Founding operators: why we want ten spaces we can vouch for

In August we counted the flexible workspaces in 107 localities across eleven Indian cities. Golf Course Road returned 56. HITEC City returned 59. Nariman Point returned 10. We could count all of them.

We could not vouch for a single one.

That is not a complaint about the spaces. It is a description of what we actually knew. A count tells you a workspace exists. It does not tell you whether the price you are looking at is one the operator will honour, whether the photographs are of that floor or of another building, or whether anybody at the space has ever seen the listing.

The problem with a thousand listings

From the searcher’s side, a listing built from a signed agreement and a listing assembled from a public directory look exactly the same. Same confident price, same photographs, same button. There is no way to tell which one somebody stands behind.

So we built 78Flex around the difference. Every space is in one of two clearly marked states. It is either publicly sourced and unverified — drawn from public data, carrying an estimated price band rather than a price, and labelled as such — or it is operator-confirmed, meaning the operator has confirmed the space, its plans and its prices themselves. We never dress one up as the other. The full method is published as our verification standard.

Most of what you will find on 78Flex today is in the first state. Our first operator-confirmed spaces are being onboarded now. This post is for the people who run them.

Why the label matters to an operator

Our own counts say a decent Indian micromarket holds fifty-odd flexible workspaces, and online they are very hard to tell apart. We have written a whole guide for seekers on what to check before signing precisely because the websites all look the same.

A confirmed listing answers the first question on that list before anyone has picked up the phone: is this real? The price is yours, the photographs are of your space, the availability is what you say it is. It will not answer everything — nothing replaces a visit — but in a locality of fifty identical-looking options, being the one whose details can be taken at face value is a different position from being one of fifty.

It also means your space stops being described by whatever a public directory happens to say about it. If your space is already on 78Flex as unverified — and it may well be — claiming it replaces our estimate with your prices, your photographs and your availability.

What it costs

Nothing to list. There is no listing fee, no subscription and no charge per enquiry. We earn a commission from the operator on confirmed bookings only, at rates agreed with each operator individually — so a listing that never books costs you nothing.

For the first 30 days after your account is verified, the commission is zero. And listing with us is non-exclusive: you keep every other channel you already sell through.

The person searching is never charged anything. That is what lets us be straight with them about which data is confirmed and which is not.

What we ask of you

Onboarding is seven steps — business details, KYC, the listing itself, photographs, pricing, bank details for payouts, and submit — and you do not have to finish in one sitting. The KYC step is what lets us show your space as operator-confirmed rather than unverified. Every listing is reviewed by us before it appears in search.

In return, three things we hold firm on, because they are the whole point of the label. Photographs must be of the actual space, not a brochure. Prices must be ones you will honour. And the price a customer books is the price they pay — nothing extra at the door for anything the listing includes.

Small independent operators are explicitly welcome. A single floor in Indiranagar or Netaji Subhash Place is as listable as a national chain.

What else comes with it

Customer invoices are issued in your name on your behalf, and the GST mechanics of selling through a platform — including tax collected at source, which is deposited in your name and credited to you — are handled and shown against each booking.

Founding operators also get what we have been publishing in pieces all month: how deep their own micromarket is, and during alpha, our demand briefs on what people are actually searching for there.

What we will not promise

We are pre-launch, and we would rather you heard that from us. We will not promise you a number of enquiries in your first month, because we cannot yet stand behind one, and a number we cannot stand behind is exactly the thing this company exists to stop.

What we can say is this: you would be early, it costs you nothing to find out, and the first confirmed spaces are the ones the rest of the marketplace gets built around.

To start, create a brand account at the operator signup. The full walkthrough is on list your space, and the contract is published in full as our operator terms. Questions first? Write to hitesh@kineticblume.com for operator partnerships, or support@78flex.ai.