur and Jessore.
Ruhul: That is fascinating. Evolving from where you were in 2019 to become a full-fledged ecosystem is an incredible achievement. While you had the ambition, as you mentioned in our first interview, to build a comprehensive platform providing all kinds of support to artisans making Bangladeshi products, actually building it out is quite a different thing. I would like to learn more about how this has been built. In 2019, you had around 300 artisans, many reporting photography as a problem. So you created a training module to address that problem. However, that’s only part of the story. There must be more to it—a process involving trial and error. Or consider the capital problem you mentioned: you might have observed five artisans with orders they couldn't deliver due to lack of funds. So you decided to create a solution to that by lending from your own capital. But this didn't just happen. You had to arrange resources, build processes, and put things together. Please share some of these stories with texture—challenges you faced and how you overcame them. Tell us about your experience of solving a complex problem like the one you are trying to solve. What is interesting about your work is that while many idealistically talk about promoting local products, few actually succeed. You've been working on this for years and have built a successful business, which itself is a tremendous achievement in such a complex sector. We would love to hear the details of the story.
Zeeshan: You rightly pointed out that each aspect of the ecosystem—whether financial assistance, photography, or delivery—has its own story.
Let's begin with our financial assistance product. As you rightly noted, we didn't suddenly decide to provide funding from our own pockets.
First, we talked with artisans and tagged them with various banks to see if they qualified for loans. That experience had its own challenges.
Banks required numerous documents, a process that could take three to six months. Yet these artisans required funds within three to four days to deliver orders.
Then we suggested they approach local NGOs. When they did so, they discovered interest rates were so high that they would need to increase their prices. We had already accepted orders and couldn't adjust prices. We had to cancel several orders due to these challenges.
We were struggling because we were losing customers. We had wholesale clients—people living abroad who perhaps visited Bangladesh, placed large orders, and took them back to sell overseas. We had both international and domestic wholesalers. We didn't want to lose these clients or any customers for that matter. After losing a few, we recognised that we needed a quick in-house solution.
We understood this wasn't our primary focus, so we wanted to minimize the time invested. Nevertheless, we recognised the necessity of providing financial support. Implementing this in-house presented numerous technical challenges.
For instance, if we gave a loan to someone who failed to repay, it would be a significant risk. We needed some form of guarantor and guarantee—some connection with them to ensure recovery of investments. If something went wrong, we needed security.
So artisans needed financial assistance, and we required security. We also needed a small win-win arrangement—some interest rate or profit rate, however modest, for the capital we invested.
Given my banking background, we analyzed several security measures. We set up reference points. Though we didn't formally require guarantors, we maintained references as witnesses who could help us later if problems arose. Alhamdulillah, with one exception, we haven’t faced any problem. We've provided this support to about 20 people. Of those, only one caused a significant problem.
The operation was quite smooth. Artisans happily accepted the proposal. Our profit/interest rate was considerably lower than what banks or leasing companies would charge, comparable to the rate you might receive from a short-term savings account.
We created a basic registration form for fund applications. When we gave money, artisans took only what they genuinely needed. They weren't "hungry for money" in the sense of borrowing the maximum available and redirecting it elsewhere. We haven’t seen that behavior.
The experience has been very positive. They would request precisely what they needed for raw materials, and we would provide that amount within a day or two. They would purchase materials with those funds.
They would voluntarily keep us informed: "We bought this with the money." Out of satisfaction, they would update us on their progress. We received continuous updates without having to request them.
Once products were ready, our delivery team would collect them and deliver them to customers. Artisans didn't need to handle logistics. When we received completed products, we were encouraged that we could expand this model to include more participants. This is how the programme gradually evolved.
Ruhul: What are you doing now with financing? This has also become a product for you.
Zeeshan: We don't want to do this alone; we want others to join us on this journey. We now have Oxfam with us on this project. We're working on several projects with them. In this particular project, which will begin in May, Oxfam is providing us with funds. With that capital, we'll be able to finance artisans who have requirements.
In the meantime, we've made agreements with several banks. We provided consultancy to about 30 artisans to help them become bankable. Through this consultancy, they developed themselves, understanding what resources and documentation they would need. Subsequently, most of them secured loans from banks. It took some time, but alhamdulillah, it worked out.
Although it is not our core business, it is an important component of the ecosystem we want to build. We want others to join us so we can scale up the entire project.
