Golden Square - Joy at Work

“It needs nerves of steel to follow your dreams,” says Meenakshi Shenoy, Founder of Corporate Database Recruitment Consultants, a senior level search firm.  While she may be talking about the start-up boom in Bangalore, the statement could well apply to her journey as an entrepreneur. “The timing was right,” she says, recalling those early days of entrepreneurship.  “IT was booming and there were plenty of opportunities.”  Of course, there were challenges too. You have to be in the driver’s seat and never lose focus says Meenakshi.  She started small, with just 4-5 clients. Initially, clients would seek her services to recruit Project Managers or Programmers, but gradually as they saw her passion for recruitment and her professional services, the requirements and the clients grew bigger. Today, she takes great pride in being a boutique consulting firm catering to a very niche market. We caught up with Meenakshi Shenoy for a free-wheeling chat to understa...

Cash is King. Very important to remember especially when you are a bootstrapping startup. One big expense for any business is the office space. There are various ways to cut costs on office infrastructure, work from a garage, work from home, share an office. One of our members, however, demonstrated how to have the best of both worlds, save office costs and at the same time have an excellent space for collaboration. This team let's call them “S Team” for Smart Team. Did the following. All 5 Team members worked from their own homes. Used online collaboration tools like Google Docs, Notion, Zoom, Trello, Bitrix. Booked Golden Square's Conference Room once a week for 3 hours for brainstorming and reviews. These are best-done face to face. And the air-conditioned conference room has a projector and WiFi. Booked the meeting room, 2-3 times a week for meeting with clients, partners, vendors. To have a professional and productive meeting. (Cafes can be...

At no other time in history is ‘trust’ more important for business than today. Trust fuels businesses, helps them not just survive the many onslaughts of a competitive global economy, but sustain and thrive. And I speak from experience. The fifth branch of Golden Square that is getting ready to welcome customers at Bangalore CBD South is a direct result of Trust built over the years and I am both proud and humbled to share this story with you. First, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Narendra Bhatta for referring me to the owners of the building. Narendra Bhatta is the Founder Partner and CEO of Intellocopia a leading consulting firm in the area of Intellectual Property, which helps small and medium businesses realize value through effective protection, management and enforcement of various IPRs, namely, Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, and Design. Now let me share how the referral came to be. Speed of Trust: I was at a networking meeting at BNI Inspi...