Livspace and HomeLane in a race to profit

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Editor's note: From trucking to clothes, one of the more popular pitches in Indian business is to take a huge unorganized market and build a company (preferably digital in some way) that offers a consistent experience and brand. The idea goes that even capturing a tenth of such a market will make for a sizeable operation. About nine years ago, two startups popped up betting that this approach could be applied to interior design—a classic unorganized market, with clients finding designers, architects and carpenters largely through word of mouth and local networks. And as the urban middle class and upper middle class has grown over the past decade or two, the demand for home interior work has only risen. Companies like Livspace and HomeLane have opportunely gained from this shift. Founded around the same time, their strategies were also the same for most of the past nine years—partnering independent interior designers and selling to homebuyers. But the contrast in how the two businesses are run is stark, which is nowhere better represented than in their earnings. For the fiscal year ended 31 …