Thinking of launching your own startup? DesignContest knows the one you should follow the example of. We’re speaking about a simple and yet effective free design software that can be used by designers, marketing specialists, content managers and thousands of other creative specialists. This startup is called Vectr and it is going to conquer the world of graphic design soon enough.
We asked Vlad Shvets, a Head of Growth at Vectr, to share the secrets of Vectr’s success as a startup along with the peculiarities of working with this online design software.
Every company has a great idea behind. I’m sure Vectr is no exception. What great idea stands behind Vectr? Did you succeed in achieving it?
Vectr was founded 3 years ago by two guys, one of them a designer and a second a software developer, who both wanted to create a collaborative vector graphics editor which would be powerful and cross-platform. For three years they had been building it, and finally launched Vectr out of beta in September 2016. For now, Vectr has been funded by the VC investors, and we’re planning to pay bills with the designs marketplace and a PRO account which we’re launching over the following year.
The idea behind Vectr is to create design platform which would enable the full design workflow in one place. As you see, it’s very far reaching. We are all dedicated to spending years of our lives doing that.
Vectr is one of the brightest startup projects that have appeared recently. The next question will be interesting for DesignContest’s clients who own small businesses or also are thinking of developing a startup. So, tell us a bit about the process of developing Vectr from scratch. What development phase seemed to be the most difficult?
First three years of building Vectr the two founders had been basically working under the hood, building the most complicated underlying technology infrastructure of the application. Then it was a hard journey for the company founders to raise VC money – $910k, in order to hire a team and scale the product to what it is now.
In September 2016 we launched out of beta – those were a couple of big days for the company when the world got to know about Vectr. We were covered by Lifehacker, The Next Web, Business Insider – and thankfully the global audience loved our app!
The most difficult part is ahead of us though. Vectr is just at the beginning of its journey, in the near future we are planning to create some serious competition for Adobe on the market of creative software.
Was it complicated to get a proper funding? What do young startups need in order to get money for their future promotion?
It’s always hard raising money from the investors. It’s a lengthy process, and all the members of a startup team have to be prepared to both work hard for it and be patient. Vectr has been backed by Resolute Ventures as the lead investor and some of the most experienced entrepreneurs in the field of creative software – so we’re lucky having a solid foundation for raising further rounds of the investment.
In which ways does Vectr facilitate designing? Is it capable of replacing Adobe Illustrator in the future?
Yes. Adobe Illustrator has been built with a desktop in mind and failed to adapt to the new upcoming era of the web. Vectr is not only aiming to replace Illustrator – we’re aiming to create a new platform which would facilitate the full design process. For now, the design ecosystem of software is segmented and dispersed – we want designers to be able to create, share, collaborate on and publish right to the web amazing designs all in one place.
What are you planning in the future? What are your thoughts about improving Vectr?
Vectr’s product isn’t even mature yet. Ahead of us is a long roadmap. Except for working on adding more advanced vector designs features, we are going to implement more of the collaboration features, built-in versioning and launch a built-in marketplace of designs. All of the mentioned features must be shipped by the beginning of 2018.
Can Vectr be used only by newbies or professional designers will get interested in it as well?
Now, the most active users of Vectr are not professional designers. They are marketers, software developers, product and project managers, social media managers. Anyone who needs to design some graphics time after time and needs a simple and web-based tool to do so. However professional designers are looking into Vectr more and more closely.
Inspiring, promising and user-friendly – use Vectr whenever you feel a need for an awesome graphic design. Have you tried it? Share your experience in the comments with us!