We've also launched a new project: Inventory Investment, a crowdfunding-type initiative where individuals or groups can invest their idle money in our artisans' inventory. We observed that many artisans maintain products that will eventually sell in the next three or four months, but they face immediate cash constraints. Since we can't offer them loans through work orders, and bank loans aren't feasible, we decided to purchase their inventory outright. We would buy it and sell it gradually. This way, cash flows to them immediately.
From that understanding, we realized that if we can connect with individuals or corporate entities willing to invest directly in our products, a win-win situation emerges. The investor earns a fixed income or share of the profit from product sales, while the producer receives immediate payment in cash. This creates a compelling opportunity for others to join our journey and become part of a sustainable, impactful value chain.
We began testing this in 2024. Oxfam is our project partner in this initiative. Alhamdulillah, we’ve developed quite a bit.
We had quite a few backend requirements for this project, such as product storage warehouse needs, concerns about product spoilage, security and damage issues, and insurance considerations—we tested all of these, and after seeing success, we commercially launched it toward the end of last year. Alhamdulillah, we've purchased about 25,000 products through this model already, sold almost all of them, and we're welcoming new investors and funders.
Through this, the artisans with stockpiled products don't have to worry about storage or selling. They simply make products and supply them to us. We gradually sell these items and provide them with immediate cash. Then they make new products again. This has evolved into an interesting new project for us.
Ruhul: This is fascinating. There are several types of MSME financing models emerging, and crowdfunding is one of them. You're actually working with real manufacturing MSMEs. Since market linkage is your main work—helping these MSMEs sell through your website—you have access to their sales data and performance metrics. You have the data for credit scoring. Moreover, since you receive sales payments on behalf of your artisans, it provides relative security for your investments with them.
Zeeshan: That's partly true. After every sale, when we receive the payment, we can collect the installments or any dues and transfer the remainder to the artisans. This certainly offers us some relative control advantage.
Now, regarding the story of photography: during the COVID period, our producers informed us they couldn't arrange product photos, and we suddenly found ourselves in a difficult position, which eventually led to the idea of mobile photography.
Ruhul: How did you manage photography before introducing mobile photography training?
Zeeshan: We had a collaboration with several photographers. We would send them products, and they would photograph them and return them. It was somewhat expensive and carried the risk of damage.
That's when we began getting input from our artisans to provide a solution. Initially, we thought of creating team leads whom we would train in photography and who would manage the process. We thought about using DSLRs and so forth. But we realized this would be equally expensive and also wasn't feasible during COVID.
As we were sitting on the problem, we realized we could take photos with mobile phones. And if we could establish common standards for everyone, it could work out. Once we conceived the idea, we first created a slide presentation on mobile photography techniques.
In consultation with our photographers, we put together a guide covering basic requirements such as how to use light, work with angles, and position items. We started with these basics.
Once ready, we quickly implemented it in Rangpur at the end of 2021 for the first time to see its effectiveness.
When we began training artisans, we received a lot of feedback. They had numerous questions about improvising techniques. We further enriched the course based on this feedback. We now offer a video e-learning phase course on mobile photography, which our artisans can access anytime from anywhere.
For basic photography, this is a comprehensive e-learning resource. Since we handle many different product categories, such as clothing, shoes, and home decor, it's impractical to photograph clothes the same way as shoes or home decor. So we've included specific instructions for each category separately so that everyone can learn the fundamental skills for photographing their products.
The course has proven quite effective. The majority of our current 30,000 products are photographed via mobile phones. And no one would say they were taken with mobiles because they are of very high quality.
Ruhul: Product photography is a tricky problem, and you've solved it quite cleverly. Regarding the training you provide, what other types of training do you offer now?
Zeeshan: We start with fundamentals such as pricing strategy. What we typically observe is that everyone examines competitors' pricing and attempts to match the market rate. However, your pricing strategy shouldn't be based on what others are doing. For instance, if my costs are considerably lower than others, why would I sell at a higher price? Or if my costs are significantly higher, why should I sell at a loss by comparing with others?
We've created a scientific method for calculating product pricing, which is now available through our e-learning videos. The formula combines all relevant aspects of a company that should go into the pricing of their product, such as how many people work in the company, how long something takes to make/produce, the value of their time, and so forth. The model also considers whether the product is made by a company or an individual artisan.
