Alternative to Isolated working space

Startup life is a roller coaster ride where one has to chase their dreams working out of their comfort zone 24×7. We, at Headstart try to address some of the challenges faced by startups at Startup Saturday.
“I have an idea, have a team working on it, but do not have a space to work.” This is a general problem all startups face. There are different setups where an idea gets into a shape and most of them start at a garage, an apartment, or a basement. After a certain period, having an office becomes important and having a real office is a major challenge at the initial stages. Startups usually are short of resources. Here comes co-working Spaces to solve this major issue for startups.
Ravindra MK, co-founder of BHIVE Workspace is the go-to-market guy who successfully runs a co-working space and organizes huge number of startup events. He has been a key player in the Bangalore ecosystem. We had the pleasure of hosting Ravinia at SS. To add to the awesomeness, we had Shashikant Chemalamudi, GM of The Hive, VR Bengaluru. Both the entrepreneurs shared their invaluable insights on coworking spaces with the audience.

So, what is a coworking space?

Coworking as a concept dates back to centuries more in practice by artists and authors. Now, we relate this more with budding companies with the rise of spirit of entrepreneurship. Coworking spaces are a phenomenal setup of working environment where different startups work independently in a shared space under a single roof. It is open for all industries and is not specific to tech startups.

Benefits of Coworking Spaces:

• They provide an excellent productive work environment.
• Affordable prices without deposit and locking period.
• Access to conference room, meeting rooms, and board rooms.
• Operations and infrastructure (Wifi, furniture, electricity, water, etc.,) costs are minimal.
• Flexibility to move out.
• Options for walk-in and visitors.
• Options for reserved and hot-desking.
• The most exciting part about these spaces is that you have a community of like-minded people in the same journey of entrepreneurship with whom you can share, exchange, discover and learn from each other.
• Many events are organized which gives greater exposure towards the world of startups and an opportunity to network with fellow entrepreneurs.

Innovations at Co-working Spaces:

Co-working spaces are looking at technology-enabled operations to manage spaces at different locations across the country. They are coming up with internal metric system to provide better experience to the customers. When it comes to scalability, they are also looking at the options to provide spaces for established companies. Hospitality would be the major differentiator. Basically, this is a win-win situation for the landlords and the community.

Written by Kiran Lal