Nishay Maharaj

I’m a 27-year-old working professional. On paper, I have a job. In reality, I appear to be running a small startup incubator out of my own brain.

Most people finish work and relax. I finish work and immediately start researching tech, business, marketing, consumer psychology, market trends, random opportunities, and occasionally why pigeons walk the way they do. One of these topics usually becomes a side business.

I don’t really have hobbies. I have revenue streams in various stages of development.

I drink occasionally, don’t party, and generally prefer a chilled environment. If you see my light on at 2am, don’t worry. I’m not having a breakdown. I’ve simply convinced myself that I’ve discovered a gap in the market that nobody else has noticed and am now 37 tabs deep into proving it.

As a roomie, I believe in radical ideas such as:

• Paying rent on time.
• Cleaning up after myself.
• Replacing the toilet roll.
• Not leaving dishes in the sink long enough to qualify for citizenship.

I’m clean, but not “label-the-spices-alphabetically” clean. I believe cleanliness should be measured by whether guests are comfortable entering the house, not whether the house can pass a military inspection.

My sense of humour adapts to the room. I enjoy making people laugh, but not at someone else’s expense. If someone falls over, I’ll help them up before making sure the floor has been charged appropriately.

Benefits of living with me include:

• Free tech support.
• Free business advice.
• Unsolicited business advice.
• Occasional TED Talks on subjects nobody asked about.
• Very low probability of drama.
• Extremely high probability of hearing, “Okay, hear me out…”

I play chess occasionally, mostly bullet. This has trained me to make decisions quickly, remain calm under pressure, and confidently execute plans that look completely insane until several moves later.

I also have a special talent for explaining why spending money today will save money tomorrow. Sometimes I’m right. Sometimes I’m just presenting a startup pitch to myself.

I have a full-time job, but every few months I end up launching another business. At this point I’ve accepted that I don’t have hobbies—I have subsidiaries.

What I’m looking for is a chilled place with good people, mutual respect, and a household where everyone understands that if I’m staring at a wall in silence, I’m probably not depressed. I’m either solving a problem, planning a business, or trying to figure out how someone turned a pressure washer into a million-rand company.

If accepted, I promise to be a responsible roomie and to limit the number of businesses launched from the property to a reasonable amount.