Most office-space mistakes in India aren't about location or price — they're about facilities nobody checked before signing. A building can look polished in a broker tour and still fail on the basics that determine whether your team can actually work reliably. Here's the checklist we walk through on every space evaluation.
Power and connectivity — the two things that stop work entirely
- 100% power backup, not partial. Ask specifically whether backup covers workstation power, not just lights and lifts. Partial backup buildings still go dark on desks during outages, which is common enough in most Indian cities to plan around rather than hope around.
- Redundant internet from at least two ISPs. A single fiber line with no failover means one cut cable takes your entire team offline. Ask for the actual ISP names and whether failover is automatic or manual.
- Dedicated bandwidth, not shared building bandwidth. Some managed spaces oversubscribe shared internet across tenants. Ask what your guaranteed minimum bandwidth is, not just the advertised maximum.
Security and access control
- Biometric or card-based entry, not just a reception desk sign-in sheet.
- CCTV coverage of entry points and common areas, with a stated retention period for footage.
- Visitor management process — if clients will visit, ask how guest access is logged and controlled.
- After-hours access policy — if your team needs to work late to overlap with US or UK time zones, confirm the building allows 24/7 access rather than locking down at a fixed hour.
Compliance and safety
- Fire safety certificate — ask to see it, not just be told it exists.
- Clearly marked fire exits and a visible evacuation plan.
- Structural occupancy certificate for the building, particularly for newer construction.
- Local municipal compliance for the specific floor/unit you're taking, since older buildings sometimes have unapproved additional floors.
Facilities that affect retention, not just comfort
These matter more than most first-time founders expect, because they directly affect whether engineers want to stay:
- A functioning pantry or cafeteria area — even basic tea/coffee/water infrastructure reduces daily friction
- Clean, well-maintained washrooms (a genuinely common complaint in older buildings)
- Adequate parking or easy access to public transport, since most Indian tech talent commutes rather than lives nearby
- Meeting rooms with working video-conferencing equipment — not a TV with an HDMI cable that half-works, but an actual conferencing setup your international team can rely on for client calls
Questions to ask on the tour, not after signing
- "What happens during a power outage — walk me through it right now."
- "Can I speak to another tenant in this building about their experience?"
- "What's included in CAM charges, itemized?"
- "Who do we call for a facilities issue, and what's the response-time commitment?"
- "Has this building had any fire safety violations or compliance issues in the past two years?"
A provider who answers these clearly and specifically is a good sign. Vague or deflected answers on facilities are one of the clearest red flags in the entire evaluation process — far more predictive of problems than the rent number.
Why this checklist is easier with a managed/dedicated model
When you take dedicated seats inside an already-operating managed office, most of this checklist has already been tested by the provider's existing tenants — power backup has already failed and been fixed, internet redundancy has already been stress-tested, and security processes are already running, not promised. That's a meaningful part of why we run our own team model out of Spaze iTech Park in Gurgaon rather than a fresh, unproven space: the facilities have a track record before your team ever sits down. If you'd like the exact facilities specification for that space, contact us and we'll send it over.
