SpacesGenie — Rent Short-term Retail Space in Asia

Entrepreneur interview — Airbnb for retail space

We have interviewed SpacesGenie Founder & CEO — Mr.Pushpendra(“Push”) Sharma.

He tries to re-invent retail space business by SpacesGenie.

I highly recommend SpacesGenie for all fashion designers.

Q1: What is SpacesGenie and what does it do?

SpacesGenie is Singapore based online rental marketplace, which connects brands, artists, designers, e-commerce ventures with spaces to open Pop Up stores.

Our company’s vision is to simplify renting Pop Up retail spaces — and to this end, we provide end to end services — starting from finding the perfect place to a suite of value added services, offering unique solutions that allow brands to Pop Up Space, Quickly!

Q2: How did you come up with your startup idea?

Given my professional background of 15+ years of real estate experience in Asia, I saw the huge opportunity to simplify doing Pop up spaces in the Asian context — from the perspective of “Space Owners” (Landlords) and the “Space Users” (Brands & Concepts) — the current landscape is tough to navigate.

In my years doing real estate private equity — investing and asset managing a diverse portfolio, I know one of the key asset management strategy is to find creative ways to monetize vacant spaces or transient spaces. The way to do this, is by offering them on a short term basis — which in my experience proved to be highly beneficial in uplifting the overall asset productivity and value. The attractiveness of short term rentals, from a landlords perspective has stuck with me ever since.

I’ve also got the perspective from the “Users” side from my role as a retail consultant — where I often found my clients struggling to find information and spaces to test their products, or conduct flash sales. Since Singapore and Hong Kong are expensive retail-real estate markets it’s tough to get access to short term retail spaces and one stop shop services to open Pop up stores.

With this in mind, I realized that there is an opportunity to create an online platform that connects the “Owners” & “Users” of short-term retail spaces and that’s how the idea of Spaces Genie was born.

Q3: What kind of a problem are you solving by your service?

Our marketplace lists all kinds of retail (commercial) spaces, which brands, artists, designers etc. can book and rent on a short term basis to open Pop Up shops. However, in Asia there is no centralised listing platform that provides information on such short term spaces across different markets. Thus through our platform, we are simplifying the process to List-Search-Book and Open Pop Up stores in Asia. We also provide end to end services for owners and users and help them Pop Up Space, Quickly!

Q4: Who is your target customer and how has been the response?

Since this is a marketplace model, our customers comprise of both users (demand) and owners (supply). Anyone who has retail (commercial) space that can be rented on a short term basis can easily list on our platform and anyone who wishes to sell a product, offer a service or create unique retail experiences for their clients can search, connect and book spaces via our online platform — anytime, anywhere.

So far, the response has been quite promising for us. We have received support and visibility — on both the demand and supply side. We are now expanding this network as we speak and working with some of the leading names in the business.

Q5: What is your BIG vision for SpacesGenie?

Our vision is to be the centrepiece for creating a retail world without borders — where buyers and sellers can interact freely and efficiently. We will achieve this vision by building the largest and most efficient eco-system that enables Pop Ups in Asia.

Q6: What is the most important thing in winning in competitive global market?

To remain competitive, it is important to be flexible in your style of work and have a ‘can-do’ attitude. More importantly, you should be able to find creative solutions to any problem that comes along, and this will help you win and stay ahead of the game.

Q8: How do you keep high performance and remain motivated in your work?

Everyone has their own style, but I would say:

- Be passionate about what you do

- Always stay positive and be around positive people.

- Eat healthy and exercise daily.

- Learn to disconnect in order to re-connect.

Q9: What is important in your leadership style?

I believe in a democratic style of leadership, which is more inclusive and participative. Although the ultimate decision vests with the leader, an opportunity for everyone to be heard should be given to all concerned.

Q10: What is the key of success in collaborating with your staff well?

We are all passionate people, who have relevant experience, a shared vision and a determination to succeed. The desire to be a part of something that’s bigger than us individually, and to really create something of value, keeps us going. My team and I have a shared history of working together in various capacities, and we use that rapport & trust to build a bright future together.

Q11: As a businessman/entrepreneur to be creative is very important. How do you keep yourself creative?

I am a trained Architect, thus I would say that creativity comes naturally to me. To remain creative, I love traveling, visiting art & fashion shows, fairs and Pop Up events. I also enjoy writing articles on a variety of topics (startups, retail, real estate, franchising, design etc.). I enjoy meeting and working with creative people, which also helps me with my own Startup.

Q12: What was the most difficult challenge while building your Startup & how did you overcome it?

I’ve realised that all startups face challenges in the journey to launch, and the mistakes we make initially actually make for a much stronger proposition eventually. For Spaces Genie — I had decided to have a lot of features which would make the site much more user friendly and scalable. However, these features took a lot of time and resources to develop, which resulted in a delay in our launch timing. In hindsight, I would’ve chosen to launch a simpler “Beta version” sooner, while we continued to do the backend to drive scale.

Q13: Startup has ups and downs. How do you keep yourself right mindset?

Yes, all Startups have ups and downs. It is the ups and downs that make you more resilient. You must learn from the downs and celebrate the ups, no matter how small the achievement (up) is.

For me it is important to remain focus in our vision and objective, rather than be worried about competition. Follow your gut, work hard, stay around positive people, learn how to dis-engage and dis-connect in order to re-engage and re-reconnect.

No matter how busy you are, always find time to go on a holiday with your family. “Startups come and go, but family matters most”.