Today we’d like to introduce you to Swarna Mohan.
Hi Swarna, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I did not set out to build a company. I set out to become the kind of person my family already was.
My grandfather started with very little and built a tea plantation, but that is not what people remembered. They remembered that he helped them. More than two thousand people came to his funeral, and they were not there out of duty. They were grieving someone who had changed their lives. I was in the United States, pregnant with my first daughter, when I heard that. I sat with it for a long time. I promised myself I would try to live the way he had.
My mother showed me the same thing in a quieter way. She was the person people called when they did not know where else to turn. I grew up watching her hold other people’s worries as if they were her own. I still hope my daughters will one day say that about me.
School came first. I earned a dual degree -Bachelors in Electronics and Instrumentation and Master in Physics with Distinction from one of the Ivy League Universities in India and had two job offers waiting. I took the Semiconductor path and was working with a Startup company for about 10 years before my motivation to be an entrepreneur took over. I could have taken the safer road but quit my corporate job and started in Real Estate. I had started a custom furnishings company initially, which taught me what it means to be responsible for every dollar and every person who trusts you, and grew it to six figures. It taught me that I like building things that did not exist before I walked in.
Real estate found me next, and it fit in a way I did not expect. Within four years I was one of Austin’s top 500 producers. I earned my Texas Accredited Commercial Specialist designation in 2021. I got to show Austin on the American Dream TV network. In 2023 I received an Outstanding Leadership Award and a Top 50 Teams in Austin honor. I am proud of those, but they are not the part of the story that still moves me.
The harder part was being a woman in commercial real estate, and being a single mother at the same time. There were rooms where I had to prove I belonged before anyone would listen. There were nights when the work and my daughters both needed me, and I did not have a second version of myself to send. What carried me was not toughness for its own sake. It was knowing what financial independence had done for me, and wanting other women to have that same door open.
That is why Full Circle RE exists. I built it with Sivajyothi Rachumalla and Chakradhar Karri because I did not want a brokerage that only rewarded the people already winning. I wanted agents, including women coming back into the workforce after years at home, to have a place where they were taught, trusted, and paid. Today I am the broker, and the company serves the Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio markets. Alongside the brokerage, I work in syndication, bringing investors together for residential and commercial land across those same cities. The two sides teach each other. Selling shows you what people need. Development shows you what it takes to create it.
I do not think of this as a race. A race has one winner. The deals I want are the ones where everyone leaves better than they came, and the people beside me leave able to lead without me. My grandfather did not build a crowd of followers. He built people. That is still the only success I am chasing.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road. The hardest part was not one big failure. It was doing all of it at once.
I was building a business and raising my daughters as a single mother. Some days the work needed me in a room, and my girls needed me at home, and I could not be both. I learned to live with that guilt and still show up. I did not get to put either one down.
Commercial real estate made it heavier. As a woman, I walked into rooms where I was underestimated before I spoke. There were stereotypes I could not argue my way out of. I stopped trying to change how other people saw me and put my energy into how I responded, and into doing the work so well that the bias had less room to matter.
There were also moments when pushing harder would have broken something I cared about. I had to learn when to fight and when to let a deal, or a person, go. The wins I trust now are the ones where everyone leaves better, not the ones I forced.
What got me through was not a thicker skin. It was knowing what financial independence had given me, and refusing to let that door close for me or for the women coming up behind me. The struggle is still there. I just do not walk it alone anymore.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Full Circle RE?
Full Circle is really two businesses that grew out of the same idea: help people make a real estate decision they will still be glad they made years later.
Full Circle RE is the brokerage. We buy, sell, and lease homes across the Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio metros, We also help with investment property and the practical side of owning it. I founded it with Chakradhar Karri and Sivajyothi Rachumalla. Chak is Designated Broker and Co-Founder. I am Founder and Associate broker. What I care about on the residential side is not a fast closing. It is a family, often a first-time buyer, who understands the market, is not rushed, and leaves with a home that fits their life and their net worth.
Full Circle Commercial Group is where I spend most of my own work now. We handle land, commercial sales, and commercial leasing in those same metros. After I earned the Texas Accredited Commercial Specialist designation in 2021, the work settled into land sales and land development, investment purchases and sales, retail strip centers, flex warehouse, and office condos, plus representing both tenants and landlords on leases. I am building a commercial team around a client base I already know, instead of handing people off to strangers.
What sets us apart is that we do not split the story in half. A lot of firms will sell you a house or a parcel and disappear. We stay for the next decision: what to buy, what to build, who to lease it to, and whether it actually grows someone’s wealth. My own background is STEM and entrepreneurship, so I tend to walk people through the process in order, before the deadlines hit, rather than surprising them at the end.
Brand-wise, I am most proud of the name. Full Circle means the relationship comes back around. Clients refer their friends. Agents we trained go on to lead. Women who stepped out of the workforce find a place to earn again. If a reader remembers one thing, I want it to be this: we are a Texas brokerage and a commercial group, based in North Austin, and we treat a transaction as the start of a relationship, not the end of one.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I would say i am a Risk-Taker but i always put my own money first at risk before putting any one else’s. Also i try to research as much information as i can and try to mitigate the risks to the best of my ability.
For example when i was getting into flex spaces and commercial leasing, i first ventured into buying two spaces for my own and tried to understand the leasing dynamics from a landlord’s and broker’s perspective before i started helping my investor clients purchase similar flex spaces.
Similarly when i started getting into commercial developments i also started doing commercial leasing to understand which factors attract tenants and how to negotiate leasing terms in a mutually beneficial way and now take those lessons to provide right recommendations for our clients’ developments.
Every investment has a risk component to it – so does Real Estate. But what helps navigate Real Estate investments is Patience (so we can time the Purchase and Sales) and the Right Mindset to approach the risks.
Some decisions may not work out but i approach it with a problem solving attitude rather than getting bogged down by it. Every transaction and every decision is an opportunity to learn something new and make new connections. Thats my motivation to keep pushing.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.fullcircle-realestate.com and www.fullcirclecommercialgroup.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarnamohanrealtor/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarnamohanrealtor/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swarna-mohan
- Other: https://swarna-fullcircle.github.io/index.html#about
