Getting the elusive First Office

Mumbai is the city of dreams. Every Mumbaikar is a dreamer including myself. During my days of pursuing CA, before joining KPMG, I had done 2 jobs. Both were under Chartered Accountants. The first in May 2007 was in Andheri (East) and the second in January 2008 was at Fort.

My first job, meant that I used to sit in an office which was hardly 200 sq ft. It seated 5 staff in addition to my boss who had a cabin for himself and could accommodate 2 more people. In addition we had a wash room and a pantry all fit in the 200 sq. ft. Now 8 people + Washroom + Pantry in 250 sq. ft. is itself a tight fit. but when you add the innumerable files in the office, a walk from the entrance to my seat seemed like I was about to wage a war like Leonidas did in the movie ‘300’. (Spartan’s attack!!)

I was always left to ponder why Vasant Sir (my first boss) did not get himself a larger office? I mean what would the clients think when they visited the offices? I always ended up dreaming that when I get my first office, it will be big, beautiful and lavish.

The Search

Four years later in December 2012, I found my self giving a try at starting my own company. Qpeka was in a disarray at that stage (many of you would have read about that in my other post ‘3 Mistakes of my Journey from CA to Startup‘), and we needed to stabilise quickly. Then we decided to get an office – My Dream Office. We looked at various options, and were thinking large (thinking large does not cost anything we realised). We thought if this company will expand, we will need a larger office, and does not make sense getting a small office now and wasting time shifting later.

So, with a lot of excitement, we started looking for a 8 seater office in and around Dadar (the central hub), so that employees from the Central as well as Western line could travel to a common place. (For those who are not aware of the geography of Mumbai, Mumbai is split vertically into 2 section called the Western and the Central line separated by a massive national park and the airport in between.)

I called up my uncle, also my Dad’s old business associate and asked him if he knew any such office. He said he knew a couple in the area.

We got an appointment and went to look at the first office. The office was a spacious 250 sq. ft. one but required a little furniture work. Talks started with what we wanted to do, and some other small talk. Then, came the big question of cost. Starting with the rent – it was Rs. 40,000 per month. Immediately we realised we had got it wrong. It was much too steep for us. But, we kept up a business face as if we could afford it. Then we realised we would also need furniture which would cost us a good Rs. 50,000. We suddenly started thinking very fast. But before we could complete thinking came “The Deposit” which was a massive Rs. 1,00,000. This was not negotiable. I immediately thought – We were done with the meeting. In the end, we managed to keep up such a face, that people thought we may be thinking of going through with the deal. Actually we were in a state of shock. Convinced that I was a potential customer, after the meeting, my uncle came to me and told me, “Beta, as such I charge 1.5 months commission, but for you I will make it 1 month.” We smiled and gave the customary, we need to think dialogue and left.

We did the maths and found that getting our dream first office was a costly dream. All the built-up excitement was quickly deflated like a balloon with its nose open and released. Our dream needed a quick revision.

Revisions in Dream Mode

We thought that the reason of such a bad experience was because we had chosen the location wrong. Then we started looking at an office in Goregaon, a busy suburb on the western line. For 8 people the monthly rent came down to around 25k per month. An improvement but still impractical because adding up the deposit and commission would mean, we would have still ended up paying around 1.2 lakhs to get it. I started to hate the words deposit and commission.

Dreams cut to size

Now we went even more to the north of the city to the innermost areas of the suburbs in search for our elusive first office. Finally, we found one nearer to where I stay in Kandivali (West) which was 3 kms. from Kandivali station (for simplicity sake, really inconvenient). This was just 80 sq. ft. and barely 4 people could fit in a straight line sitting shoulder to shoulder! My dream of getting a luxurious first office was getting cut to size. But, even this office cost us a good 70k to start with and we had to settle for it. To make matters worst, we did not have a single employee for the first 3 months. Below is the pic.

What does getting an office mean?

After one year of running our office, I realised why my boss didn’t get a bigger office. Offices cost a lot of money and are difficult to setup. You end up freezing your money in something which does not generate revenue directly. Also, in many cases, you do not require 3 to 4 desks at all. We realised that we had made a critical error in our estimates, and our romance with big offices had ended.

Shared Workspaces

In the city of Mumbai, people are usually located at far-off places and it is difficult to get a place which is convenient for all. Half my team was on the Central side and half on the Western side. To find low cost seating arrangements alternatives convenient to all, we started to look for shared workspaces. We discovered that there were a very few options for shared workspaces, but the monthly rental was too high.

Finally, frustrated with the situation, in the last week of February we decided to do something ourselves to help talented entrepreneurs/ freelancers/ professionals set up their first offices at reasonable costs with “No Deposit” or “No Commission”. We decided to start getting offices and share them. We call it “Cloud Offices”. Small decentralised units of 4-8 seats located in close to your residence and easily expandable based on your needs. It helps in saving you huge upfront costs as well as lot of travelling time. These can then be used more productively to grow your business.

Currently ,we have started with 3 such offices. 2 in Kandivali (East) of which 1 is full and 1 in Goregaon (East) which is also almost full. We are planning one on the Central and one near Vashi.

If any of you are interested in getting an office close to your place, just mail me your preferred location to abhishekbarari@gmail.com, and we will try our level best to get you a really affordable office. After all, great minds don’t need expensive offices.