As of January 2024, there are around 17 crore users worldwide that use Canva for their day-to-day graphic designing, may it be personal or professional. Dadasaheb Bhagat wants to tap this market and make a ‘Made in India’ alternative.
Dadasaheb has created 3 companies in order to achieve this goal whose final version is called DesignTemplate which positions itself as the “World’s Largest Indian Design Marketplace.” It indicates a strong focus on serving the Indian market while also catering to a global audience.
But it all started with a small boy’s passion for design and art. Dadasaheb recounts how he used to visit the painter in his village to learn drawing. Later, when he joined Infosys as an office boy his interest in designing came back after seeing company employees doing work on their PC and earning such a good salary with their skills.
“Seeing them work made me want to learn about technology and excel in life,”
He juggled his work with Diploma classes in Multimedia. Dadasaheb Bhagat’s career in visual effects and animation took him on a journey through several prestigious companies, including Prime Focus World, Reliance MediaWorks, and Magic N Colors Inc.
His roles ranged from Roto Artist to Visual Effects Supervisor, working on Hollywood movies and TV serials. When he was at Prime Focus Technologies in 2015, an unfortunate bike accident led to a pivotal moment in his career.
During his recovery, Bhagat explored freelance design, creating unique fire and smoke animations. These designs, sold on third-party websites, became highly sought after by major companies, significantly boosting his income. This success ultimately inspired Bhagat to leave his job and pursue his own ventures in the design industry.
He started Ninth Motion, a company specializing in animated design and digital art. He started by selling innovative animated fire and smoke designs on third-party websites. Ninthmotion quickly gained recognition, serving around 6,000 clients globally, including prominent organizations like BBC Studios and the 9XM music channel.
He now joined numerous design firms while finally landing in Hyderabad. Here, he learned Python and C++, further enhancing his technical skills.
“I saw an advertisement in Hyderabad about a programming class for just Rs. 1,999. I said if something so important is available at this low price then why not learn it.”
The lockdown prompted him to suspend operations in Pune and return to his village in Beed, Maharashtra. There, he set up his workspace in a hilly cattle shed with reliable 4G network reception and worked alongside friends he had trained in animation and design.
Building on the success of Ninthmotion, Bhagat founded DooGraphics, an AI-driven platform for graphic design. Launched in August 2020, DooGraphics aims to provide a user-friendly interface for creating social media graphics and other design elements. The platform allows users to create templates using a simple drag-and-drop interface.
In 2020, Bhagat received acknowledgment from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his entrepreneurial efforts in the Mann Ki Baat segment and for his contribution to the “Atmanirbhar Bharat” vision.
Within six months, the platform garnered 10,000 active users, primarily from Maharashtra, Delhi, and Bangalore, and even reached international users in Japan, Australia, and the UK. By the end of 2020, DooGraphics had over 1 lakh users globally.
He launched DesignTemplate later which offers a wide range of design assets and templates for various creative projects. It offers design assets, including After Effects templates, Premiere Pro templates, motion graphics, etc. This was done to earn some fast revenue to fund DooGraphics.
His story was highlighted on Shark Tank India Season 3, where he secured an investment of Rs 1 crore for a 10% equity stake in his company from Shark Aman Gupta. The platform has witnessed remarkable growth, with a 100X increase in traffic and a 20% surge in sales after Bhagat’s appearance on Shark Tank India.
Recently, as per our research, the DooGraphics website has been redirected to DesignTemplate. This means that DesignTemplate has become the go-to place for templates as well as drag-and-drop graphic editing.
Dadasaheb has only one piece of advice for young entrepreneurs, “Don’t Wait for Perfection – Start Now!.”