We also have e-learning materials on managing and running a business, keeping basic accounting using normal notebooks, and inventory management.
Our e-learning initiative is relatively new, created recently as an extension of our physical training efforts. We understand that as we scale, it will become challenging to train more people in person. We believe we can expand our training through e-learning.
Our e-learning materials are presented in simple Bengali language with pictures so people can easily understand the concepts.
Each module comes with accompanying tests for self-assessment.
We currently have seven modules with several others in development.
We don't require artisans who receive our training to work exclusively with us. It's not a situation where once you receive our training, you're bound to us and unable to work elsewhere. Although naturally, due to our relationship, they tend to remain with us. It's uncommon for them to leave. Nevertheless, we want them to develop and grow.
As they grow, they'll generate new ideas and designs, which means we can sell those ideas too. So we don't impose exclusivity.
Beyond the modules I’ve mentioned, we have components on inventory management, e-commerce operations. maintaining product and service quality, and design training. We're developing a module on design thinking.
We don't tell anyone what to do and how to do it.
We don’t prescribe any specific creative methods—we don’t say “do exactly this”. We guide them about many different ways a certain thing can be done. Through our design modules, which we call design thinking, we explain different approaches and scopes. We aim to help people find their creativity and draw inspiration from different sources. When new ideas emerge and they create new designs, they give them to us to sell.
We don’t simply tell them to imitate—copy this or that, which we actively avoid. The goal is to open people’s minds to new ways and approaches, helping them explore their creativity.
For example, in our design thinking course, we're focusing on creating recycled products using used materials such as old bedsheets that people have at home. Jamdani is currently very popular. But beyond Jamdani sarees, many other items can be made with Jamdani—from notebooks and diaries to home decor pillow covers.
Our design thinking training aims to inspire artisans to produce more items using existing materials that might generate better margins than low-priced Jamdani sarees, while offering customers novel options. These are some of the training modules we currently offer.
Ruhul: This is fascinating and aspirational. You now have about 4,000 artisans. How do you find and work with artisans? Do you engage with each artisan individually, or do they reach out and register on the platform? I ask because many might join as merchants since you operate as a platform.
Zeeshan: Not all 4,000 artisans are active; not everyone wishes to develop the same skills or shares the same interests. Everyone progresses at their own pace.
Over time, we've developed methodical approaches to working with artisans. For example, yesterday we conducted a trip to Rajshahi where we worked with about 30 people on various training programmes. Next week, we have a visit to Cox's Bazar where we'll engage with approximately 40 people.
We have two priorities regarding training. First, we want to train those who need it most, such as disadvantaged women. We aim to provide them with hands-on, in-person training beyond video instruction. These are comprehensive sessions where we explain concepts, answer questions and provide feedback.
Another category of artisans we support are the ones who approach us with specific problems, whom we help by providing a solution through videos or presentations, or other means. In some instances, we arrange training sessions for them in our office conference room. We prefer these training sessions to be done in groups that make physical training feasible. We also host one-to-one sessions depending on circumstances.
We've provided in-person training to around 2,000 artisans thus far. Additionally, artisans can consult with us by scheduling appointments with me or the relevant member from our team who handles their issue.
We regularly provide consultation over the phone and online for various business-related challenges our artisans face—from problems with packaging or materials to improving and diversifying designs to increasing sales and growth.
Ruhul: We've covered several of your ecosystem components. Finance is one that you've developed yourselves. You've funded 30 artisans directly and are now working with partners, including financial institutions and development sector organizations. We discussed that. You also have something like inventory investment.
Zeeshan: We want to scale up the inventory investment initiative. At present, we offer three incentives to funders who invest with us.
We give our funders a purpose with our inventory investment. What purpose? They create an impact where our Bangladeshi products are sold, where artists who are disadvantaged get benefits, plus they get a good profit rate.
We currently have three projects: two eco-friendly product projects and one home decor product project. Our minimum investment ticket size is BDT 50,000. Our regular return rate ranges between 15% to 17%. We have investment options for both six-month and one-year periods.
These are our current general offerings. Although we haven't done any large-scale promotion for our inventory investment initiative, we've been receiving quite good responses through word of mouth.
