Quorum's Vivek Narain Tries To Tap Into India's Cultural Infra Demand, Introduces district150
It's been a journey of trial and error, that is how Quorum’s founder and CEO, Vivek Narain describes his transition from banking to hospitality to real estate. The 46-year-old visionary entrepreneur founded The Quorum, a multi-purpose members-only exclusive club in 2016 and launched it in 2018. Now, he is stepping into the realm of 'hospitality-powered' rentable workspaces with his latest venture, district150.
In an exclusive interaction with BW Businessworld, Vivek Narain spoke about his early days in the banking and hospitality industries, his advent in the real estate realm and the concept of his newest venture, district150.
The Journey So Far
Narain, who started in Barclay’s was approached by US-based investors who proposed a Special Purpose Acquisition Corporation. “In 2006, we were approached by some US investors who wanted to do a new private equity vehicle called a Special Purpose Acquisition Corporation or SPAC. SPACS went on to become quite popular and they remain reasonably popular as an alternative listing vehicle. At the time when we did it, it was brand new. I don't think people understood what it was, I don't think we understood what we were doing,” said Narain.
Vivek Narain
A special purpose acquisition company or SPAC is essentially a company without commercial operations and is formed strictly to raise capital through an initial public offering (IPO) for the sole aim of acquiring existing companies. SPACs are also known as blank check companies. Narain spearheaded this operation in India along with his then-partner. “...we went ahead and bought an airline catering company, a diversified portfolio of restaurants and a small boutique hotel company and that was baptism by fire on how I learned and got into hospitality,” added Narain.
In 2015, Fairmont Raffles, a global hospitality brand then owned by the Qatari Investment Authority that Narain was associated with, decided to discontinue its operations in India. This was a crossroads moment for Narain as it compelled him to choose between staying in the country and going abroad. Little did he know that this would be when the idea of The Quorum would take shape.
“I saw the member's club business popping up in cities around the world and I said, hey, no one's done it. I've heard people talk about it, but no one's really done it and I was foolish enough to try it,” explained an enthusiastic Narain.
The Quorum
The rest as they say was history. Narain raised capital and opened The Quorum for the public in 2018 along with his wife and co-founder and creative director Sonya Jehan.
“It's been rewarding, it's been fun and it's been painful. It's all of the above,” said Vivek Narain candidly. He went on to explain that whenever something new comes up, there's always a little bit of a consumer acceptance curve that one has to go through. “…you need to be patient,” said Narain.
“It takes time to build credibility,” emphasised Narain looking back at his journey from launching Quorum to establishing it as a hub for social and business lifestyle. He also mentioned that he was fortunate to have a very strong business partner who happened to be the real estate owner of the Quorum Gurugram property. This partnership helped Narain build a business without the adjunct financial pressures. “…we put our head down, we did what we could do best and we found our niche in the market,” said Narain when asked about his roadmap for The Quorum.
Given his position today, Vivek Narain strongly believes that he is at the beginning of a new chapter. Although this genre of clubs, i.e., private members-only clubs has been in India for a long time, Vivek Narain has tried to introduce something that is a tad different. ‘The fundamental question was, how do you create a third space where people would want to come, dine, entertain, work and socialise?’ Narain wanted to create a place for like-minded to meet, connect and essentially create a community with hospitality at the core. Even from a genre perspective, The Quorum is different from what Narain calls establishment clubs. "They were created generations ago. We are contemporary. We are new,” he added.
The district150 Story
district150 is Vivek Narain’s latest venture. Taking the concepts of 'corporate' and 'hospitality' and concocting a combination that serves both seems to be Narain’s game plan. In the midst of our conversation, we forgot to ask the quintessential question (which later on The Quorum chieftain gladly explained in detail). Why the name ‘district150’?
Narain talked about British philanthropist Robin Dunbar and his thesis that Homo sapiens can only have a hundred and fifty meaningful relationships, eventually revealing the story behind the name ‘district150’.
Dunbar’s studies have revealed a lot of information about the behavioural mechanisms behind the number and nature of primate relationships. His work highlights that social cohesion and long-term bonding among primates, Homo sapiens included, are the keys to their evolutionary success.
‘Human beings have managed to break this and maintain more than a hundred and fifty relationships but for that, they’ve had to create fiction, i.e., law and order, religion, the idea of a nationhood, to name a few,” said Narain with gusto.
Robin Dunbar
‘We realised that a big part of our revenue (at The Quorum) was coming from people who wanted entertainment for both corporate as well as social requirements,’ stated Narain as he told us the inception story of his latest venture. This quickly led Narain and his team to stare directly at the gaping hole in the Indian ecosystem as far as meetings and events spaces were concerned.
