JUSTFENCE – A unicorn in the wings emerging from a micro niche!

January 8, 2023January 8, 2023Entrepreneur Hunt

Whenever you ask youngsters today what is your startup idea? You hear all sorts of answers such as a cafe or restaurant or a Mobile App or some D2C lifestyle brand but very rarely will you come across a startup that does FENCING! Well if you would have asked Kunal Banthia, the co-founder of JustFence, the same question about 10 years back…He would have said similar things but here he is building one of India’s fast growing property services startup – JustFence.

The story started back in 2012 when Kunal joined his family business after finishing his MBA from SPJain and Great Lakes Institute of Management. Although the family business was a flourishing one trading in all kinds of wire meshes & wire products with several branches across the nation, just making money did not motivate Kunal as a person. Having spent 4 years studying and working in London, Kunal developed global ambitions and wanted to do something BIG that would disrupt an industry and inturn leave a lasting legacy for eons. He chanced upon the idea of JustFence.

Back in 2013, Kunal started receiving requests from his business friends if he could help them install the products that he was selling. The major applications of his products were fencing to protect lands or insect screens to stop insects from entering into houses. What drew Kunal’s attention to fencing was that till that point fencing was a completely unorganized industry with no major brand or presence of any organized player. So Kunal decided to give it a shot and started a fencing division within the family business.

Even though the idea seemed promising and easy to execute, in reality it was a nightmare as the properties would often be in extremely remote locations with no access to food, water, electricity and space to store materials. To top it, there used to be several risks on sites such as the presence of reptiles, wild animals and harsh climatic conditions. As a result of all this, the projects used to overrun their budget and timelines making most of the projects be in the red by the end of it.

There were several days when Kunal wondered if he had taken the right decision to move into such an unfamiliar territory. But what kept Kunal going was that he was doing something that nobody had ever attempted before and the process of venturing into the road not taken used to give him that kick to continue the journey. Finally after 3 years of struggle, Kunal perfected the model and decided that it was time to break-free his idea and give it new wings under a new company – Dextra Square Pvt Ltd and brand – JustFence!

Kunal and his co-founders Ankita and Bharani were clear from Day 1 that they saw JustFence (Dextra Square Pvt Ltd) as a global company and this got them to relocate to Bangalore – the city of startups from Coimbatore as the connectivity is much better there for future expansion. Kunal’s role-model was his dad whom he saw start the family business on his own legs and hence he took the decision not to take a single penny from the family business and reached out to incubators for funding support. Most people were skeptical of JustFence’s business idea as it had never been attempted before. Finally they managed to raise ₹5 lakh from an incubator in Coimbatore called Cultiv8 and from there the journey started.

After starting, JustFence met with an amazing response from the market as most people who wanted to fence their property used to struggle with local laborers and contractors. JustFence’s primary value proposition – getting your property fenced in a hassle-free manner was a relief to all these property owners who were sick and tired of dealing with unprofessional vendors who were not trustworthy and had no quality standards.

In 6 years, after delighting more than 3000 customers JustFence has now expanded to 9 cities. They started with basic fencing services but have since expanded to more than 40 different products such as electric fence, precast compound wall and invisible grills. They have also added a lot of technological solutions to their portfolio such as sensors, animal repellers and softwares that can be integrated to CCTV cameras which is making the solutions holistic and fool-proof.

2023 is going to be a breakthrough year for JustFence as they have plans to expand to 18 more cities. What is giving them confidence to achieve this is that customers who are facing the issue are crying out to them to please start operations in their respective cities.

What the JustFence Team prides itself on is the amazing culture and results-focused team that they have built who have the courage and skill to execute fencing projects in every nook and corner of the country. Ofcourse the challenges are aplenty but with the right systems and processes and the will & rigor JustFence continues to thrill individuals and corporates alike. No wonder JustFence has already become India’s #1 Fencing company with more than 1000+ 5 star reviews on Google having served brands such as Embassy, Amazon, Toyota, Kia, HAL and Brigade to name a few.

So what next? Having built a unique organization that has an incredible domain expertise providing solutions in the outdoors, Kunal has his eyes set on making Dextra Square (the registered company name of JustFence) to become India’s First Property Exteriors Company. There are several companies in the space of property interiors such as Livspace and HomeLane but when it comes to property exteriors there is no one yet and this is the market space waiting to be captured.

Kunal envisions Dextra Square becoming a global conglomerate and JustFence is just the starting step towards this grand vision. More than all the growth and accolades, what gives Kunal the biggest satisfaction is seeing the lives of his team members transform and customers getting thrilled by the hassle-free fencing experience. Everytime his team members buy a car or construct their dream home, it gives immense satisfaction that he has been able to contribute to somebody’s dream through his unique and interesting journey of JustFence.