With tomorrow marking the Chinese New Year (the year of the Goat or Sheep) and not having written since 2014, we felt it would be a good time to reflect on our year. It was also a year ago last week that our original founders met, to discuss the viability of pursuing Workfrom.co as a full time endeavor. We started by “dating” (aptly, the week of Valentine’s) to see how well we worked together and really test this thing. In April we took it to the next level and on June 4th we made it official and Workfrom, Inc. was born.
But that’s the boring stuff. Workfrom and our passion is really about you, the community. In a year we’ve accomplished some amazing things together, learned some hard lessons and had a lot of fun.
Largest Curated Guide to Great Workspaces from Portland to Australia
We kicked off the year with 10 (give or take a few) places in Portland. As of the time of this writing, we have 353 verified listings and another 350 in review in 36 countries, 33 states and over 100 cities.
Workfrom now features 10 cities for a localized experience that goes beyond cafe recommendations: Portland, Seattle, Austin, Omaha, New York City, Washington DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles in the US, Maribor in Slovenia, and Amsterdam in The Netherlands.
Special Thanks to the Community
Our ambassadors deserve all the credit for the success and growth of our featured cities. In the past year we had over 500 people reach out wanting to help. As overwhelming as it was, everyone’s been incredibly patient as we spent a good part of the year working with a smaller group of 20 ambassadors across the cities to learn what it takes.
Last June we launched our free, Community Membership and ended the year with thousands of members all over the world! In January we rolled out a premium, Founding Membership.
To all the business owners who’ve supported us and our entire community by making your space a great place to stay awhile. You can read the stories behind the cafes and meet the owners in our Showcases. A few owners went above and beyond to give us a good running start and we’d like to thank them for their early advice, feedback and support.
- Glyph Cafe & Arts Space, Crema, Bare Bones, Southeast Grind in Portland
- Regus & Storyville in Seattle
- Umqua Bank in Seattle & San Francisco
- Commonwealth Joe Coffee & the Java Shack in Washington DC & Virginia
Our team has also grown. When we started we were 3 founders and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have built a team beyond ourselves. Help us in thanking Jason, Faye, Daniel & Jake for taking a chance on a start up and joining us for the ride.
A Look Ahead: Highlights for 2015
In addition to building our communities and global presence over the coming year, we’re excited for some new features.
- Real-time capacity information! Read more about it in Portland Business Journal.
- Mobile app for finding what’s near you and more convenient way to add new locations.
- Community chat and/or forums.
- Shareable lists so you can round up your favorites from city to city.
- Business tools for listed venues—ways to speed up and automate verification to help get more listings live sooner, without risking quality.
To get in on helping us design and prioritize new features, join our Founding Members.
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