A Day in the Life of Nakul Sharma, Founder and CEO at Hostmaker

What’s your morning routine?

I’m up around 5.30-6am and I try to go for a 30-minute run a couple of days a week. This is then followed by a quick scroll of the news and emails.

Tea or coffee?

I love a Nespresso coffee with a shot of frothy milk.

Who do you spend most of your day alongside?

Our team is growing at such a fast pace that allocated seating arrangements last for not more than a week. And because I’m travelling quite a bit for work, I don’t actually have a seat assigned. So I’m hotdesking most of the time!

How do you build relationship with each of your 150+ employees?

There are different ways of communicating different messages. I try and meet everyone in person through the on boarding process by sharing the background and vision for the company. That is critical to making a connection and ensuring that they believe that I’m accessible to them. We have offices in Paris, Barcelona and Rome, so I frequently use Google Hangouts for project meetings and catch-ups. I visit the other offices once every 6-8 weeks. We have recently tried to create a virtual global office by setting up projectors and video cameras in all offices so we can all feel part of one team rather than separate city offices. We also have an internal Facebook group where I post regular updates about what’s happening around us in our competitive landscape. And then, of course, there’s emails…

What’s the one work task you engage with most in a day?

Reviewing the dashboard of our key metrics. It ensures we can spot blips in performance instantly.

What book are your currently reading?

I usually read a lot of business related non-fiction, I’m currently reading High Output Management by Andy Grove. It’s a great read connected to learning how to scale a business by being mindful of the tasks and contributions of all team members, right from the frontline operations teams who make the difference in our guest experience to the middle management who ensure that we stay on top of our service standards.

How do you make things simple when everything is so busy?

There’s only so much that can be achieved in a given day/week/month. Therefore, being super focused on delivery of short-term objectives is vital to achieving long-term goals. It can get overwhelming with so many different communication channels – phone calls, email, chat, Whatsapp, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. I try to stay disciplined by colour coding my calendar by the type of tasks I am working on so I can review where my time is spent. And then I use Google Keep as my to-do list keeper.