Coworking Office – The Journey of My Entrepreneur Aunt

I was only sitting by the porch when I met my aunt who happened to arrive in her sedan just before my house. She waved at me, ’How are you kid?’
‘I am good, aunty.’ said I.
My aunt is one of the best marketers the industry can ever get. She recently started up her own firm after working for several years in IMRB. After a long time, she realized that she was now fully capable of doing things on her own so she had a small marketing team open in her name. Initially, just like every other big shot starting small – she had her set up in her extremely tiny garage. For all those days she had to keep her car on the road outside her gate.
‘Where’s Mumma?’ asked she.
‘Oh, she’s gone out to the grocery store, she’ll be here in a short while. There’s tea, come over.’
‘Yes, of course, be right there.’ said she.
Initially it didn’t seem like that much of a task as her team consisted of a very small number of people. There was no problem with her small garage set up as she had installed an air conditioner which would keep her team comfortable in the torturous Delhi summers. Later, as her team size grew, she had very little idea as to how she’d manage. She was okay with getting people on board with her, especially as the pangs of pandemic kept everyone indoors, she too had to carry her business online.
It was only after things got better and finally, offices started opening fully fledged, she found handling her young budding team a problem especially because of the nature of work the team was indulged in. Online has its own set of cons too and the biggest being, there’s no one to one human contact which may be the most important factor when it comes to teamwork. A team that works with one another in real time has better results and better coordination which helps the company in the long run.
Knowing how her small garage couldn’t accommodate so many employees, she readily started looking for a medium-sized infrastructure. Alas, all of those were way beyond what she was ready to pay for. The unaffordable prices of set ups in and around Gurgaon made her mad as she didn’t know what to do with all her employees who were eager to come down to the office sooner.
One evening, my dad had held a small party where all his friends and their wives were called. My dad keeps throwing these small parties every now and then, aunt and her husband were invited too. I was to join all of them in the middle of the party as that day I was to have an event in the coworking space I worked in.
I joined in after the sprawling event in my shared office space in Gurgaon location called Springhouse Coworking. As I started moving further into the party, I joined the conversation my aunt, mom and a friend of dad’s were having. My aunt was discussing why setting up an office was becoming such a huge problem. She was really keen on getting a good space for her employees and had this zeal to expand her business. That’s when it clicked to me!
‘You are looking for an office space, right?’ asked I.
‘Oh, very desperately but I’m getting not even a single space that is worth it and many of them are just not affordable.’ said she.
‘How big is your team, aunty?’
‘Now we have around 12 members.’
‘Oh, that’s big and I am sure going to grow.’
‘Yes, there are 3 more people who’ll be joining by the end of the month.’
‘Where do you need the office space to be in?’
‘Anywhere in Delhi NCR, be it Gurgaon or Noida, anything!’
‘Have you heard of coworking spaces?’
She didn’t respond to that, seemed like either she didn’t know the concept or didn’t have a lot of faith in it.
‘No, I don’t know much about coworking spaces.’
‘Aunty, I work in a shared office space in gurgaon called Springhouse. My company too is a startup. Our founders started with a small funding, took up a space in this coworking and now, we take up the biggest space out of all the other companies. We could expand the business this much, getting client after client, as we didn’t waste our capital initially on getting a permanent infrastructure. The capital was judiciously invested in getting the best professionals and building a team that would bring business and success. Now, we have more setups in different coworking space in delhi ncr, so we are expanding too.’
‘That’s exactly what I have been looking for beta, do they provide all the amenities that are required in an office?’
‘Aunty, it’s way more than what an entrepreneur can get for himself. This is why we take up spaces in coworking because they have an all-sqaure amenity list – way more than what a traditional office can offer. That’s because coworking spaces have to be flexible pertaining to the fact that they would be providing spaces to all kinds of companies and that alone makes it important for them to have a broad number of facilities that can satisfy all and being a part of a coworking space means, every company can enjoy all the facilities provided.’
‘That’s right, I cannot thank you more beta, I just wanted this coworking space so desperately and didn’t know such a great, thoughtful solution was at my disposal all this while. I was not going to attend the party today, thought of going out south for seeing a space but I’m glad that I came here instead like how else I’d have known there are coworking space in delhi ncr at affordable prices that can support new startups like mine?!’
‘Now you know it, aunty!’
‘How do I search on google? ‘Co work space near me’?’
‘I’ll take you to mine, you can look for a space there as per your requirements and team size.’
‘You’ll be taking me to the shared office space in gurgaon or elsewhere?’
‘Yes, I’ll take to Springhouse, the one in Gurgaon.’
‘Great’
And that’s how my aunt’s company started working alongside mine in the same coworking space and now, they are the biggest company in the facility. Added benefit - we met every day. There can be nothing better than that, having our own people beside us – growing.