The Aces And Spaces

How this startup built a $100-million business in less than five years.

- Punita Sabharwal

As I walk into Livspace’s designer office in Mumbai, I feel the full impact of what Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma have to offer to scores of middle class families who dream of building their homes with shoestring budgets. The Livspace experience centre has it all. Take a look. The showroom like space is sprinkled with various designs for bedroom, living room, kid’s room, kitchen, et al. It also houses meeting rooms to have a detailed chat with customers on the kind of interiors and furniture they wish to have. There’s a special virtual reality room too where clients can get inside their artists’ renderings.

This tech start-up operates very much like a virtual space with CEO and Co-founder, Anuj Srivastava, functioning from Singapore half of the year, and Ramakant Sharma, COO and Cofounder, manning the fort in Bengaluru. How do they manage from different locations? Apart from tapping each other for ideas on almost 24/7 basis, both have their boardrooms fully equipped with facilities like video conferencing to chalk out execution strategies. “We have aspirations beyond India, at some point in time, the idea should go out,” says Srivastava.

The Indian pie is large, too. India’s fragmented home interiors and renovation market is expected to exceed $23 billion by 2022. And Livspace is sure fast carving a niche for itself here.

‘Bromance’ with Design

Like every other romantic start-up story, Livspace has its roots in IIT. Srivastava and Sharma, IIT Kanpur grads, spent some quality time honing their skills at some of the best start-ups. Anuj worked in Silicon Valley at Google while Sharma was in Bengaluru with Myntra. “India now is at a level like the Valley of the early ’90s. So, for people to have an entrepreneurial instinct and not to do an idea at this point in time is an opportunity lost,” says Srivastava.