For a 'temporary' solution that works, ask mymatchbox

Let’s do some work! The gung-ho call of young professionals, entrepreneurs, and anyone wanting to derive the best out of ‘productive’ time on hand, has brought them in search of some serious space sketching an ‘ideal office environment’. Armed with gizmos, many of them find themselves in the unlikeliest, yet quite comfy places, to chart their future. Professionals — startups, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, or freelancers — work from random locations. While many on the go cannot help but use ‘wasted’ time at the airport, hotel lobby or metro station, on the bus, or in the taxi, to finish some pending assignment, there are others who use cafes and restaurants to accomplish some serious tasks such as holding interviews, completing a project, and so on.

For the fleet-footed professional, the concept of a temporary office is heaven, which has also led to business centres and co-working spaces mushrooming today. Putting it all on a single platform, ensuring that seats at business centres don’t go empty, is the mega task resting on mymatchbox. Besides, the under six-month-old idea — envisioned by Jaideep Gandhi, Aniruddha Gharat and Gaurav Sethi — is helping professionals find the best place to draw their best productivity.

“Cafes and restaurants are not that productive, owing to their socialising and informal nature,” begins Gandhi, who is also the MD and CEO of mymatchbox, adding, “On the one hand, they tend to be expensive, while on the other, they are not secure or safe in terms of Wi-Fi connectivity. Neither offer privacy nor secretarial services like scanning or conferencing. With people traveling a lot on business, we see a major demand for temporary workplaces.”

Tapping the opportunity, mymatchbox’s web- and app-based platform has clocked over 250 desk bookings across 45 office spaces, listing 400 items in total. While most customers come from IT and supporting fields, they include corporates, startups and individuals. For now, the firm serves Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Pune markets.

“A sudden meeting, for instance, wasn’t always structured. Today, people looking to complete a short business engagement, may use our offering to book some temporary workspace suiting their requirements, for a duration ranging from as less as one hour, to over a month,” CTO Gharat tells DH, adding that every week, mymatchbox gets at least one listing from a business centre to be put on its platform.

So far, the firm has seen 1,300 downloads for its Android-based app. Having raised an Angel round in June last year, mymatchbox would be going for Series A funding in the next quarter. “Most of the funding is geared towards product enhancement, portfolio-building, marketing and positioning. We’re also working on a lot of tech features such as intuitive data, programme analytics, auto-detect preferences, and reporting customer loyalties, among others,” Gandhi concludes.