Growth, and New Beginnings
Abhishek and Ankit have been working on Bold Kiln for over a year now. As Bold Kiln picked up, along with a gradual ramp up of investment of time, effort, capital and addition of a couple of awesome people, having an address was a natural step forward. It also put an end to working from homes, cafés and the like!
And now, Bold Kiln has a new office in Noida. Having made a successful experiment out of establishing it, their experience has a lesson for every startup.
The Journey and a few Learnings
The journey of setting up an office throws up pointers for anyone wanting to walk the same path. Getting a furnished office is definitely more convenient, but an unfurnished office space allows you to customise it as per your requirements. Also, if done right, it is more economical – especially if you’re willing to go with a moderately utilitarian and basic setup up.
Bold Kiln hunted all kinds of office spaces –from co-working spaces to fully furnished offices in business parks, offices in basements of residential bungalows, random garages and what not. They eventually settled on a completely unfurnished big hall which they decided to do up themselves. Key reasons behind this decision – no brokerage (this was one of the places they could speak directly to the owner), proximity to public transport options – metro, bus stops etc, nature of offices / shops nearby and distance from residences of current team members.
Once the place was decided, next came the furniture. As the duration of use was over six months, renting would not have been cost effective. Compared to options of getting it made and buying online, they decided to purchase it from the local market.
The furniture scouting was crazy and spread over 3-4 days with the Delhi heat doing absolutely nothing to help. They scouted showrooms to kabaddi wallahs (for second-hand furniture) in search of tables and chairs. For a bootstrapping startup, savings from slightly used but cheaper furniture are important.
So 20 orange-black second-hand chairs, workstations for 8-10 people and one huge conference table were procured from across a few second-hand furniture markets in NCR. And the quality was good! Ishaanee (Ankit’s sister) commented that the she was reminded of the conference table at the Uber Gurgaon office. Small joys in life when your office furniture is compared to that of a $40B company.
A prized possession is a small cabinet – which they convinced the kabaddi wallah into giving for free. An impromptu trip also made them the owners of a red and black bean bag. Doing up the space – whitewashing, power sockets, power backup the, AC, a cleaning lady, chai-paani wallah, a very major house-cleaning and a bunch of other such to-dos were all dealt with over the next 5-8 days. Also, to save time and costs and have fun on the terrace, the team cleaned the old chairs and desks themselves. The newest team member, Zafar, was super enthusiastic and joined in the cleaning, despite fasting for Ramzan (damn ! the guy has some enthu!).
All in all, it took a lot of sweat and running around, but got sorted within a fortnight, tops. And was totally worth it !
Co-Working Space
Not only does the new office space house Bold Kiln, they are offering co-working space with 10 odd seats and an all inclusive rental. The sundry details can be gotten from [email protected]
Tips and Pointers
Cannot have a bullet point list in a blog post in today’s BuzzFeed day and age; so:
- If you can have some patience and search a little extra for places – you can avoid the brokerage.
- Office spaces outside of the typical business hubs tend to be cheaper – don’t be afraid to move outwards.
- Buy furniture – don’t rent it.
- Spending 2-3 days in second-hand markets really helps on saving for bootstrapping companies. Further, seeing all that furniture gives you ideas on what / how you can set your office up.
- Get the entire team to select, wash, clean and setup the office with you. They’ll realise the value and the hard work you’re putting in and maintain it like new (you can surely hope so).
- Spend good money on proper electrical fittings – probably the most used part of an office.
- You’re going to end up spending about one and a half times of what you might have planned for – it’s okay. Go with it. (Average stat based on checking in with a few other folks as well).
One thing that they contemplated doing but didn’t was throwing an office warming party and put up a public wishlist of stuff you need for the office – friends, family and the like are bound to be helpful souls. Anyhow, a week later, they did have a small puja with family (some by blood and others by sweat) which was followed by a few (lot of) beers.
And they are now proud occupants of Bold Kiln’s first office and co-working space!
A quote from Abhishek and Ankit :
“A very heartfelt thank you and a warm hug to all of you out there who’ve showered us with love, guidance, blessings and motivation; to those who have and continue to place their trust in us for helping them build their companies; to those who’ve proved right our faith in them to help us build dream; to the naysayers too – for you too egg us on; and finally, to dogs – because dammit, dogs are awesome and get me through the worst of days. Without all of you, it would be impossible to keep walking. Thank you !”
Swing by their office, it’s actually a kiln that’s very cool! You’d love the cup of coffee and chat!