GCUC Podcast Recap: Sneh Kadakia

A large fire taking out her first workspace, 15 other businesses, and displacing 20 residents did not impede the community outreach and impact of Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE. Sneh details the resilience of those affected, while still serving the community, the importance of accessibility, use cases over demographics, how you can help facilitate the future of work and more in this episode of the GCUC Podcast.

Inspire and impact your community with these juicy sound bites:

We started this business in May 2020, right when the pandemic hit. We realized very quickly that there was nothing out in the suburban neighborhoods for any of us to work from, meet from, get out of our homes. -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

Fast forward, we opened our first workspace in Plainfield, New Jersey, October of 2021 and our second workspace opened in November of 2022. Sadly, in February of 2023, our Plainfield workspace had to shut its doors because we experienced a fire. So, we were a part of the large fire that happened in downtown Plainfield. It shut down 15 businesses and displaced 20 residents. -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

To watch what you’ve built, what your team has built, come to a screeching halt. In many ways it was devastating – but the beauty, I think of my team and our vision and our mission to truly support the communities that we’re in. We took that moment to say ‘we can’t believe this happened’. Then three moments later we said ‘What can we do? What can we do to make sure that we reopen and help all the other businesses reopen?’ We ensured that the city doesn’t lose the momentum that’s built today when it comes to economic development, small business support, and all the other incredible things we’ve been able to do through our free accelerator program and community programming. -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

We’ve really been able to find wonderful opportunities to serve this community and now we are going to solely roll out a lot of that programming, events, social, as well as, professional. To give this neighborhood a community clubhouse that it was really missing. Hopefully, become the heart and soul of this community. -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

You are so resilient, it’s amazing. I hear a lot about service from you and I think the highest purpose we can have is to serve others. -Liz Elam, Founder at GCUC

Service. A large part of what we envisioned was to ensure that we created a true neighborhood space. Neighborhood, bold, underlined, italicized. A neighborhood means that everybody and anyone has access to our workspace. Access to safe and reliable Wi-Fi, power outlets, a clean environment that is conducive to work, to meet, or whatever you end up bringing to the space. -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

Affordability. Our rates start at $5 an hour. That doesn’t sound like a lot to other coworking operators, but here, it means for one hour we can serve that person and allow them to be productive, to be collaborative, or just be safe and secure in our space. -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

We’ve created a model that truly is for everyone and anyone. -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

Our goal is to make the most amount of impact with the least amount of square footage. We really tried to maximize this for productivity, smaller teams and events. Smaller square footage but making sure it provides the most amount of value. -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

When people come in here, they can envision themselves in the space and that was purposefully done. That allows for anyone to bring their brand, their company, and their voice into the space in a very seamless way. -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

There’s so much opportunity out there in neighborhoods across different states, particularly in underserved neighborhoods. Both by coworking but also just by maybe a lack of a coffee shop that has Wi-Fi. A beautiful space outside of the home that can be utilized for work and for meeting. -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

The challenge in the coworking industry is servicing neighborhoods at the pace we want to. Our rate limiting factors here are leases, construction, and staffing. But what if you were able to take away all of that and drop off a work lounge container in a neighborhood and have that have internet, solar powered electricity? -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

Building space for community and belonging is just essential to our future because we are so disconnected, lonely. Businesses that help people connect are the future. -Liz Elam, Founder at GCUC

I had an opportunity to be fully remote and I quickly realized that there are so many benefits of being remote, especially personally. But the loneliness that came with working remotely. The want to go out in your neighborhood and realizing you had two options: Starbucks around the corner or the library. -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

from HERE is a glorified internet café. Internet café is the exact way to think about this. We are a “café”, we have coffee on site but our goal is to provide internet to people that are working. We’ve rounded it out beautifully with the amenities of a coworking space but in many ways, people just needed a place to plug in and get connected that was reliable. That is what we are doing here at its very basic. -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

There are so many rural communities that need that. That access to the internet that gives people access to education, courses, information, and can really help to next level their lives. -Liz Elam, Founder at GCUC

Come and visit us. Come see what the future of work could look like. Take a tour. Work here for an hour. Give us feedback to actually help us take our idea at its infancy and bring this container type lounge experience to neighborhoods that truly need it. -Sneh Kadakia, Founder and CEO at from HERE

Click HERE to listen to the full podcast with Liz Elam and Sneh Kadakia. It’s juicy!