Connecting creative professionals, hirers

IndieFolio brings together students, professionals, institutes and design-focused companies

November 30, 2017 12:40 am | Updated 12:40 am IST

Mumbai: Recruiters often hit a wall when they attempt to hire professionals in the creative arts through online platforms like naukri.com or LinkedIn. Most of these, says Kavan Antani (21), an animation and motion graphics designer, are resume or profile-heavy and do not have a space for portfolios. As a result, recruiters have little or no idea of the applicants’ quality of work.

Eager to fill this vacuum, Mr. Antani, along with Shashank Jogani (24), a college mate pursuing the Bachelors in Financial Markets course in H.R. College, co-founded IndieFolio in February 2015. The platform is a meeting point for students, professionals, institutes and design-focused companies.

“IndieFolio (meaning independent portfolios/Indian portfolios) is where Indian professionals can showcase their creative design ideas and artwork skills and get various job opportunities in their fields of interest. It provides exposure to the underestimated creative talent hidden in India and allows these talents to make a living doing what they love,” says Mr. Antani.

The founders put in Rs. 10 lakh from their savings, and within two-and-a-half years, the company has raised a seed round of Rs 2.5 crore from a cross-section

of investors.

It has 17 employees (12 full-time, five contractual), and is in talks with strategic and institutional investors for more funds.

With neither of them having any experience in design marketing, the two spent a few months understanding the market and sharpening their concept. At this time, they ran into a critical issue: “Creating a network is a chicken-and-egg situation. You get designers but not recruiters or you get recruiters but not designers,” says Mr. Jogani.

They also found it difficult to showcase designers’ potential to people from outside the design community or collaborate with design institutions, who did not take them seriously because of their age and because their concept was still in nascent stage.

They started visiting colleges and holding workshops in various parts of Mumbai. By March, 2015, 1,000 creative professionals registered on their website. Currently, they have 30,000 registered users hosting over 60,000 artworks across projects with 2,500 companies fulfilling recruiting needs.

How it works

IndieFolio helps creators showcase their profile. “They can upload their portfolio or aggregate their work from multiple external portfolio platforms,” says Carl George, Vice President. Once they do that, the company connects them with employers for full-time, freelance and internship opportunities.

The company has three verticals: Recruiter; Proxy and Assist. IndieFolio Recruiter scouts for and

hires designers, copywriters and creators of all variety and manages the company’s entire design recruitment requirement.

Proxy sets up a team that can deliver all kinds of marketing, advertising and brand promotion needs of the company. “We have curated over 100 artists across nine creative functions like graphic design, photography, films/videos, and have given them a platform to showcase their work and credentials to brands and agencies,” says Mr. Antani.

If anyone wants to hire in-house creative resources, the team at Assist helps add value to the process. “Unlike other hiring agencies, we don’t feed third-party data but rely on our own database and thereby provide optimum value to the employer by filtering out all the unsuitable applicants,” says Mr. Jogani.

Says Nikhil Saxena, creative head, Happily Unmarried, a Delhi-based online and offline grooming store, “We are constantly looking for production and graphic designers for our creative team. However, before IndieFolio, no job sourcing site was able to meet our specific demand. Through their website, it is easier to check out individual portfolios, see their work and select as per our requirements.”

Bhaskar Sancheti, a fashion portrait and advertising photographer in Mumbai, has been associated with IndieFolio since inception. “I have been showcasing my work through their website and have got a number of projects.”

IndieFolio also conducts offline events in the country and helps registered users get mentored by industry veterans. So far they have hosted around 20 events in various cities. “We are able to connect over 1,500 designers and creators offline every year,” says Wenceslaus D’Silva, Chief Technology Officer. “We also help creators get access to helpful online content through our blog. These are free resources, and contain tips and tricks, besides updates from Indian and international creative industries.”

IndieFolio is a free platform for creative professionals. They charge a subscription fee for IndieFolio Recruiter and take 8% commission on annual cost to company when they place someone via IndieFolio Assist and charge a 15-20%

commission on top of their creator’s creative fees for IndieFolio Proxy.

The founders’ primary aim is to get IndieFolio Recruiter registered with every creative company. There is also a plan to unveil IndieFolio Insert, a new way to share portfolios over email and create industry-specific templates which users can customise while uploading their work.

“We plan to create curated creative content across various mediums (video, audio, etc) and launch a digital store for creators where we help them sell their assets: not just apparel, mugs etc. but also textures, fonts and templates,” says Mr. Antani.

IndieFolio

Founders

Kavan Antani and Shashank Jogani

Founded: 2015

Funding: Self, investors

Employees:17

Web: www.indiefolio.com

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