Introducing Tricycle | The Startup Branding Agency
I hope this can inspire you to become a successful entrepreneur too!
Why is it important to hear the story of a successful entrepreneur? Having the vision to become an entrepreneur is great. Making it happen is another story!
In that frame, I had the pleasure to interview Samyadeep De and Kaushik Saha, founder & co-founder of Tricycle.
1. Hi! Please tell us how Tricycle started?
While working in the brand consulting domain in Mumbai I found that most of the companies who came to us were established, players. The service was outside the reach of many, be it the family-owned enterprise, or upcoming challenger brands and startups.
With the government promoting entrepreneurship in a big way it was imperative that the new business owners get support in not only the operational aspects of the business but also in terms of how they can effectively market their offering and build a strong and accepted brand.
This prompted me to start TRICYCLE, a strategic brand consultancy that wants to be the branding agency for the new age enterprise.
Tricycle uses strategic and design intervention to build a distinctive projection for a brand. From brand identity creation to the positioning, to corporate stationery, experience/workspace design, communication design and corporate film we help a brand define itself and be in line with its business vision.
“We are essentially a startup for the startups and are aware of the issues and the opportunities. Through this we wish to contribute to the cause of entrepreneurship and make a positive impact” – Samyadeep, founder of Tricycle
We started three years back and have been able to do consistent work that has helped us build a reputation.
Ours is a service fee model, Clients engage us and pay us for our interventions. In the case of startups, we at times subsidize our commercial fees to accommodate them, provided we see potential in their offering and clarity in their vision. We believe in forging lasting relationships and partner our clients in their respective journeys.
2. What potential is there in the market?
Wherever there is entrepreneurship happening, there is a potential for us. Now that we have stabilized our operation and our model is set, we now want to be part of ecosystems and explore opportunities through collaboration. We are talking to incubators, institutions and other private organizations where we can together add value.
3. What is your prime focus?
The prime focus of Tricycle is to help business leverage the power of Branding to create a distinct competitive advantage for themselves, we usually work on projects in the area of Brand creation – Where a brand has to be created afresh, right from the name, the logo, to the brand language to other aspects of corporate branding, packaging, retail experience design, campaign, and advertising.
Rebrand- Many a time business which have been around for long feel the need to reinvent themselves, to be in a position to leverage current and future opportunities, may feel the need to broaden their scope or diversify into new specialties which makes the previous interpretation redundant or limited by scope.
In such cases, we look at a rebrand where we equip the business with an appropriate projection in order to stay relevant and compete in a dynamic market.
Brand Rejuvenation – sometimes a strategic shift, a business move, or an acquisition might require a subtle realignment in terms of the projection. These are cases where the brand enjoys strong recognition, recall, and associations which need to be kept intact while still setting the context right.
4. How it is important?
We feel while we have warmed up to the idea of pursuing entrepreneurship, there is a need for a complete and cohesive ecosystem to be created to fully leverage its potential. From a culture where most people aimed to be employees to now when we want to create employment, this transition is quite significant. However, we need to see beyond the glamour associated with startups and understand the commitment that is required to follow through.
Institutions, corporates, professionals, media, policymakers need to be brought under one umbrella and provide hassle-free and easy access to guidance and mentorship along with its actual implementation.
We should accept failures as well as success and create this circle of acceptance that is required. While a lot is being done at a policy level, the implementation of the same is not always full proof. Access to specialized services and knowledge needs to be made available for the entrepreneurs who are starting out so that they know the right way of doing things. Tricycle is an idea that is trying to address this very aspect.
5. What is your experience so far?
“It’s been a satisfying journey till now, the fact that we have been able to create a visible business impact for our clients is a great feeling. I always wanted to create an intellectual organization and not just a commercial outfit, so we are taking the right steps and moving as per our plan. We are not in a rush, and this patience is what I feel is essential to get where we want to.”– Kaushik Saha ( co-founder Tricycle )
I think we are an idea whose time has come, so the curve is on our side. I like the buzz around entrepreneurship and that many young minds across the length and breadth of the country are now wanting to write their own destiny.
However we need to create an environment of acceptance, there is a lot of free knowledge that’s floating around, while it can be useful not all is true. We need to educate, empower and also empathize.
6. What challenges you are facing?
Ours is a niche operative space and it takes time for prospective clients to understand our model. Since we are a consulting firm, a design agency and an advertising firm roped into one, at times we face unnecessary and irrelevant comparison, there is also a certain level of mediocrity and price-cutting that happens in lesser evolved markets so getting the mind shift becomes a challenge.
Also, mostly startups, especially the bootstrapped ones face challenges on the money front so getting them to see the value of the function and commit to it financially is always a challenge.
7. What is your methodology?
Tricycle believes in giving each brand its own signature, the process starts by defining the brand’s purpose, it’s personality and value system and the role it sees itself playing. While these might appear to be fundamental questions more often than not founders don’t have a clear idea about the same. It is worthwhile to remember that a functional definition is not really what we are looking at.
The next step involves creating the brand narrative, one that is interesting, relevant and comes with high communication possibilities. We then interpret the narrative into a distinct design language which brings alive it’s ethos. The language extends itself across the various touchpoints and drives inconsistency. Now the persona begins to emerge and the specific do and don’t are laid out which define the brand’s journey from here on, thus eliminating the risk of interpretation. Finally, we create appropriate communication to go along with the brand story so that what we have is a consistent and differentiated projection. We then look at the softer aspects of branding like employer branding, cause marketing, and culture creation to complete the loop. This is the Tricycle way and it surely works.
8. What type of clients do you love to work with?
We like to work with passionate entrepreneurs who are clear in their vision, you could be a startup an established entity or a family business wanting to transform, for us every assignment is a new opportunity to make a difference and we take it very seriously.
We value relationships and seeing our clients achieve their objectives and value our contribution is what drives us forward. We are a passionate enterprise and we exist to deliver impact.
9. What advice would you give to someone starting out?
While building a profitable venture also considers building a strong brand. It is always good to plan things and do it the right way.
A strong brand is a great advantage to have and one that gives incremental returns going forward.
And Tricycle is always there to help, We would love to hear from you and collaborate www.tricycle.co.in. Email us at play@tricycle.co.in.
