From real estate models to aerial arts and padel courts, Akshat Amonker shares how embracing uncertainty helped him create Goa’s premier movement and community hub at Dona Paula
For Akshat Amonker, starting young has never been about having a perfectly defined path. His journey has moved through finance, real estate, fitness and music, with each experience eventually finding its place in AER, his movement and wellness space in Dona Paula, Goa.
Spread across three levels overlooking the Zuari River, AER brings together aerial arts, padel, pickleball, a café and social space. Yet for Akshat, the activities are only a means to something larger: creating a community of people who care about fitness, wellness and living intentionally.
Real estate and finance were familiar territories from an early age. Real estate was part of his family environment, while finance became a serious interest during his BBA at NMIMS. Fitness entered his life during college when he took up boxing, eventually training in boxing, Muay Thai and kickboxing. After returning to Goa, he moved towards running and Hyrox. Music came through an internship in Mumbai with music director Advait Nemlekar, which introduced him to music production and encouraged him to pursue it more seriously.
“Real estate and finance were always on my radar,” he says. “Fitness came during those same college years, when I took up boxing. That is when I knew I wanted to do something in that space, even if not as my main career.”
His father has been a major influence in his willingness to explore different fields. Having moved through engineering, finance, entrepreneurship, real estate, law and investments, he became the person Akshat looked up to most. “Watching him chase so many different things over the years is a big part of what has given me the confidence to do the same,” he says.
The idea for AER began to take shape when Akshat returned to Goa and started training for Hyrox. He noticed 50 to 60 people gathering in Bambolim at 5:30 in the morning to run together. Having experienced the influence of a fitness-oriented community during college, he saw an opportunity to create something similar in Goa.
“That’s all AER really is. A place where you can find your people.”
What began with pickleball courts gradually evolved. Padel followed after Akshat started playing the sport himself, while an area originally planned for multiple activities became an aerial arts studio after he saw a performance by Studio Naach. The café came last, and became what he calls ‘the glue’, the place where people linger before and after games and where the community gets built.
The concept may continue to evolve into recovery, Pilates, Krav Maga and rock climbing, but the activities themselves are not the ultimate goal. “The specific activities matter less than what they’re really there to do,” he says.
Turning that idea into a physical space required another set of skills. Akshat’s background in finance and investment research helped him approach AER through financial modelling and commercial viability. At the same time, his experience in property advisory at Knight Frank India proved useful during construction.
It was his first major construction project and one that taught him patience. “On paper you expect it to move fast,” he says. “But showing up at the site every day, you realise how long each small piece takes, and how it is a hundred small things working together to bring something big to life.”
Some ideas that looked good on paper proved too expensive or simply unworkable once construction began. AER’s location on a slope created further limitations, while coordinating with contractors, architects, engineers, fabricators and specialist teams added complexity. A planned May launch was delayed by an election, an LPG shortage and workers returning to their villages.
The experience gave Akshat a practical rule: take the best-case estimate for cost and timeline; and double it. More importantly, it taught him flexibility. “Having a good idea and actually executing it the way you imagined are two very different things.”
For Akshat, however, AER is about more than fitness. He believes young people are increasingly looking for spaces where they can form genuine connections.
“People my age are quite lonely, partly because of social media,” he says. “Everyone’s looking for a place to belong and wants to make new friends, but there are fewer and fewer chances actually to do it.”
He wants AER to become a ‘third space’, somewhere outside home and work where people can meet, form friendships and feel that they belong. “The best part of any sport or activity was never the activity itself. It is the people you do it with.”
That same sense of balance extends into music. A vocalist who plays guitar and piano, Akshat has been writing and producing his own songs and plans to release them under the name Kash. “The entrepreneurial side keeps me engaged with the external world, while music lets me connect with something deeper and more internal,” he says. “It’s almost therapeutic.”
He sees the two worlds complementing each other, with his creative instinct feeding into AER’s branding and content. In the long term, he hopes to grow AER into a major wellness and fitness brand while establishing Kash as an artist in the Indian music scene. “A community can be built around so much more than movement. It can be built around culture and art too.”
His experiences across finance, property and entrepreneurship have each left him with something different. Finance taught him to question an idea and test whether it works commercially; property gave him an understanding of space and construction; entrepreneurship taught him to bring those experiences together and keep moving.
But perhaps his biggest lesson is that waiting to feel completely ready can itself become a barrier.
“The biggest misconception is that everything has to be perfect before you start. It never is, at any age.” He also believes age is less of a barrier than young people imagine. “People take you seriously when you give them a reason.”
Looking ahead, Akshat wants AER to help lead the fitness movement across India, expanding into recovery, wellness, cultural programming and events, while exploring possibilities such as wellness tourism. Personally, he wants to continue pursuing sport, entrepreneurship and music together. “I am chasing physical, entrepreneurial, and artistic goals all at once, and the best part is that none of them is separate. They are all woven into each other.”
For Akshat, starting young is ultimately about having the courage to begin before everything is certain. His advice to others waiting for the right moment is simple: “You only feel ready once you take action, never before.” And so, the philosophy behind his journey comes full circle: the right time was yesterday. The next best time is right now