How it all started: THE SPACEWHIZ STARTUP “STARTUP”!

Stories happen everywhere. Sweet, sour, encouraging, inspiring, funny, silly, really all types.But I think they are all interesting and there is always a bit to learn and get inspired Also they make great reading material and readers everywhere connect to a real personal story. So we decided to write and share our story with you all …….this is "our story"

Like any BIG INDIAN FAMILY ; like the ones which you have seen on the soap operas or the movies, ours was it! We were so many and spread so widely that we probably hadn’t met or got together under one roof since ages. We may not mind that situation but there was a twist - and the catch was that we did have this one common thing, binding us all, keeping us together and often making us even speak to each other ….. and that one thing was our inheritance.

Am sure you are all smiling just like me, some of you also probably know how it is when you are linked to your kith & kin through your inheritance! Well – we were linked and how – through this beautiful, sprawling gorgeous ideal office space situated bang on the most commercial and expensive street in the big bad city of MUMBAI. Yes, we had inherited an office space, which just could not be ignored or forgotten, cause it was worth a hell lot of money, yet, somehow, no one worked out of there, no one seemed to use it, we all tried to rent it and to sell it, but no one came forward.

This is what triggered the entrepreneur in me! Everyone everywhere seemed to be talking about shared economy, start-ups, new ideas, people at my work looked up to entrepreneurs wondering when someone amongst us get a super idea to start a company which would become the next Uber. Well, I was also thinking of all possible ideas as farfetched to Mars and back.

And then, one breezy autumn September morning, I thought of an idea that potentially could be the next Uber: Airbnb for offices. Now that moment is going to go down in the Spacewhiz history cause it was my eureka!

Although from a business family, I choose not to join the family business and have been a working professional my entire career.

My idea was to take charge of the under-utilized family office and do a proof of concept for Shared offices. The idea was to use the office as my start-up office and put a word around to aspiring work space seeking people aspiring an office in South Mumbai who had a budget constraint but were willing to co-work and co-share! If airbnb can do it, then so could I ….All I needed was to find 8 people who wanted to co-work in my office and monetise on the under-utilized office to fund my start-up.

Co-working is a relatively new but rapidly growing model of working in which independent people involved in different projects share a common space (WatersLynch et al 2016). The model has developed globally, but has concentrated in large urban centres, typically around the creative economy, freelance workers, new technologies and start-up, incubator and accelerator communities

This is how Spacewhiz came into existence.

Spacewhiz Mission: To tap into the new sharing economy & make managed office spaces available to the growing community of Entrepreneurs, Professionals, Start-ups & SMEs for renting

In my next story, I will talk to you about my first 6 months and the ups and downs of being an Entrepreneur.

All of you who find this story interesting and have similar stories to share can write back to me on uday.aggarwal@spacewhiz.com and I will feature one of your stories on our blog. The best 3 participants will also receive a surprise offer from spacwhiz.com.

The writer is a founder at spacewhiz.com.

a href=http://spacewhiz.comhttp://spacewhiz.com is an online portal of work spaces like commercial offices, co-working spaces, private cabins, conference rooms and training rooms.