Bengaluru is home to countless startups and boasts of a clutch of popular co-working spaces. However, co-living spaces are very few in number and that is what entrepreneurs Shashikaran Rao and Karan Bahadur have set out to change by offering a co-living community space for the startup ecosystem at the Construckt startup hostel in Indiranagar. For Rs. 850 per night, the hostel offers bunk beds in dormitories shared among two to eight occupants. Shashikiran says, “It was during a business tour in Berlin that I discovered the value of co-working and co-living spaces. We discovered the value of staying together as a community and decided to do something similar to these spaces in India.”
He adds, “We started to look at ideas to bring the startup community closer and eventually narrowed down to the space of hospitality. We discovered that most startup entrepreneurs and interns trying to meet the right people would spend a lot of time in hotels and PG accommodations. Though most of these places were not bad places to stay, they did not offer many opportunities to network and socialise within the community. We wanted to create an informal and interactive space and decided to set up the hackpack hostel. We wanted to get more like-minded people under one roof. We conducted surveys that suggested a huge demand for rooms within the startup community itself, with nearly 18,000 rooms being demanded by nearly 2,000 startups.”
The duo remodelled a huge bungalow in Indiranagar, demarcating spaces for informal meetups, sleeping spaces and dormitories, including a massive bath tub kept in the living room, which Shashikaran points out is a play on Archimedes and his discovery of the famous Archimedes principle, while taking a bath. It can host up to 20 people at a time. The facilities include a self-catering kitchen, Wi-Fi, lounge space, laundry, meeting spaces and more.
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Shashi points out, “We want to create a space that not only provides people a place to stay, but also allows them avenues to network and work on their ideas. Though our focus is primarily in the startup sphere, we want to be an inclusive space and welcome people interested in entrepreneurship and sharing ideas. We also encourage people from non-tech startups to camp here. Unlike hotel spaces, these hostels offer a platform where peers can learn from each other and build on each other's strengths. It is important to soak up the energy in such environments. We plan to expand to cities such as Pune, Chennai and the NCR which are buzzing with startups and young entrepreneurs trying to establish themselves.”