Beatnik: An innovation driven creative agency

Starting with three founders, who started with three laptops, Beatnik has come a long way. It is a content marketing and experience design agency with a passion for high quality design. In a very short span of time, they have served a host of well-known clients in the capital. Banglalink, Bengal Meat, Pran Jelly, IPDC, Tupperware, and George's Café to name a few. They were also behind the new user experience of Grameenphone's popular new GP Music App, which is now available for download on the Google Play Store. Beatnik has garnered praise for their highly engaging visual content and tongue-in-cheek advertisements. They offer a diverse array of services, ranging from graphics design, web and app development, package designing to digital marketing, social media management and marketing consultancy.

There is a large gap between quality of design and functionality amongst brands in Bangladesh. More often than not, the designs are catchy and have visual or artistic appeal, but do not in any way contribute to creating a lasting or consistent brand image. This is what the Beatnik team hopes to change in the coming days, to bridge the gap and set a benchmark in creating quality experiences.

Walid Khan, Mufrad Mahmood Chowdhury and Abir Mazumder are the co-founders of Beatnik. Walid leads the design and content team, while Abir works on business development, and Mufrad sees to it that they are carried out perfectly till the end and looks after the finance side.

"I believe being a consultant is where I gained my first entrepreneurial insights," says Abir, who has served as an enterprise resource planning (ERP) consultant to clients in different countries. "Being a consultant teaches you the ins and outs of a business, as you help them cope with adversities and guide them to make better decisions. You get to work directly with the founders. I believe it is a great way to understand the mindset of a founder."

Walid had always had an artistic streak. From a very early age he knew he was destined to pursue a career where he would utilise his gift, his creativity. During his years at the Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka, he realised that he can use his creativity as well as his knowledge of business to make a difference. "I have always been interested in the idea of creativity and the various ways in which creativity itself can be a discipline, can be honed, nurtured and guided to help fulfil a purpose," he says.

The journey has not been an easy one. It all began with three team members and three laptops, and now they have a full fledged office with a highly energetic team of over 30 young passionate designers, developers and content creators. They work tirelessly and treat their clients' brands as if they were their own. "Almost every single of our clients found out about us via recommendations," muses Abir. "We believe that if you want to make a mark and provide quality work, you will not need to sell it. It will sell itself. But do not be averse to giving away some free work once in a while. Relationships not only matter, but are crucial in a business ecosystem that thrives on collaboration".

Beatnik has an eye for talent, with a young and creative team of executives and designers at the helm. Beatnik consists of a design team, and a content creation team who help come up with campaigns for the brands and produce advertisements, as well as a development team which constantly creates and manages websites and apps. The average day at Beatnik may start slow, but it ends in a noisy chatter of hard-working employees playing FIFA and having pizza together after wrapping up a day's work.

To find out more about Beatnik, visit their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/beatnikdesigns