From Corporate Job to Freelance: How Nikhil Made the Transition at LOFT

Nikhil Verma spent six years working in corporate finance at a mid-sized company in Nagpur. He was good at the job. He was bored by year four and quietly miserable by year six.

In late 2024, he resigned and went independent as a freelance financial consultant. The first three months were the hardest of his professional life.

"I had the skills. I had some contacts. What I did not have was a structure. Working from home was catastrophic. Not because of the work itself, but because I had no way to separate who I was at work from who I was at home. Everything became one amorphous thing."

Finding Structure at LOFT

A colleague from his previous company suggested LOFT. Nikhil joined on a monthly individual desk membership at LOFT 1 at IT Park.

"The IT Park location was important for me psychologically. I was used to going to a professional area to work. That anchor mattered in those early months when nothing else felt stable."

Within three months of joining LOFT, Nikhil had structured his workday into a repeatable pattern. Six hours of client work. One hour of business development. The rest for learning and admin.

"LOFT gave me a container for the day. Without the container, everything spilled everywhere."

Building a Client Base Through Community

Nikhil credits two of his first three clients to introductions made at LOFT. One came from a casual conversation with a founder in an adjacent cabin who needed financial projections for a fundraise. Another came through a referral from a LOFT member who knew a business owner looking for exactly his kind of expertise.

He now runs a practice with four retainer clients and a waiting list.

"Leaving a corporate job is terrifying. The thing that made it work was having a professional environment and a community to land in. LOFT was both of those things at the same time."