Sankaranand Balaradjou

How it started

From 2015 to 2022 I worked remotely as a project manager in tech. My commute was the walk from my bedroom to the guest room. I'd switch on the computer, put on my headphones, and spend the day on back-to-back Zoom calls, coordinating teams I rarely met in person.

It looked convenient, but there was no line between work and home. Calls followed me to the dining table, and work stayed on my mind long after the day should have ended. I missed being around people: working alongside them, and simply being motivated by seeing others get things done.

I looked for a professional coworking space in Pondicherry and couldn't find one.

The first 550 sq ft, 2019

In 2019, my father's old house was standing empty after he moved in with me. We could have rented it out as an office. Instead, I ran an experiment: I converted it into a small coworking space with 12 seats.

Four or five people started working there full time from day one. We all became more productive, and for the first time in years I had a physical boundary between work and home.

Scaling the experiment, 2020

After the first COVID wave in 2020, my partner Sidambara Raja, who went on to become my co-founder, suggested turning his own building into a coworking space. The previous tenant, a software company, had moved its operations to Chennai and left its office fixtures in place, so the space could quickly become ready-to-move-in offices.

The timing was right. COVID had pushed companies toward satellite offices, so that no single location could stop their business. But no one had tried coworking at that scale in Pondicherry, and we didn't know if we could fill it. So we treated it as an experiment with one rule: if it didn't work within six months, we'd move on.

It worked. That building is today's Pulsebay HQ in Shanmugapuram.

How we build

Raja and I both come from software product development, and we run Pulsebay the way we'd build a product. Every new idea is validated first, then prototyped, launched small, tested and improved before we scale it. Design thinking keeps us focused on what our members actually need.

Pulsebay today

Today Pulsebay is Pondicherry's largest coworking space, with 5 locations, 1,100+ seats and 60,000+ sq ft. 98% of our members are companies, from startups and small businesses to large corporations, and our member retention rate is above 95%. Since 2021, we've partnered with building owners on a revenue-sharing model, which is how Pulsebay has grown to five locations and keeps growing.

Background

Before Pulsebay, Sankaranand worked as a developer, project manager and product owner. He has led distributed teams for organisations including the World Health Organization, L'Oréal and LexisNexis, across the USA, UK, Europe and Singapore.

He is also co-founder of Willdoo Education, Chair for Schools at Young Indians (CII), Charter Treasurer of the Rotary Club of Pondicherry Glowing Stars, and Secretary of Startup Pondy. He holds a B.Tech in Information Technology from Pondicherry University.