Why this Google product developer left his job to renovate homes in India

Jayanth Mysore, Chief Product Officer, HomeLane

Jayanth Mysore has an impressive resume. An engineer by trade, he put in six and a half years at Motorola’s corporate research laboratories before moving to Google and working there for over seven years. It only made sense that his next move was to a barely year-old interior decoration startup, right?

“I think of myself primarily as a product developer, so for me, my journey has been and probably will continue to be, if everything goes well, one of solving real user needs,” Jayanth tells Tech in Asia.

Jayanth likes his work to have certain characteristics. He likes solving problems, and he likes working with products that are underdogs.

“If you look at Google Maps, one of the things I worked with allowed users to create their own,” Jayanth explains. “So I did what people think is impossible. People usually ask how you know people won’t mess up the map. But that’s why I do this.”

“For me, the marketplace is defined by what I do,” he adds. He doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed into one place.

So, he zeroed in on home design, joining home design startup Homelane as chief product officer just one month ago. What attracted him was the fact that he’d never worked in the sector before and the potential to help bring order to the disorganized home renovation sector in India. He was up for the challenge and the learning experience he thought working with Homelane would bring.

“This is a problem where you have to solve both the aspects of the disorganization on the buyers’ side and the providers’ side,” he explains. “Traditionally, I only worked on problems with one side. Now, I do both. From a product management perspective, it allows me to do more.”

He zeroed on the home renovation market, a sector he saw had good potential for disruption in India. Home decorating in the country can be a hassle, particularly for the young middle class, Jayanth says, who will often hire a family friend or someone else they know personally to take care of the house. The designer will have at most a handful of sample rooms, will need most of the budget up front, and may not have a very accurate finishing time.

If you’ve had any experience with home remodeling or design, you know that one hiccup in the process can quickly spiral downhill. What Jayanth wants Homelane to do is to organize the process to where the customer feels in control.

Homemaking

Homelane provides a three-pronged approach to home décor for this demographic – design, factory production, and installation. It uses imaging technology to allow a customer to virtually look at thousands of designs in a variety of colors and finishes. When the customer picks a design, the customer will pay a partial fee. The next part of the payment takes place when the designer is ready to send the plan to the manufacturing center.

Homelane guarantees installation in 45 days from that point. Upon completion, the customer pays the rest of the fee. If the company misses the deadline, Homelane begins paying the rent on the customer’s current property.

The price of good taste