Our long-term goal is to scale this up so that we can support more artisans. While we will continue investing from our own funds, we don’t want to do it at scale. Instead, we plan to keep those funds aside for emergencies and work orders. We want as many collaborators as possible, whether it's on a project basis or matching with others. We want to work with all kinds of partners—NGO, banks, and so on—to help as many artisans as possible access finance.
Ruhul: I think you have a business model here as well. For instance, you are helping banks and financial institutions source potential businesses to lend to, which can be a service for them for which you may charge a fee or something. Are you doing anything like that?
Zeeshan: We are trying to develop some models for working together. We might not be able to take fees directly from banks or leasing companies. Instead, these partners give us back through some sponsorship and similar in-kind assistance.
With some of our partners, we have an understanding where we match our clients with them, and they sponsor or support some of our initiatives.
Ruhul: This is a very interesting model. We've covered quite a bit about your ecosystem. I want to ask you a few more things. You travel all over Bangladesh for work—today Rangpur, tomorrow Rajshahi, day after tomorrow Cox's Bazar. One important aspect of your business is finding the right artisans. What are the challenges in finding the right manufacturers and artisans? That's one question. The other thing is: we emotionally want to buy Bangladeshi products and support Bangladeshi artists. However, while saying this is simple, you have to make it financially viable and make it so that the product is competitive for customers and also beneficial for artisans. We have seen initiatives struggle to manage this balance. From your experience, what are the missing pieces when we tell these stories of selling Bangladeshi products and helping artisans in the process, but can't execute? What challenges did you face and how have you overcome them?
Zeeshan: Let’s start by talking about how we find artisans and source from artisans. We actually get good responses from word of mouth, which has been highly effective for us. But for word of mouth to work, we have to do things right. That’s where understanding what artisans want works like magic.
At the end of the day, after training and everything, they want money. They want to know whether we can sell. That's the number one criterion.
When a platform gives them sales, word of mouth spreads, and since related artisans generally stay in groups, they rush to that platform. These artisans often live in small communities partly because mainstream support is so scarce for them that they tend to bunch together and help each other. They often collaborate, which means when we work with one person, ten more hear about it, and it spreads pretty fast. When you do good work, your reputation does the rest of it.
This is how, through word of mouth, artisans come to us on their own, contact us, share their products and designs, and inquire whether we could work together. We evaluate these inquiries and select the ones that are relevant to us. We don’t take everyone in.
We check the skills and quality of the artisans’ work—whether someone can replicate the same product and quality consistently— and we also need to understand the demand for a product and how to develop the market.
Maintaining this exacting quality is critical for customer satisfaction. When we show a picture of a product, people expect to receive that exact product.
For handmade products, you may expect 5-10% deviation. But customers always expect consistency. So we need to ensure that the person who made that beautiful product can repeat it.
This has been a major challenge for us since the beginning, especially with artisans from outside Dhaka.
In outstations, many raw materials are not readily available—you may not find a particular color of thread, and what happens is that many artisans use a different color, thinking it would be the same. However, this hampers the color combination, and customers, while liking the earlier design, may think negatively about the product quality, which can hamper sales. Many artisans don't understand this.
This has been one of our learnings: you have to deliver the exact same product as the picture and description you share with customers when selling it. Unfortunately, many artisans struggle with this, which hampers their growth and causes customer dissatisfaction.
This means we can’t onboard an artisan on day one. We first need to train newcomers. As I mentioned before, these training sessions are expensive for us. They don't generate direct revenue, but there's value in the time we spend. That time doesn't directly earn us revenue. For instance, when we travel to Rajshahi with a team of four or five people to train artisans, it is costly. We consider it successful when we see that out of 30 artisans, the majority update their designs after our training and provide better products.
However, there are times when our training does not produce expected outcomes. Sometimes we see that nothing has changed after a training event. In those cases, we evaluate our training to see what's relevant and what's not, what works and what doesn’t.
In other instances, many artisans present additional challenges after a training program, such as financial challenges. When we started providing solutions for financial issues, these artisans became more interested in staying with us.
Additionally, those who had money but couldn't develop new products received training, which unlocked new opportunities for them. Those who didn't have money got both training and financial support. Others faced challenges with product photography, and we helped them solve that as well.
When we got the full ecosystem together, our artisan dropout rate decreased significantly.
Today, most of the physical training we provide produces successful results—artisans who receive our training make good products. Their return rate has decreased. Our overall return rate is now less than 3%, much lower than the market.
