Building Material Procurement Automation (Saas) for SME Construction Professionals. A platform for builders to create estimates, set timelines and manage & procure building materials from local sellers. Playstore Link
Timeline
May 2022 to June 2023
Background
As co-founder ThekaBook, an idea that arose from my personal woes of getting a house constructed in lockdown in my hometown (tier-2 Indian city, Indore), It took 30% more time than planned as well has 25% over budget, a problem that I observed even with B2B players. I designed & developed an application along with a team of 10 to support the building construction stakeholders. What began as a estimation tool soon became an end-to-end construction productivity and building material procurement app.
Check out the witty intro video : Meet Building Contractor Rajesh & his Struggles
This category details the step-by-step approach taken during the project, including research, planning, design, development, testing, and optimization phases.
Formative Study 1, 2
An In depth immersions with 10+ contractors, architects, and customers reveled some deep insights thats has been fundamental to guide our product. In the second study, we took material sellers into account before creating an OMS for authorised sellers, enabling them and charging by subscription.
Problems Identified
Archaic Procurement Methods Locks Efficiency & Opportunity
Information Asymmetry amongst key stakeholders including clients
Inefficient pre-construction leading to poor planning and in turn to poor execution
Spurious Material vendors/brokers with unorganised distribution charging higher for materials
Wireframing & Prototyping 1,2,3
Condusted Google Design sprint to roll out two different versions of the application during the course of the journey and tested the wireframes with real users.
Estimation tool
Timeline prediction & management
Expense management
Material ordering
Supplier module
Development & Implementation
Built the first version of the application in Native Android followed by a PWA (progressive web app) made using Next JS, Supabase and other tech frameworks for web.
Testing & Optimization
Usability testing with 50+ different users with their feedback recorded over the course of the development cycle to inform right features to be built for the users
Startup Investment
Pitched to multiple angels and raised a pre-seed round of $50,000 within first 6 months of the journey. Selected for Microsoft for Startups with a credit grant of $125000
B2B Building Material Management & Procurement Application. Like Hiring 2 procurement managers but at zero cost.
AI-enabled instant quotations
Quickly compare and purchase within minutes, saving professionals valuable time.
Conversions for Dealers
Authorized dealers spend less time chasing customers, driving more revenue through effective customer management.
Behavioral insights for brands
Use AI filters to gain actionable intelligence for better targeting and decisions.
Completely unorganised sector
The long tail of building construction(80%) is largely unorganised and employ 50 year old practices. 40% procurement is cash based ( non-billed) transactions that is a significant part of the construction cost.
Instant gratification
Since construction is a 1 - 3 year activity, apps for productivity is still a ad-hoc in this domain (especially in india) as stakeholders value more instant outcomes like discounts etc. over adopting new practices
Multiple handshakes
There are 3 different type of stakeholder jointly involved in the construction process at 20+ different stages with varied levels of tech adoption. Eg: Mistrys (or skilled labour).
Here, the outcomes and achievements of the project are highlighted, including user feedback, adoption rates, and industry recognition.
$200 Mn Estimates
Over the course of 1.5 years, ThekaBook helped users to estimate over $200 mn worth projects and enable demand discovery for material vendors
10000 Users
With ultra focus on a single city, Indore (M.P) using Thekabook
35000 Quotations
Thekabook helped over 35000 instances of savings upt0 10% for its buyer segment by efficiently cutting time to receive a quote from 1-2 days to 1 hour
Client Feedback 💡
Our users love us back
“It's a wow app and great effort made by u guys, U guys have make architect life much simpler, smarter and shaper... Awaiting more cool updates”
-Sunny Lunawat, Contractor
"Nice range of products and rates. The app is a nice tool to track a project on daily basis. Worth trying. Huge efforts and nice thought Thekabook team 👍👍"
-Kirti , Developer
“Using this app I can do 4-5 projects more as it is easy to find time by automating important tasks on site..🏠🏠🏠🏠”
-Manish Bahety, builder
Indiamart, JD - 90% leads are irrelevant. We Like our buyers to do proactive buying so can give our best service. Nobody wants last-minute phone calls & hassle. TKB gives direct access to high quality leads.
-Gaurav Baheti, Distributor