From Collapse to IPO: How He Scaled An Impossible Business and Won

Описание: How do you scale one of the hardest businesses in India — and take it public in just 10 years?

In this episode, we sit down with Amit Ramani, Founder & Chairman of Awfis, to unpack how he built India’s largest co-working company in a category the world had written off.

From architecture school in Kansas to running design services in Delhi, from near-bankruptcy during Covid to a blockbuster IPO in 2024 — Amit’s journey is a masterclass in clarity, resilience, and execution. This isn’t a story about hype. It’s about building a model that actually worked.

We break down how Awfis flipped co-working on its head with “managed aggregation,” why making landlords partners changed everything, and how small teams became the core of India’s office revolution. Amit shares the failures of his first centers, the paranoia that kept him going through Covid, and the frameworks (Decision, Discipline, Action) that scaled a 250-centre network.

This episode isn’t startup theory. It’s the inside story of cracking an “impossible” business model in India — and the founder who turned it into a public company.

⏱️ Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction
1:09 – Can you give quick context on your business today?
6:11 – Why should a 100-person company choose Awfis?
9:15 – What makes an ideal workspace?
13:29 – How did you expand from 0→1→10→200 centres?
18:51 – How did you keep faith during Covid?
24:06 – Where does your belief and foresight come from?
27:45 – How do you convince real estate partners?
32:17 – What do customers get beyond office space?
36:05 – What counterintuitive lessons have you had?
39:44 – What failures or challenges stand out?
43:36 – How have you built and scaled your team?
47:41 – Where are you spending your time now?
50:29 – How do you maintain clarity as a founder?
55:06 – What drives customer happiness in workspaces?
59:58 – If starting again, what would you do differently?
1:05:22 – If you were starting up today, which sectors excite you?
1:07:42 – If you could go back to 2008, what advice would you give yourself?
1:09:45 – Outro

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