Nabila Nowrin

Imagine you are a freelancer who enjoys the freedom of working from any corner of the world. Now the question is can you actually and effectively utilise your time from “any corner” of the world? What if you have a client meeting and don't want to spend a hefty amount of money in a hip coffee shop? What if you have a deadline to meet and cannot work because of the loud television volume emanating from your neighbour's house? Think of the times when you wanted to have group meetings with your business partners and instead, spent the whole time talking about concerts, sports or anything else but your work!

Nabila Nowrin and Nahid Sharmin, two young architects, faced a similar kind of situation when they had to hold meetings with their clients. During her stay abroad for higher studies, especially while she was on a tour in Brazil, Nabila was inspired by the idea of working in shared spaces, and decided to start something similar here. When she discussed her concept with her friend Sharmin, she discovered that Nahid too had something very similar in her mind.

That's how Moar, a co-working space, was born in July 2015.

Nahid Sharmin

Situated in Banani, Moar is a perfect space for freelancers, start ups, young entreupeneurs, small business owners, students or anyone who has to deal with a steam of clienteles on a regular basis but don't have the physical office space to do so. The place is able to host 25 people working individually at a time, and 20 people working in different meeting rooms. For a seminar, it is able to house almost 50 to 80 people at a time. All you need to do is walk in, register your name, pay for your package and start working.

The two young minds behind Moar believe in maximum hospitality in a casual, effective and comfortable atmosphere. Here they have meeting rooms, conference rooms and open spaces where people can come and work - both individually and within a group.

“Starting from facilities like good internet connectivity and tele-conference capacity, to an atmosphere that fosters your mental comfort and work efficiency, we attempt to provide everything,” says Nabila.

“Beside a physical office space, the next thing start-ups need is building network. As you work here with people from different backgrounds, you never know whether the person sitting next to you with his/her laptop could be your next potential client or collaborator,” says Sharmin.

“We work as a bridge between the clients and freelancers,” adds Nowrin. “We help you reap benefits by having each other's back. We encourage everyone to pin their business cards on the board at the entrance, so that your co-worker's business card could provide you a lead.”

Running an office requires doing a number of things that become hard for a start-up. “Here we take care of various administrative jobs like decorating the interior, purchasing office furniture, hiring a caretaker and supervising all the utilities, so all you need to do is focus on your work,” says Nabila.

Co working spaces like Moar help to take the recent and still-growing trend of freelancers, young entrepreneurs and start-ups to the next level, believe the owners.

“Even though we have received good response so far, not everyone understands the idea of co-working,” Nabila continues. “On our part, sometimes it becomes difficult to convince people how this alternate work method of functioning in a collaborative space could actually benefit them.”

Moar is more than a four walled, air-conditioned office space, and much more than a chaotic, expensive coffee shop. It helps you to see other people's perspectives and gives you a chance to talk about yours, believe the owners.