One to watch!
Three reasons you should be watching this company:
- WorkClub offers members free access to hybrid workspaces across London.
- Our membership is perfect for people on the move, especially from those who would benefit from not being tied down to one single location.
- Our aim is to become the largest network of workspaces in the UK.
Vital Statistics
● Company: WorkClub
● What it does, in a sentence: WorkClub is a network of hybrid workspaces and private meeting rooms that members can use throughout the day to work, meet and recharge.
● Founded: August 2017
● Founder: Nick Donnelly
● Size of team: Three
● Your name and role: Nick Donnelly
The need to know
What problem are you trying to solve?
● To make unused commercial space accessible, connected and productive.
● Helping people say more productive. In an age of always-on technology and constant interruptions in the office, getting more done in less time is the holy grail. Evidently, the answer is simple: Get out of the office and get onto WorkClub.
● Helping people stay connected and productive at a fraction of the cost of a traditional workspace membership.
● Remove the hassle, stress and inconsistencies of working from the office, the home or the high street coffee shop.
● Working from home means a lack of colleagues, or even other people, which can be oppressive. This is why we have a community of members to work alongside each other.
How big is the market – and how much of it do you think you can own?
In the UK there are roughly 4.2m mobile workers. In addition to this, there are over 8 million part time workers. We believe our market in 2017 to be as big as 12m in the UK, with this number increasing every year. By 2020, reports suggest that over 23m of the workforce will taking advantage of flexible working schedules.
How do you make money?
We make money from both our partnered venues and members.
For our partnered venues, we offer two types of memberships – Premium Venue or Free Venue. A Premium Venue will benefit from a higher ranking in the search results, more traffic through their venue, dedicated WiFi hotspots, printing facilities, they get to offer more exclusive deals to our members, plus more.
For our members, they also get two membership options – Premium Member or Free Member.
Individuals who wish to benefit from better WiFi, access to printing facilities, exclusive deals, and more pay just £30 per month.
Who’s on your team that makes you think you can do this?
We really have the dream team! Our Founder, Nick Donnelly, has several years’ experience in the commercial property industry bringing together a huge amount of knowledge and drive to the team as a whole. Nick has also been building teams and technology platforms since he arrived at university. This experience has given Nick the ability to build incredible technology platforms, with the least investment possible. He builds lean teams and lean machines!
Tori Langhans, our Marketing Manager, is passionate about growing the business through various digital media streams, conducting our own events and organising outreach programs. Her ability to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary is as easy as breathing for her! She really has an incredible eye for making things look and sound good.
The real talent behind WorkClub is our experienced mobile developer Faisal Naseer, our CTO. Faisal is a hard working mobile app developer with an extensive amount of knowledge and experience in the IT world. Faisal has build both our iOS and Android apps.
WorkClub also benefits from a board of experienced advisors to help guide WorkClub’s growth.
Who’s bankrolling you?
WorkClub has been completely funded by the founder Nick Donnelly. Our team have all the relevant skills needed to launch the platform – meaning the cost of building the technology was significantly reduced. We have been approached by a number of organisations that have shown interest in funding the businesses future, however as we are in no rush to secure funding we are able to step back, pause and consider our options.
What advice would you give other entrepreneurs trying to secure that kind of finance?
We will let you know when we have done it!
What do you believe the key to growing this business is?
Like many business owners at the start of their journey, I had no experience in successfully growing a start-up. However, over the course of my career, I have learned a few things that could help minimize the bumps and bruises every business owner will face, while still maintaining growth and overall team motivation.
Know what your business does and does not do, become an expert in that one field before expanding your business into other sectors. Stay focused on the goal – when everyone understands what the overall goals of the startup are, it allows everyone to rally together and take pride in successfully accomplishing them. Staff are key – people work for people, not companies.
Passion is contagious, I do what I love and it shows to the people that surround me every day. Showing excitement and enthusiasm cannot be underestimated in terms of how it relates to your team working harder, being more focused, and ultimately more successful at their job.
Lastly, always challenge yourself to keep improving – technology is constantly evolving and that means we need to too. I believe that you are either moving forward or you are becoming obsolete.
What metrics do you look at every day?
The most useful metrics for us are: download numbers, user engagement, customer satisfaction, acquisition, and app performance. These metrics are critical to scaling and measuring the business.
What’s been your biggest mistake so far?
Not focusing on our health and wellbeing for the first few months. Building a new business from scratch is incredibly difficult and time consuming. Because of this, our health and wellbeing took a bit of a hit. Instead of cooking our own meals with fresh food, we were eating out for every meal.
We were also not making time to be active and stay fit. It hit a point where we were all out of breath after climbing six flights of stairs on our way to a meeting. This was not good! Therefore we decided to make a change.
The working day now starts and ends whenever you want it to, as long as you get the work done. This changed has allowed us to be in more control over our own time and thus allowed us to stay fit and healthy, even under the stress and pressure of building and launching a start-up.
What do you think is on the horizon for your industry in the year ahead?
Studies suggest the UK flexible workforce will grow from just under 5m to over 20m by 2020. This is massive increase, however the current infrastructure will not support these future predictions.
Therefore companies and individuals need a solution now to start making the transition from your typical 9-5 to a more flexible working lifestyle.
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