Currently building
Chiblu: A marketplace for India's makers
I'm the founder of Chiblu, a marketplace for India's makers, and I designed and built the whole thing myself: the brand, the design system, the web marketplace for buyers, and the seller app on the App Store and Google Play. It's live today, with 56+ sellers onboarded and 98 products for sale. This is how it came together.
Why Chiblu
The problem
Across India, small studios and independent creatives run real businesses from home, mostly out of Instagram DMs and WhatsApp. The demand is there; a real shop isn't. The same problems, over and over:
- The DM chaos. Dozens of messages a day, endless screenshots of every variation, and half the buyers gone by the time you reply.
- No trust in the money. A stranger's UPI off an Instagram message, no record, no protection.
- Lost in the crowd. Three pages deep on the big marketplaces, behind a mass-produced copy.
That's the gap Chiblu fills: a curated marketplace where a maker gets a real storefront and buyers who discover them.
I didn't learn that from a survey. I learned it behind a stall at a Mumbai pop-up, and it's what sent me back to rebuild Chiblu from a directory into this. Why I rebuilt Chiblu after a Mumbai pop-up →
The scope
Designed and shipped, end to end
A marketplace is really three products at once, and I designed and shipped all of them: brand and design system, every screen across the app and the web, the onboarding and payments flows, and the front-end that ships them.
The hard parts
The decisions that mattered
Getting makers paid, simply
Onboarding means PAN, bank and KYC, then split payouts via Razorpay Route. The hard part was making a compliance-heavy, multi-step flow feel effortless for a first-time seller who has never filed a form online.
One app for two rhythms
A maker opens the app twenty times a day when busy and once a week when not. The home screen had to reward both: glanceable for the busy seller, guiding for the new one.
Respecting the craft
Makers shoot their products lovingly, and off-ratio. I made product images never crop: the photo is the product. A small call with an outsized effect on trust.
Going free
I removed subscriptions and made Chiblu free for sellers, earning only when they sell, then redesigned every plan and upgrade surface around the new model.
Mobile · Creators Hub
In their pocket
The seller app is where a maker spends their day. It opens to what matters: today's sales, pending orders, live store views, with a tap into products, orders, and insights.
Web · Seller dashboard
At the desk
When a seller sits down for the heavier work, bulk-managing inventory, writing product stories, checking what's actually selling, the web dashboard gives them room to work.
How I build
Built AI-native
I built Chiblu the way I believe designers will build from now on: design-led, AI-native, shipping my own work. A single designer can now take a whole company from brand to app store, and Chiblu is the proof. It's also the reason behind Designers Who Build ↗.
What a seller runs from Chiblu
One place to run the shop
Chiblu is live and evolving
56+ makers joined within 10 weeks of release. Free for sellers, with a small fee per sale. The seller app is on the App Store and Google Play; the marketplace is at chiblu.com.