India's residential interior design market is worth INR 80,000 Cr and growing at 20% CAGR, yet the experience of finding and hiring an interior designer remains fragmented and opaque. Homeowners spend weeks searching Google, Instagram, and WhatsApp groups for recommendations, with no standardized way to compare portfolios, understand pricing, or verify credentials. Existing platforms fall into two extremes: directory listings like Houzz that have no execution capability, or vertically integrated companies like Livspace and HomeLane that restrict designer choice and lock customers into proprietary product catalogs. DesignNest was built to occupy the gap — an open marketplace that empowers both homeowners and designers.
The platform's discovery experience starts with the Style Quiz — an interactive questionnaire that walks users through room type (living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, office), aesthetic preferences across eight design styles (Modern, Traditional, Minimalist, Bohemian, Industrial, Scandinavian, Maximalist, Transitional), budget range, timeline, and specific requirements like smart home integration or eco-friendly materials. The quiz uses a weighted scoring algorithm to match users with designers whose portfolio and expertise align with their preferences. The result page shows matched designers ranked by compatibility score, with quick-view portfolio thumbnails, ratings, experience level, and project count.
The Designer Discovery page presents verified designers as rich profile cards — each showing a curated portfolio grid, specialties (residential, commercial, modular, renovation), city coverage, average project cost, rating, and years of experience. Homeowners can filter by style specialty, budget range, location, and availability. The Design Gallery showcases completed projects with high-resolution photography filterable by room type, style, and budget — giving homeowners real-world inspiration and helping them articulate what they want before engaging a designer. Each gallery project includes material breakdowns, cost ranges, and the designer's profile for direct engagement.
Transparency in pricing was a core design requirement. The Pricing page presents four clear package tiers — Consultation (design advice session), Design (full design with 3D visualization and material specification), Execution (end-to-end project management including procurement and contractor coordination), and Premium (white-glove service with dedicated project manager, weekly progress reports, and warranty management). Each tier shows scope, deliverables, timeline, and price range based on room count and complexity. No hidden costs, no surprise markups — the pricing model that Indian homeowners have been asking for but never getting from the unorganized interior design industry.
Built with Next.js 16, React 19, Tailwind CSS 4, and shadcn/ui, DesignNest features an elegant design language with warm earth tones and generous whitespace that lets the design photography speak for itself. The responsive mobile experience is critical — 70% of homeowner browsing happens on mobile, so the style quiz, gallery, and designer profiles are all optimised for touch interaction with swipeable carousels and bottom-sheet filters. Deployed on Vercel with 90+ Lighthouse scores across all four categories. The platform targets INR 50 Cr in gross merchandise value in year one, with 2,000+ verified designers across 10 cities.