This story does beg one question. How is that any different from what hotels are already doing? ‘Hotels typically have a banquet hall, they’ll have chandeliers and carpets that are focused on the wedding market. Meetings and events, however, come in many different forms,” explained Narain.
Narain further added, “We felt like there was an opportunity to create meeting and events infrastructure, especially in a country like India."
During the conversation, we could clearly tell that district150’s concept fundamentally revolves around corporate meetings, social events and cultural infrastructure. This confluence of the aforementioned elements is what Narain and his team are trying to tap into. ‘Through design, if we could create a meetings, events and cultural infrastructure and repurpose the office building,… even from an urban planning perspective, I think it’s a win-win for developers.”
How Is district150 Different From The Quorum?
The Quorum and district150 are both real estate projects undertaken by Vivek Narain and if you really think about it, both of these projects bank on bringing like-minded people together. However, both belong to separate genres and have distinct target audiences. We asked Narain to shed some light on the differences between two of his businesses and this is what he had to say.
“Our club business is, by definition not scalable, because we're trying to build a community of the top socio-economic bracket. district150 is more scalable. Using a lot of what we've learned in the club business this (district150) is a more scalable business model. And we believe we can fill a fairly large gap in the market as well,” he explained.
“I think it’s more nuanced…,” is what Narain said when we inferred that The Quorum was a concept for the top one percenters of the socio-economic scale. “The Quorum is a membership-driven model,” he added. The Quorum, at the end of the day, is a members-only club that runs on a subscription model. One cannot use its services unless they are a member or a guest of a member. “We’re exclusive, yet we are inclusive,” he said as he was trying to explain The Quorum’s approach to exclusivity. With programming, thought leadership and culture as its key pillars, The Quorum is aiming to build a community of like-minded people across all genders, professions and age groups.
district150, on the other hand, is a hospitality-powered meetings and events infrastructure that is meant for anyone and everyone. “Companies want to host their clients, they want to host their employees or they want to host comedy nights. People want to host parties, their 40th or 50th anniversary… There is a need for cultural infrastructure that doesn’t exist in our country,” said Narain as he further explained the vision behind this concept.
Narain was quick to answer when asked whether he would be competing with the WeWorks of India. “We are not a co-working space,” he said. Co-working spaces are based on a rental arbitrage business model whereas district150 is a hospitality-themed meeting and events venue that cannot be rented, per se. ‘People pay for the day, get their work done and leave, it’s not a co-working space,’ he added.
When you think of venues for corporate events, gatherings, festivities and special occasions, you often think of hotels and their lavish halls. That is exactly what Vivek Narain is competing against. “Our demand comes from people who normally go to the hotels,” Narain helps us understand who the ideal customer for d150 will be.
What All Does district150 Have To Offer?
“So we have a restaurant that's open to the public. It's a modern Indian contemporary Indian restaurant. We have a partnership with Subko which is one of the best coffee brands in the country. Very artisanal,” said Narain on being asked about district150’s offerings.
district150’s primary offerings include rentable working spaces. There are plenty of different spaces that are available for hire. They’ve got something called ‘the stage’ which is inspired by opera-style theatre designed specifically for corporate presentations and parties. They have something called the ‘Dunbar room’ which is a three-and-a-half thousand square feet banquet space. There is a room called ‘the grid’ that is built for photoshoots. There are pre-function spaces that are designed like members’ club lounges. They even have a podcast room, the room where we conducted the interview. Add all of this and an abundance of meeting spots spread all across the property and you have yourself what Vivek Narain calls ‘future of meetings and events’.
Narain strongly believes that being amenity-rich is the way forward for corporate real estate properties. “People don’t mind being in an amenity-rich environment,” he added.
As per Narain, there is a race to make office buildings amenity-rich and district150 will be taking the lead. “An amenity 5 -10 years ago was a Starbucks in the lobby, then it was a bunch of restaurants in a plaza. This (district150), is the future of the amenetisation of the office building.
Talking About The Big Picture
Narain’s goal is to build district150 across the country partnering with all grade-A developers in India. “We believe that they should have an amenity like district150 in all their buildings,” he added.
Not giving any answer on which city he’s planning on expanding next, Narain did state that he believes this is a highly scalable business and plans on expanding to major cities like New Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai. “Easier said than done but that’s definitely the aspiration,” added Narain.
The saying “roads that lead to a great view are seldom paved with marble” seems apt here. Vivek Narain’s journey from banking to hospitality to real estate seems nothing short of a rollercoaster ride. Be it expanding the Quorum Club or starting a new expedition with district150, it’ll be interesting to see how Narain’s vision of introducing and expanding cultural infrastructure in the country unfurls. On being asked whether he’ll do it all over again, the answer he gave resonated with his energy. “…I think I would,” he responded.
