Most
entrepreneurs avoid starting businesses during global pandemics because they
have this crazy idea that economic uncertainty makes business success less
likely. Shivendra Singh and Chandni Chadha did exactly the opposite, launching
Rock Paper Scissors Studio from a shared workspace in Bangalore with a business
model that deliberately targeted the design challenges other agencies treated
like toxic waste: too difficult, too complex, too risky, and definitely too
likely to cause headaches that no amount of coffee can fix.
Five
years later, this contrarian approach has created a 22-member distributed team
solving problems for Fortune 500 companies and fintech disruptors across four
cities, proving that sometimes the best business strategy is to do exactly what
everyone else thinks is stupid.
The
timing seemed terrible by conventional wisdom that values predictability and
safety over opportunity and adventure. Startup failure rates remained brutal -
75% of venture-backed startups fail according to current data, with design
agencies facing even steeper odds in a market more oversaturated than the
dating app industry.
The
pandemic had eliminated travel budgets, disrupted client relationships that
took years to build, and forced everyone to reimagine how creative
collaboration works when people can't be in the same room without masks and
social distancing protocols. But Singh and Chadha saw opportunity where others
saw obstacles, probably because they're either very smart or slightly crazy,
and possibly both.
"Crisis forces efficiency and
creativity in ways that comfort never can," Singh reflects, sounding like a
business philosophy professor who actually knows what he's talking about.
"We had to solve problems better, faster, and cheaper than agencies with
10x our resources and established client relationships.
That
constraint became our competitive advantage because we couldn't afford to waste
time on things that don't actually matter, like office politics and inefficient
processes that exist because that's how things have always been done."
Their
distributed model proved prescient as remote work productivity research
validates their early bet on location-independent operations. Studies show
remote workers are 35-40% more productive than traditional office workers, with
40% fewer mistakes and 72 minutes saved daily from eliminated commutes that
nobody misses.
Companies
with flexible work arrangements are 21% more profitable than fully in-person
operations according to recent productivity analysis that makes traditional
office advocates question their life choices.
Rock
Paper Scissors Studio built these advantages into their foundation rather than
adapting to them later like everyone else who had to figure out remote work
during lockdown panic.
The
projects they chose reflect their values-driven approach to business
development that prioritizes meaning over easy money, which sounds idealistic
but actually creates better business outcomes. Instead of chasing every RFP
that promises quick revenue, they built a portfolio around challenges that
aligned with their mission to create positive social impact through design.
Their
success with Finfinity demonstrates this approach perfectly: transforming a
lending platform concept into a functional marketplace that achieved 10,000
monthly impressions, 80% returning customer rate, and 40% revenue increase -
results that make both investors and users happy, which is harder to achieve
than it sounds.
Rock Paper Scissors
Studio's
work with Turtlemint shows their ability to tackle industries known for making
everything unnecessarily complicated. Insurance typically feels like trying to
understand contracts written by lawyers who hate clarity, but they created user
experiences that make sense to normal humans who just want protection without
requiring law degrees or meditation practices to manage frustration levels.
The
client feedback speaks volumes:
"This design took everybody at our company by 1.5 to what degree of
sophistication we could achieve when working with the right teams" -
which translates from corporate speak to "holy
cow, this actually works and makes us look competent."
Their
approach to fintech design exemplifies their philosophy of tackling difficult
challenges rather than avoiding them like most people avoid difficult
conversations with relatives. India's fintech market is projected to reach $150
billion by 2025, growing at 31% annually according to PwC predictions, but this
growth depends on solving user experience challenges that most companies treat
as unavoidable constraints rather than solvable problems that just require
effort and intelligence.
With
78% of global internet users now accessing fintech services monthly and typical
onboarding completion rates hovering around 21%, the quality of digital
financial experiences directly impacts millions of daily transactions and
several billion dollars in potential revenue.
"Fintech design isn't just about
making interfaces look modern," Singh explains with the kind of conviction that
suggests he's thought about this more than most people think about their career
choices. "Every design decision
affects how people interact with money, which is fundamentally about dignity,
access, and building confidence rather than confusion. When we design a payment
flow or investment interface, we're designing trust relationships that influence
financial behavior and, ultimately, people's ability to improve their economic
situations."
The
Nuvama wealth management project exemplifies their approach to complex
financial interfaces that typically drown users in data that looks impressive
but helps nobody make actual decisions. Instead of creating another platform
that requires MBA-level financial literacy to navigate, they built interfaces
that speak investor language rather than financial jargon designed to make
simple concepts sound complicated.
The
result transforms wealth complexity into clarity, which should be the goal of
every financial service but somehow isn't, probably because complexity makes
some people feel important even when it makes everyone else feel stupid.
Their
"Pentagon of Design" vision
positions Rock Paper Scissors Studio in enterprise-level territory where
customer experience challenges remain underexplored but desperately need
innovation from people who understand both design theory and business reality.
"We want to be strong from every angle, capable of handling the strategic,
creative, technical, and operational dimensions of complex design
problems," Singh explains, using geometric metaphors that actually make
sense rather than sounding like marketing speak.
This
systematic approach to multi-faceted challenges reflects lessons from
consulting firms like McKinsey and IBM, which succeed by bringing coordinated
expertise to problems that require specialized knowledge from multiple
disciplines rather than hoping one smart person can figure everything out.
The
pandemic also accelerated their embrace of AI as a creative ally rather than
the job-stealing robot apocalypse that some people fear. When AI disrupted
creative industries in 2024, Rock Paper Scissors Studio saw opportunity instead
of displacement, probably because they're optimists or because they're too busy
solving real problems to worry about hypothetical ones. "AI handles repetitive tasks that used to consume 30-40% of our
creative time," Singh explains.
"Document formatting, asset
organization, initial research synthesis - the kinds of necessary work that
prevented us from focusing on strategy and innovation that actually moves
projects forward. Now our team spends more time thinking about user psychology,
business strategy, and creative solutions that matter rather than getting
bogged down in administrative tasks that computers can handle better
anyway."
Five
years after launching during a global crisis that made most people reconsider
their life choices, Rock Paper Scissors Studio has demonstrated that
purpose-driven business models can compete successfully against agencies that
prioritize rapid growth or profit maximization over basic human sanity and
workplace satisfaction.
By
maintaining focus on meaningful problems, transparent communication that
doesn't require translation software, and team satisfaction that doesn't depend
on ping pong tables and free beer, they've built something that attracts both
talented creators and sophisticated clients who understand the difference
between cheap design services and valuable design solutions that actually solve
problems.
As
Winston Churchill once said, "Never
let a good crisis go to waste," which sounds like something a
consultant would say but actually describes how the best companies are often
born when conventional wisdom suggests it's impossible to succeed.
Founded in 2020, Rock Paper Scissors Studio is an independent design consultancy helping fintech, SaaS, and enterprise brands translate complexity into clarity through research-driven UX, product design, and behavioral strategy.
🌐 Website: www.rockpaperscissors.studio
📧 Email: hello@rockpaperscissors.studio
📍 Offices: Bangalore | Mumbai | Pune | Delhi
){kind=link}