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Need this to fit into a 12 ft by 15 ft space? Foyr can help you out. Photo credit: Loren Kerns.

In 2014, engineer Shailesh Goswami set out to be a magician.

After a disenchanting experience doing his own home interiors, he found himself dreaming of the tech that could bring him more transformative power. While browsing home decor sites, he’d found inspiration in beautiful spaces, but those rooms didn’t translate well to the size of his own home.

He’d had a decidedly disenchanting experience doing his own home interiors.

Typically, people who want to renovate their new homes have to first find and visit a designer, who usually takes around four weeks to get an idea of the house layout and come back with a design. Then, they have to implement all the design changes: order furniture, buy decor, and install everything in the house. That takes around a month and a half, meaning that there could be two and a half months between buying a home and moving into the space you want.

Shailesh’s dream was to be able click on an image of a room and get a completely customizable version. By “waving a magic wand,” he could then transform the space into whatever room dimensions he wanted, then look at the different furniture samples shown and figure out where to find them in different cities.

Shailesh Goswami, Founder and CEO of Foyr. Photo credit: Foyr.

“We’re replacing a traditional interior designer and home decorator,” he tells Tech in Asia.

It took around 15 months for the IIT-Delhi grad and former Microsoft engineer to develop the software. In 2015, he released the site for Hyderabad-based Foyr, which currently offers owners of brand new homes in Hyderabad and Pune custom-made room designs for their floor plans.

Tech-made magic

Currently, Foyr only serves customers in Hyderabad and Pune. They can visit the website and submit a floor plan and basic home requirements, such as their budget and preferred design – art nouveau, for example. If a floor plan is unavailable or customers want to provide additional information, they can submit pictures of their empty house, even if they’re taken with a smartphone. The software will then give them three personalized designs, along with their price. The website services are free and take about 10 minutes.

If customers want to proceed with the designs – Shailesh says that around 10 out of every 100 customers decide to go ahead – they can go into one of Foyr’s offices and fine-tune their customization. Assisted by a Foyr designer, they can switch out furniture in the designs or adjust the overall cost.

Once design and cost are finalized, implementation takes about 40 days – nearly halving the time taken in the traditional route.

Once design and cost are finalized, implementation takes about 40 days.

All of the furniture seen on Foyr’s visualizer is available in its respective city. The startup has partnered with local shops to feature their items. When customers purchase the decor for their homes, Foyr takes a cut of the price. Shailesh says this can be anywhere from 8 to 30 percent of the price, but it usually rounds out to about 25 percent.

Foyr has filed for patents in the US and in India for its software.

2017’s bringing change for the company. Foyr and its 70-person team – approximately 50 in Hyderabad and 20 in Pune – are trying to change their business model around to be more workable for several locations at once, including places outside of India. Through the new model, Foyr will take up a software-as-a-service approach, and other companies will be able to pay a monthly fee to use the services.

In the meantime, Foyr’s set its sights on Singapore – where it’s already incorporated – and is trying to raise additional funds to continue its expansion there.

Mirror perfection

With two months left in India’s fiscal year, the jury’s still out on how good 2016 has been to the startup. Shailesh points out that they’re still trying to hit their goal of designing 248 homes this year. So far, they’ve hit 170. Next year, the startup hopes to do 616 homes. In October, it raised funding from property firm Jones Lang LaSalle India.

In 2015, it bagged a nearly US$2.5 million from Astarc Group and Brick Eagle.

A sofa has to have very nice, soft shadows.

Indians looking to design their homes can look to startups like Bangalore-based LivSpace, an end-to-end home design startup, to do up their homes in 12 weeks with a network of designers. Furdo uses virtual reality software to get the same process done in 60 days, connecting customers with furniture startups like Pepperfry to deliver home items.

According to Shailesh, Foyr differentiates itself by holding high standards for its software, which runs completely on a browser without installers or plugins. The quality, something Shailesh has found lacking from available open-source libraries, should not differ between devices – meaning the 3D room model should have the same quality on a tablet as well as a desktop computer.

Foyr’s team. Photo credit: Foyr.

“A mirror has to have a very clear reflection before you can [call] it a mirror,” he explains. In the same way, a 3D rendering of a sofa should possess qualities like it would in reality. Getting the software closer and closer to that goal was something Shailesh found “most satisfying.”

“A sofa has to have very nice, soft shadows,” he says simply. Or else the model is not good enough.

This post Empty house? This startup will design and fill it for you in 40 days appeared first on Tech in Asia.

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