The Prologue
21 Feb 2015…yet another beautiful evening at the banks of river Parlakota. I had been here at least 100 times by now…soaking in the tranquility and serenity of just ‘being’. Every trip to Parlakota banks made me think and question hard about the reason for existence, the purpose of life, and then some more…the answers to which to date remain unclear at the best. However, today was different…it was my last day as a volunteer at Lok Biradari Prakalp, Hemalkasa. The next day I was starting my journey back to Pune. All the while summarising and taking a snapshot of my volunteering experience at Lok Biradari, my mind was racing ahead to sneak peek into what I going to do after I was going to Pune. I had a few ideas in mind and one of them was taking shape.
As I was about to bid goodbye to this daily ritual, a thought struck me — “As a fairly simple kid coming from very modest background, studying for his Masters, and working at a startup in SanFrancisco for a summer in the heart of silicon valley; I was awed at how great teams operated. As a newbie I had experienced an incredible amount of infectious drive with which the tech. startups in the silicon valley built their tech. products. The creative environment and a highly supportive-n-open culture that the teams operated in, used to make me dream of recreating such magic of collaboration and creativity back home!”
Why not start now? Why not build something which is ethical, organic and responsible? Something which could be a foundation to building and contributing something sensible to the society down the line! One thing led to another, and a few months down the line Saurabh and I founded NonStop io Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
The Journey
As two complete business novices, but descent software engineers we were stumbling our way into the technology business world, dreaming and trying to create something of value through our journey.
From the very start we strongly believed that technology (software engineering) is a creative exercise, and hence valued and longed for a creative space of our own. Just like most of the bootstrapped initiatives, we started small…really small 😀
Our first workspace in 2015 was a single room, one work table, and a borrowed cupboard to keep the essentials. Limited finances and strong belief in advantages of DIY, we hand-painted, set up, and deep cleaned our workspace. Our families supported us…sometimes just being there, cheering and routing for the cause helped us sail through . We started calling this room, our “office” the day two bright girls who had just graduated onboarded our team…and just like that we were a “company” with an “office”. When I look back now, I can’t help but wonder how these young girls trusted us with their professional career, when all we had was a one-room office, a few chairs and tables, a couple of laptops…but then I realise — Passion, persistence and patience really go a long way 🙂
A few months passed, and our team of 4 couldn’t keep up with the pace of the work at hand. We were 6 now, and it was becoming too crowdy in a single room. We did the next best thing — We partially turned my home into a garage office and moved our operations there. Added luxury here was that it had a connected washroom…a big win! 😎
Over the next few years, our team grew from strength to strength, and towards the end of 2019 we finally decided to take the next big leap. We rented a relatively big commercial space, prepped it up well, and inaugurated our new office with all the pomp.
Little did we know what was waiting for the whole of humanity just around the corner 🤦🏽
Covid19 pandemic was an eye-opener concerning anything and everything. Collectively humanity witnessed some of the worst that we could face. At the very same time (just like in any calamity) we discovered something very unique…perhaps only the fewest of the few in the world had exercised till date — Work From Home (WFH).
The concept of WFH spread like wildfire, and I along with most of us welcomed it with open arms. We had to spend almost 2 years, mustering up the courage and clarity to write a story on it.
The leap of faith
Through all these years of makeshift and rented workspaces, we would continuously talk about our dream creative tech. studio. We still valued and believed in having one place where all of us could call our own, and where we could come together to collaborate on discussing, designing, and building creative high impact tech. solutions and everything around them!
In 2022 against many odds, financial challenges, and a lot of uncertainty, we went a step further to commit to our beliefs. We started designing & planning on building a creative space for ourselves where everyone associated with NonStop could find a place where they could express their technical creativity, and would have all the resources handy to build the best of the technology.
This vaastu represented our pursuit to
- Promote healthy collaboration by bringing people with different perspectives and skill sets together, and encourage teamwork
- Foster and encourage creativity by making available a conducive environment for creative work
- Stimulate learning and growth by being in the company of the experts and seniors, which in turn will lead to every individual's personal growth
- Boost productivity by providing a dedicated space free from distractions and interruptions
- Improve well-being by providing a relaxing and supportive environment for self-expression and creativity
Right from the very start, we had imagined this place not as an ‘office’ office; but rather a place where our team could be at their creative best. This meant a workspace that had a combination of formal, casual, and fun parts to it. Creative brains came together and designed this space to have all the elements that we had envisioned it should have.
Just like any other work we do at NonStop, our tech studio design was meticulously planned, discussed, and brainstormed multiple times before we finalised the design.
Once the design was finalized, an actionplan was put in place, and we kickstarted the work. Again, just like epic and sprint planning, the different teams worked together to align and overlap their work effectively. Demolition, concrete cutting for electrical and AC wiring, fabrication, fire-and-alarm systems, and masonry teams worked in tandem to finish the first phase.
Just like any product and engineering team, there were regular architecture reviews for quality and timeline checks.
In the second phase the wood work, paint and glassware teams worked together to complete their groundwork.
Based on the solid foundational work of Phase1 & Phase2, it was time for the visible and usable items to come in and settle down. Electrical fittings, AC units, tables, chairs, swings, hammock, fire extinguishers, etc. got assembled and installed. Now the things started to look somewhat close to the initial designs!
The last few days saw the final touch-ups, fixes and finishing touches to get the basic and bare essentials up-n-running.
Flooring & Painting ✅
Electricals (Ligths & Fans) ✅
Air Conditioning ✅
Fire-&-Alarm System ✅
Pantry & Dining ✅
Swings & Hammock Seating ✅
Tables & Chairs ✅
WiFi ✅
Meeting Rooms ✅
Storage ✅
Washrooms ✅
…and we are all set to go Live! 😇
There are a lot bells-n-whistles to be added for sure. The creative minds at NonStop are working overtime to make this place the best reflection of themselves. Somehow they’ve always had a knack of leaving things (and places) better than they found it in the first place…and that makes me so proud of our team! 🙂
Till then we’re filling the gaps with all kinds of memories at our new address!
Where we go from here?
Though this is not the destination, NonStop’s new address is a huge milestone in our ‘being’, our journey, and our existence as an organization of like-minded individuals.
In times when the world is grappling with more uncertainties than ever, we are trying to light a flame of hope, and a promise…a promise that we will continue our pursuit of continuous learning, responsible growth, actionable creativity, effective collaboration, and empathy with all our heart;…and while doing so, perhaps set some examples (right ones to refer to, and wrong ones to avoid!) for the next generation 😇
Peace ✌🏽
— — —
If you’ve liked what you read, then you might want to glance through these too:
- Ramaa’s Adventures & NonStop — (Un)Certainties, Courage, Contemplation…
- Seeking the uncomfortable…
- Work From Home…an abstraction (!?)
- Building blocks of a multi-million dollar value creation, and then some more
- Finding our Ikigai @ NonStop!
- 6 Years NonStop! Our Story (so far…)
- Ramaa’s Adventures & NonStop — Part 1 (The Mess)
- Ramaa’s Adventures & NonStop — Part 2 (Law of Wasted Efforts)
- Ramaa’s Adventures & NonStop — Part 3 (Rituals-n-Routines)
- Ramaa’s Adventures & NonStop — Part 4 (The Magic Words)
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