Tight budget? No problem

Breeze Market Place offers modestly-priced design packages to small businesses

Rukmal Fernando wants his spin-off design company to be the place where startups and small businesses go for professional design services at an affordable, packaged rate.

“Many young businesses and startups may have pieces of a corporate branding but lack a cohesive branding package,” said Fernando, who as president, personally funded the startup phases of parent company, Breeze Design Studio. “They may have an eye-catching business card, but their Web site may be subpar.”

With prices ranging from $99 to $2,100, Breeze Market Place offers packages that can include domain registration, Web hosting and design, logos, stationary and brochures.

But while other companies may offer similar services, “Breeze Market Place is unique in that we don’t offer cookie-cutter or template designs. All customers will receive the same attention the high-end design studio provides its larger clients but at a fraction of the cost.”

Breeze Market Place budgets for its discounted rates by using fewer designers. Clients with deeper pockets can tap Breeze Design Studio, which has more manpower, and as a result, more offerings.

Fernando employs 25 designers, 21 based out of the office in Sri Lanka, which opened in Dec. 2006; and four based in the company’s West Bloomfield Township office, which opened in Nov. 2007.

“The ratio of designers to clients is one-to-one for Breeze Market Place, where as for Breeze Design Studio, the ratio is five or more designers to each client” Fernando said. “More brains means more possibilities.”

Craig Steen, one of the partners at Defrost Design in Royal Oak, offers similar services, but Steen says his custom work requires too much attention to offer a packaged deal at a fixed price. Instead he offers small companies what he considers reasonable pricing.

“What they [Breeze Market Place] do sounds like an interesting idea, but we really try to work more on a custom identity,” explained Steen, who is also president of the Detroit chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. “We want to position companies in the market in a unique way that maybe their competition is not doing.”

For small companies, he says, Web sites are usually the best option. Defrost charges around $3,000 to create an eight- to 10-page site. Clients are also given tools to edit the site as needed. This can lower maintenance costs, Steen said, which is great for startups.

When larger companies come to Breeze Design Studio they, too, can expect fair pricing.

“I built around effective pricing because of the business model I decided on from the beginning,” Fernando said. “I, at no given point, have ever wanted to undercut anyone.”

Breeze Design Studio can offer good deals for several reasons, Fernando said.

He and CEO Sesha Ramenaden spent as little as possible to build their company. They did so by opening their first offices in Sri Lanka. Fernando, who lived in Sri Lanka until 1986, when he came to Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne at 21 years old, and Ramenaden, who was born there but moved after a year, hired designers who would work with a profit-sharing strategy.

“Given the current economic climate, especially in Michigan, we knew that we had to build a company practically on zero cost. I convinced core designers who helped me start this company to work at very minimum salaries and made them part of the company where I would compensate them with a fixed portion of the company profits after the third year. I implemented this strategy to not only build Breeze Design Studio but also to serve as a motivator.”

In last year’s planning and startup phase, Breeze Design Studio had $55,000 in revenue. Fernando said he hopes to earn between $350,000 and $500,000 for 2008, but much of that depends on the success of Breeze Market Place.

“My primary goal the first year was to network and build relationships with companies,” he said. “I focused on establishing our company name in the local market while we developed our portfolio of products and services we intended to offer and position ourselves for a successful launch into 2008.”

Fernando and Ramenaden network through events like the International Detroit Black Expo, and groups like Detroit Young Professionals, and Fusion, the Detroit Regional Chamber’s young professionals group.

The Detroit Regional Chamber selected Breeze Design Studio as the new member of the year for fiscal 2007-2008. The award will be announced at the annual meeting on Sept. 11. They won because of their involvement and commitment to the chamber and its programs and events, said Jon Kreger, director of media relations.

Through networking, Breeze hooked Detroit Country Day School as a client, and a vice president of business development and a business development manager for the team.

“I strongly encourage networking but ensure that you have a great elevator pitch,” Fernando said. “Sometimes you only get a few minutes with some of these high-profile people and you have you get their attention during that short time.”

Breeze will soon move to much larger offices in Birmingham from their very cozy office in West Bloomfield Township. Fernando would like to hire eight more full-time employees in the coming year, concentrating on a Michigan expansion.

“I have always felt an entrepreneurial spirit within me,” he said. “The opportunity to start Breeze Design Studio and provide an invaluable service to my fellow entrepreneurs has been a driving force. Breeze Market Place allows me to make design solutions available to a wider array of business owners … especially in Michigan during these hard and challenging economic times.”

By reaching and helping the small-business community through Breeze Market Place, Fernando says he’s priming a crop of Breeze Design Studio clients.

“Once they become successful businesses they will know whom to talk to,” he said.