Life can be funny sometimes, can’t it?
I always thought that my transition into coworking was the golden ticket away from working with large FTSE banks and big corporates, to working with passionate, forward looking start-ups with world domination on the agenda.
I’ve spent the last 2 years focussing on the Future of Work, and building Work.Life with David into a business where we move away from the idea of corporate constraint, focussing our energy on building small, community-led spaces with personality at the centre.
What I didn’t realise at the time is that coworking is as relevant and powerful for some corporates and bigger businesses as it is for small businesses. Check out this post I wrote about why.
With that in mind, we’re so excited to announce that we’ll be launching Work.Life Verizon, a game-changing coworking co-brand with international tech giant, Verizon. Our first space in Clerkenwell will be opening in April.
The opportunity to launch a co-brand with a business like Verizon doesn’t come along every day, and this is a fascinating collaboration in a lot of ways. On the face of things, our two companies couldn’t look more different.
In size, Verizon is a S&P100 company, with a market cap of hundreds of billions of dollars. At Work.Life, we are still very much in start-up phase, having launched our first co-working space in Camden only two years ago.
When it comes to culture, Verizon’s purpose is to deliver the promise of a digital world. At Work.Life, we believe in the power of intimate spaces, face-to-face collaboration and communication to build relationships.
This focus is one of the main reasons our members choose us over competitors, who have lost real connection and community in exchange for scaling up to huge and impersonal networks.
So surely there seems to be a disconnect here?
Look a little deeper, and you’ll see that ventures like these offer so many mutual benefits. Not just for businesses but for members, too.
For Work.Life, it’s an opportunity to offer our members all the benefits of a Work.Life space – an intimate community and personal service – together with the power of the Verizon network and its partners’ networks. This is an unrivalled opportunity for small businesses looking to build expertise and support networks.
Verizon can clearly see the benefits, too. This is their opportunity to support freelancers and bigger businesses, while also gaining from the collaboration with other growing businesses in London.
Working with the Verizon execs over the past few months has been an eye-opener for me into a big business that understands the benefits of the model and the innovation drivers that working with smaller businesses can add. They see the value in a physical workspace like Work.Life, and in bringing brands together, be that their own or innovation from other businesses.
We know that you can’t replicate the power and scale of a digital network. But together, digital connection and innovation is even more powerful when combined with the creativity and connections driven by human collaboration that a brand like Work.Life brings.
Exciting times ahead!
This post was written by our Co-Founder Elliot Gold. To find out more and to stay updated on how to apply, register your interest with us today!
