Binu & Meghana

Meghana Subramanian grew up in India and considers Cochin her hometown, but much of her early childhood was spent at a strict Catholic boarding school in the mountains. She believes her early environment played a part in shaping her into the bold and intrepid individual that she grew to become, and she channeled the passion and fire that burned within her, questioning unjust or unfair authority, and addressing adversity head on from an early age. These traits also helped her in school, where she excelled.

From an early age she was introduced to electronics devices, video games, and computers as gifts from her dad. She believes this helped her develop a strong appreciation for science, technology, and engineering. Her Mom dreamed she would be a traditional house wife while her Father supported her decisions. Meghana knew – without a shadow of a doubt – that she would be an engineer.

Meghana always scored top marks in Math and Physics throughout her academic career and graduated with high scores in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from Cochin University of Science & Technology in 2000. During her final engineering semester, she completed her first computer programming project at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, India’s Space Research Program. It was in this position that she discovered her love for computer science and landed her career in Software Development.

After emigrating to the United States, Meghana became involved in the real estate industry. She negotiated her first real estate transaction while interning at FileNet [Currently IBM] and has since been involved in a number of transactions in the United States and India. She earned her MS in Computer Systems from City University of Seattle in 2005 and, prior to starting extraSlice, accumulated more than 14 years of experience in the High-tech industry. She has worked in various roles relating to Technology Leadership, Product Management, Software Development, and Team Building. These experiences helped her build an extremely lean and hands-on team at extraSlice that works together seamlessly to discover product/market fits with ruthless focus. Meghana also led the company’s marketing efforts – increasing sales and brand recognition. She is an advocate for women and has helped hundreds of females in the tech industry build their careers. Meghana’s leadership, real estate savvy, and technological expertise have poised extraSlice to create transformative change in the industry and, while the Covid-19 Pandemic has led to a decline in growth in the industry, she is navigating an unstable market to return her company to the profitability it saw in 2019.

Based on Meghana’s evaluation, the commercial real estate industry is past due for a technological disruption. The industry’s landscape will change entirely over the next two decades and the current structure of offices will not meet market demands. The trend of foreign individuals migrating to the United States and other developed nations for work will soon end, as employers introduce new technological innovations into their workspaces to allow for increased collaboration. Tools, technologies, and methods that make it easier to support global innovation will produce a balanced global economy.

Binu Reghunathan was born in a small hillside town in India into a family of well-respected high school teachers. Uncommon among people in the area, they were well-known advocates of children’s education. As such, Binu grew up understanding that education is the key to success. His future became clearer in tenth grade after he accidentally applied to a BASIC computer programming course and successfully completed the course ranked at the top of his class.

After graduating from Engineering School in 1995, Binu began his first job as an engineer with a start-up based in Bangalore. His interest in start-ups blossomed while he saw firsthand the painful challenges that growth creates. Binu's initial focus was on cellular technologies and, while working at a Singapore based company, Binu was offered a transfer to their research and development center in the United States. He has since lived in the greater Seattle area and helped many companies — including Ericsson and Oracle — release enterprise level large scale systems in the areas of high availability, electronic payments, and cloud computing applications. It was at this time that Binu became interested in real estate. He has since been involved in a variety of transactions, both as an individual and with multiple groups.

He earned his Master of Business Administration, with an emphasis on Technology Management, from the Foster School of Business at University of Washington in 2007. Binu is also an avid supporter of children’s education and, in his free time, works to support causes that create equal opportunities for kids in education.

In his role as founder of extraSlice, Binu provides strategic and sales direction for the company. He led the growth of the business, from a new company to a multi-million-dollar business and handled initial rounds of growth funding. He has also led the company through the dire Covid-19 Pandemic that has so greatly impacted the market -- making plans for the future in a Post-Covid-19 market.

Binu strongly believes that the adoption of transformative technology in the commercial real estate industry is long overdue and is working to transform the industry with his work at extraSlice by increasing the number of choices clients have, reducing costs, providing fast and easy setup of office spaces, and implementing changes to the entire process of purchasing commercial real estate space so that it emphasizes tech driven decision making and AI based solutions to existing problems.

Making A Mark in The Pacific Northwest:

In 2000, Binu moved to Singapore & joined a start-up who had acquired a Bellevue-based company & asked him to lead the local tech integration. But his conditioning that living in the U.S. meant living in the heart of a fast-paced city gave him pause. Thankfully on his 1st visit, he went for a drive on Hwy 2 in the mountains & he instantly felt at peace in the natural beauty.

As is traditional in India, Binu & Meghana’s families introduced them as a potential match for each other. However, Binu was so focused on work that he never responded. Meghana – always bold & fearless – did the untraditional thing & wrote him a long letter to ask him why. Over the next year, the union was sealed over a shared love of engineering & their rebellious spirits.
Newly married, they moved to Bellevue to begin their new life. But just one week in & Meghana was miserable being financially dependent & sitting at home. She longed to work, but market condition along with work visa restrictions were extremely tough as she moved to United States just few weeks after 9/11. Within few months after facing many rejections, Meghana landed her 1st of several wonderfully challenging jobs.

The couple was thriving & over the years they started a family, received their master’s degrees, began investing in real estate & became respected leaders in both start-ups & large companies.

With two daughters, a well-established career & growing real estate investments, Binu & Meghana knew they were ready for a new challenge.

Then a fateful call came.

A mentor had joined a company in transition from start-up to growth mode & asked them to join the team. During this time a paradigm shift occurred as they went from being solely spouses to being business leaders – together for the 1st time. Their complimentary skills became apparent, Meghana’s inspired leadership rallied the troops & Binu’s business acumen helped the teams find their footing. The hours were long & they spent every free moment in conversation about their desire to start a tech business together. And after months of discussion, they decided the time for change was now.

Binu & Meghana resigned on the same day & in 2013 extraSlice was born.