Chp 567. From one office to the other

Yesterday we moved into our new office. So to me that means being involved in seven new offices in a span of just four years! But I guess one must undergo such ordeal in order to chase one’s dream. From setting up our own start-up office to being acquired and setting up our newly formed company, it had been one helluva ride so far.

One of the toughest things about being a part of a start-up is the amount of effort we had to take in setting up an office. It’s already a big pain to relocate (the pain of looking for a new apartment, meeting hundreds of different brokers and landlords and spending the entire day at the family court signing the rental agreement), and now you’ll have to do that all over again for the office space. Not to mention the office equipments, finding the cheapest vendor possible, all the overheads necessities like stationeries, electronic items, electricity, tax and paperwork stuff, office cook, office refrigerator, even the freaking office gas cylinder, the list is endless. And of course being a start-up, it means you can’t afford an office admin or HR to take care of such problems yet so it’s up to the Co-founders and other stakeholders to handle all that.

In fact, I got my FIRST ever "high BP" attack while we were in the middle of setting up our new office (which prompted my worried colleagues and family to make me go for a full health check-up at Lilavati hospital).

Below are some memorable photos of when we first started out back in 2012. Just to be clear we (our mobile gaming start-up) wasn’t alone in this, we had our friends who also had their own start-ups (e-com, tech, logistics, content etc) and we were all a part of the same group who shared the same office floor together.










And it actually felt great at the end of the day, knowing you’re a part of a team who was responsible for creating the new office space, right from designing the seating arrangement to even matters like selecting the wallpapers! :D

Below is another such moment when we decided to decorate our office to make it more homely and comfortable…








We had our fun moments, but by no means was it always like that. Like any other start-ups, going through all that ordeal was just the calm before the storm. Once everything was set up, it was time to bleed. Most of us were literally living in our new office, sometimes working 48 straight hours without going home. That was the sacrifice one must make in order to succeed. Here are a few photos I managed to pick out from my phone camera. Man those were truly the days!






















But of course, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and we also had our fair share of fun. We would have this group CS (Counter-Strike 1.6) and TF2 (Team Fortress 2) sessions almost every evening for around an hour in order to lift our spirits up.














Apart from our Mumbai office, we also spent a few months setting up our branch offices at Gurgaon and Hyderabad. Though they started off well, we realized we didn't have the capability to scale so fast at such a nascent phase, especially since we were losing focus of the one thing we wanted to do - making games. And so we re-focused all our energy back to our office in Mumbai.

Soon came the acquisition, and it was time to bid farewell to the awesome family we had at Bandra and move to our new office in Powai. Again, it was back to setting up a new office, but unlike earlier, we were no longer responsible as we were back to "employee mode" and boy it felt great watching other people do all the dirty work from the sidelines! :D




















And then came the transfer as our entire team had to relocate from Mumbai to Pune for better convenience and productivity. We had a temporary office space set up, which was quite congested.








Our new office was still being constructed at this renowned business center called "Sky One", but since our team was growing every day, we could no longer operate from that temporary office so we shifted to yet another temporary office space until our new office construction was completed.

Welcome to Connaught Place :)



Imagine that, shifting from one temporary office to another temporary office... temporariception. We reviewed the place and finalized the seating arrangements and other requirements.














Finally, we moved into our new temporary office around June this year...









What I loved about having an office at Connaught Place was that it was right opposite Wadia college, so because of the college kids, there were a lot of junk for outlets around our office. Like this favorite restaurant of ours which was right next to our office...






Anyway, around August we had a conference at "The Westin" and after that we went and checked out our new office still under construction. It was just walking distance from "The Westin".















And this was me again, yesterday, on the same spot two months later, purposely wearing the same clothes I was wearing the other day. Ahhh how things have changed :)














As I said before, I can see "The Westin" right outside our floor.



And the best part was, I can see my house from the balcony too!



The bridge below connects our new office to "North Main Road", where my house lies.



And so this morning, on my second day of work, I decided to walk to our new office. It was just 10-15 minutes away from my place.













Hopefully, this new office of ours will be the place where our success story really soars to a new level. Wish us all the best :)

Cheers.