Neetish Sarda: A Young Achievers Journey to Being a Successful Entrepreneur

Failures should be treated as learning experiences and viewed as stepping stones to something bigger in the path of achieving the best version of yourself. Success stories of young entrepreneurs such as Neetish Sarda serve as great examples for the upcoming generation, and there is plenty to learn from his life experiences.

He is the founder of Smartworks, one of the largest technology-enabled office spaces in India; a unique approach to bringing the concept of smart offices to a new breed of young millennials. After completing his studies in the USA, Neetish Sarda decided not to join his family business, and instead, went on with his venture of building a startup that revolutionized the concept of office spaces in India.

With his sheer dedication and commitment, in just 5 years, Smartworks went on to become one of the most sought-after connected office spaces, becoming home to a few of the top MNCs and startup unicorns in the country.

What began as an idea to revolutionize office space; turned into a Unicorn to become India’s leading flexible workspace provider.

Humble Beginnings

He started his venture at the tender age of 23 from Kolkata. Smartworks initially started as a coworking space, when he came across the fact that the market was saturated with too many players working on the same niche. He needed something different, and groundbreaking to break away from the other players to create a radically different niche. Small and medium-scale businessesrequire office spaces all the time, and instead of short-term goals, he planned to focus on long-term clientele. The primary challenge was to acquire the large business houses that were known to traditionally operate out of leased buildings.

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Overcoming Challenges

Smartworks gained prominence from its marquee clients through the range of services it provided to generate 100 crores in revenue within the initial years, but soon touched the 300-crore benchmark. Once they gained a foothold in the market, they presented a business model to investors and raised a funding of $25 million from a Singapore-based venture. The man leading from the front was Neetish Sarda, his knowledge and experience that he had acquired over the years helped him push Smartworks to reach unparalleled heights.

With a small workforce of multi-talented people, Neetish Sarda himself led the growth. It began with a small coworking space of 10,000 sq ft and reached a record approx. 5 Mn sq ft area under his management, with a presence across 9 major cities- Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Noida, Gurugram, Kolkata, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, and Delhi.

Today, the brand is famous for being the catalyst of technology-enabled working space under the leadership of Neetish Sarda. He single-handedly reshaped the entire office experience to reduce stress and create a conducive working environment.

With a valuation of INR 3000 Cr, Smartworks services more than 90 clients. What started from a 10,000 sq ft office with only a handful of people is today providing services to 400 organizations covering even Fortune 500 companies and startups such as Byjus, Swiggy, Flipkart, etc.

The reputation he established as an Promising entrepreneur is a shining example of remarkable leadership and business strategy. The tremendous growth led forward by Neetish Sarda transformed the concept of office workspace to a flex-space model, and the company is already planning to target an impressive benchmark of catering to 3 lakh professionals and entering the Proptech vertical using SaaS opportunities.

Leading By Example

His journey so far has been a roller coaster ride. It brings to light the fact that if you have an entrepreneurial mindset, and the perseverance to turn your idea into reality, you can. Neetish Sarda has received numerous recognitions as the youngest entrepreneur whose visionary approach towards entrepreneurship is guiding others to write the next chapter in business leadership and hopefully there will be more to come.