Startup that makes startups worry less about marketing: detoin.com, an initiative by Mailavan Dhandapani
3 min readMailavan Dhandapani is the Founder and CEO of detoin.com, a website that economically benefits rental car owners by removing the existing high percentage of commissions earned. Their remedy is to cut the percentage by half therefore the competition margin is undercut.
Mailavan, having the willpower of iron got to developing the app while keeping a self-critical approach asking himself questions such as “Why would users use my app?” and “How would I sell my app better?” This is how he came across the term digital marketing. The question that plagued Mr. Mailavan for days was how just Digital Marketing could answer so many of his issues. Unfortunately, due to some issues, the development process could not be completed thus, it stopped in the middle. This didn’t deter him and he kept searching for digital marketing. This is where his company Detoin came into being in concept.
The name is a wordplay on the phrase decrease to increase. The brand had its work beginning in 2017 while Mr. Mailavan was still in college. Based in Tamil Nadu the brand focuses on providing a complete service to prospective brands. This includes Social Media Marketing, Website Design, and Development, Graphic Design, PPC Marketing. Also, the firm focuses on creating a thoughtful digital experience with beautiful aesthetics. This thus laid the basic foundation of the services and core philosophy of the brand as its growth trajectory was just starting.
The Journey of Detoin
As stated before, Detoin was created during Mr Mailavan’s work during his college days in 2017. Since inception, the firm has successfully completed 115 projects with 70 odd clients with mostly positive feedback, which is a remarkable statistic to have for a marketing brand. Since marketing in itself is giving the prospective buyer the message and clarity that one is the best possible candidate for the job at hand. Every brand has a USP (Unique Selling Point) there is no reason why any difference should be applicable to Detoin. Pretty early on the brand decided to focus on technology which in turn meant keeping their staff upskilled in the latest and best possible techniques available in the market.
Why is Detoin a success?
Detoin as mentioned above chose to focus on staying ahead of the curve in terms of technology. This has made the brand the best digital marketing firm in the state of Tamil Nadu. What further compounds this success is the initial experience of Mr.Mailavan while creating his commission website. He first learned the hardships one has to undergo while creating a brand and designing an interface that passes usability testing which essentially means if the app is fit for a user to utilize. It is often a lot more difficult to pick even an SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) let alone make design choices or system design decisions while developing an app or website. Yet the brand has not only taken up the challenge time and again, but the team has also succeeded at providing a quality product.
Closing Remarks
It’s often stated by wise people across the world that failure is often a better teacher than success. Choosing to create something from scratch and managing a team is a tough task. The process of running a business has been illustrated as an example of building a plane while falling to the ground. This is quite literally the task NASA failed at after the Skylab rocket crashed when NASA couldn’t figure out a way to catch the rocket even after 7 years of R&D. Which adds even gravitas to the accomplishments of Mr. Mailavan who didn’t start one but two ventures and after a slight wrinkle is running a venture which has about 20 awards to its name. Elevation is the word that defines his motive and intent behind the business and quite literally is the way he christened his current venture. Above it was stated how Detoin is an acronym for decreasing to increasing. So, yes, the business wants to elevate business from one level to another one higher up. And since, they develop plans to market a product they act as a synapse, which adds a philosophical touch to this optimistic and fairy tale story of success and desire to do good.