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DCastalia: Creativity & innovation in the field of digital technology

Name: DCastalia

DCastalia, stands for Castalia Digital, inspires spontaneous flow of creative idea & innovation in the field of digital technology.

The word “Castalia” is famous as the name of a spring of creative inspirations in Greek Mythology.

The idea: Provides web based services with a clear design sense unlike anyone else.

What DCastalia does: Develops Android apps, provides web solutions, designs Interactive flash website and presentation, develops customized software, and works as web agency as well as social media agency.

DCastalia: Creativity & innovation in the field of digital technology
Image by: DCastalia

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The starting of DCastalia is almost alike with all other start-ups. All three founding members were having quite comfortable life with their existing jobs and handsome amount of salaries. But God has another plan.

The idea of DCastalia born when three young people, Yiafee Khan, Khairul Hasan Shamim and Shibli Saddik, started to think about launching a business while working at the same office. Later on they started DCastalia out of passion by giving up their certain salaries and income in 2008.

The day I was talking with Sabila Enun, one of the members of DCastalia founding team, she said these three people started because they wanted to. That time, though she was working in another company and could not join them instantly, but she engaged herself with the formation of the company. “I joined the team few months later after my contract being expired with that other company”- said Sabila.

Investment

One of the main reasons why young people often fail to start a business in Bangladesh is capital. Almost no venture capital option, limited opportunity to manage an Angel investor, and high interest rate of bank loan make the things worse for start-ups.

Naturally, these young people (DCastalia team) also had almost no capital when they decided to start. And as a consequence they took a different path- they started with no money!

“When we started we had only our laptops, hard work, patience, and talent! It was like sitting from the morning to night, as that time we had some foreign clients (we still have) because of whom we actually got the chance to start, and it was just like a way of sacrificing your night sleep”- Sabila added.

A bit about how DCastalia started

DCastalia first started to gather things together in December 2008 and subsequently settled down in January-February 2009 with its formal papers and office. Starting was not easy for them. Because for the new comers there was very limited sky to see, nobody wanted to give work. So this time DCastalia team again took the right path: they were starting bidding work on oDesk-the online outsourcing platform.

“It was more like a group work, a member of the team bid a work and gave it to DCastalia and we did it together and credit went to DCastalia”- said Sabila.

It was a lot team work and passion to do something big.

Milestones

I asked Sabila Enun, “what are the major accomplishments of DCastalia in last three years?”

Her answer was simple- surviving is winning!

“Many firms launched before us with more capital but failed and we are still going on, I think this is the most important accomplishment of DCastalia”.

Now DCastalia is running with a quite big office in Mohakhali area of the city. The number of people working at DCastalia is 12, whereas the number was only three at the beginning. At the same time, DCastalia has a quite high level of reputation among its clients.

“We did not spend any single coin behind promotion, our promotion is our work standard and our clients”–added Sabila Enun.

As a result, DCastalia has a basic base of clients who not only come to them repeatedly but they also refer DCastalia to others.

“We are trying to keep up our standard of service level and we will”- said Sabila Enun. She said, we not only try to maintain a Bangladeshi standard while designing a website, but also love to play in global ground and so far we are quite successful in doing this.

Recently, DCastalia celebrated its third anniversary. Three years is very short time to measure success or failure of a company but looking into the portfolio of these three years you can predict the way forward. And we see journey just begins and a long way ahead.

Do you see a prospective market for DCastalia? What other niches do you wish DCastalia to focus ?

 
Note: Special thanks to FS, PR Coordinator, Muhammad Zakaria for reading proof of this feature and rewriting some parts of it.
Mohammad Ruhul Kader is a Dhaka-based entrepreneur and writer. He founded Future Startup, a digital publication covering the startup and technology scene in Dhaka with an ambition to transform Bangladesh through entrepreneurship and innovation. He writes about internet business, strategy, technology, and society. He is the author of Rethinking Failure. His writings have been published in almost all major national dailies in Bangladesh including DT, FE, etc. Prior to FS, he worked for a local conglomerate where he helped start a social enterprise. Ruhul is a 2022 winner of Emergent Ventures, a fellowship and grant program from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He can be reached at [email protected]

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