Founder Spotlight: Building a Startup from a Thamel Coworking Desk

Before she hired her first employee, before the seed round, before any of it — she was just another laptop at a shared desk in Thamel, six days a week.

"I couldn't afford an office, so I didn't try to have one"

"Everyone told me I needed a proper office to be taken seriously. I ignored that completely. A day-pass desk cost less than a coffee subscription, and it got me out of my apartment and around other people actually building things."

What actually helped

• Overhearing other founders' problems — and occasionally solving each other's.
• A fixed daily routine that a home office never gave her.
• Meeting rooms booked by the hour for investor calls, without the overhead of a lease.

"The desk didn't build the company. But showing up to it every single day did."

A year later, with a small team and a proper private office, she still keeps a hot desk membership — for the days she wants to be reminded where it all started.

Advice for founders starting the same way

"Don't wait for permission to feel legitimate. A shared desk with good wifi is enough infrastructure to build almost anything in the first year. The thing that actually kills early momentum isn't a lack of office space — it's founders who convince themselves they need one before they've even validated the idea."

On hiring her first employee

"I brought them into the same coworking space before we ever had a lease. It let us test whether we actually worked well together in person, without either of us committing to anything permanent. By the time we signed an office lease, we already knew the day-to-day would work."