📱 3 big updates to elumo
At GCUC in NYC last week, essensys introduced three highly-requested updates to elumo.
1. Wireless (easy-to-retrofit) smart handle locks.
2. New ROI-friendly pricing.
3. A whole new approach to integrations.
We dive right into what they look and feel like, in a live demo we recorded with Hector at our booth last week.
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Coworking impact
🎉 Coworking celebrations
👏 CEO celebrates 10 years at Firmspace #
While a decade at a coworking brand is celebration-worthy, it’s Kenny Kane’s trajectory from Ops consultant, through director of ops, VP of ops, COO and then CEO of Firmspace which is truly ululate-worthy.
Not sure what Ululating is? You’re gonna have to attend GCUC Africa.
👉 Read this.
🎂 Thinkspace turned 18! #
Peter Chee shares that Thinkspace turned 18 on April 1st, 2026! Congrats to the team and all 1300+ members who’ve coworked across their 3 locations.
👉 Read this.
📰 Coworking news & views.
🚼 If less than 0.3% of coworking hubs offer childcare… #
Steven Clarke shares that of the ~40,000 coworking spaces, if only 120 of them offer childcare then the ‘system has failed working mums specifically.’
👉 Read this.
💰 How this community crowd-funded $650k #
John Ho shares how Alt_ crowdfunded the $650,000 they needed to build Alt_PingRiver in Chiang Mai, their second coliving and coworking space.
They raised the amount from 40 investors, and took 10 months.
👉 Read this.
⭐️ A testimonial most operators dream of… #
… and 10 years in the making. Jamie Brown shares how he started with a tour by work.life cofounder David Kosky. He got a hot desk in Camden, then an office 12 months later, then moved to Soho in 2019 – growing through 4 different offices as their team grew.
As another bonus, the workspace brand has also worked with Jamie’s firm (Two Boys) for all their design and marketing for over 6 years.
👉 Read this.
🧮 Instead of vibe-based pricing for VO products… #
PilotoMail shared a 2026 Virtual Mailbox Pricing Guide that includes how to layer offerings and avoid common pricing traps.
👉 Read this.
🇲🇳 Ever wondered how coworking started in Mongolia? #
Angel Kwiatkowski shares that 10 years ago, a cold email asking her to help start a coworking space in Ulaanbaatar started and adventure that included Craig Baute flying over there and resulted in Mongolia getting its very first coworking space.
When folks ask just how helpful Coworking Leaders are, point them at this post.
👉 Read this.
📠 Are office landlords having their FAX moment? #
Jerome Chang points out that "fax machines and traditional office leases are dying for the same reason."
He explores how the unbundling and eventual demise of what fax machines can be compared to what’s happening with the unbundling of "office" products and solutions.
👉 Read this.
🎯 Personality assessments for coworking teams #
Coworks continue their look at how to hire and hold onto great staff members in your space. Lauren Walker talked with a coach and consultant who uses Strengthsfinder and DiSC to help teams work better together.
So. Many. Lessons! Among them? Small teams need this even more than bigger ones.
👉 Read this.
🆚 Is it time to design for both ME and WE? #
Scott Hartkopf opines how packed offices could be improved by splitting workspaces into Me and We spaces. The first is for deep focus at an individual level, and the latter is for team-driven work.
It’s a great idea and a fun illustration. Having seen coworking spaces split up their floorplan into different activity-based neighborhoods (think quiet zones, call zones, etc) this could be a pretty interesting addition to those offering managed suites. PS. Hope the use of "WE" space doesn’t infringe someone’s trademark.
👉 Read this.
🤔 Are some of the best operators not from coworking? #
Gaia Almeida from Bottle Rocket Search shares how some of the best coworking operators didn’t actually get their start in the industry, and what that means for brands looking to hire innovative and experienced leaders to help them scale, grow and defend their businesses.
👉 Read this.
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💻 Coworking technology.
📝 Recap: Turning your website into a high-converting revenue channel #
Get all the insights from OfficeRnD‘s recent webinar and learn how to make more money by optimizing your website for conversions.
👉 Read this.
👾 Tracking pixel for ChatGPT introduced… #
Juozas Kaziukėnas shares that OpenAI have launched a tracking pixel for ChatGPT ads.
If you’ve ever run a facebook conversion ad campaign, you’ll have used a very similar ‘pixel’. It’s what you use to report checkout/booking conversions to the ad networks. It’s a big sign of things to come, and how the AI co aims to hit their $100B revenue goal for 2030.
👉 Read this.
💸 The oft-ignored cost of vibe coding #
Aron Levin posts a humorous screenshot of the cost of vibe coding a solution to replace the polished SaaS product they used to spend $49/month on.
Are their benefits of building your own tooling? Yes. Is it going to be cost effective or easier? Probably, not yet.
👉 Read this.
🎠 Platform adds engine to end dispute merry-go-round #
Josh Freed shares that Proximity have rolled out a Dispute Engine to help operators auto-assemble an evidence packet for banks to win more chargeback disputes.
A fantastic use of automation for solving a task-heavy, and stressful, workflow.
👉 Read this.
🦾 Salesforce shifts focus away from browser #
Ed Sim, founder at boldstart ventures, explores Marc Benioff’s move to make Salesforce "Headless".
The move? Making the entire Salesforce, Agentforce and Slack platforms available via APIs, MCP and CLI, giving AI Agents (and the devs that build them) more access than ever before.
The kinda-subtle move? Moving from per-seat (human) pricing to consumption-based (AI agent consumption) pricing.
Watch this space.
👉 Read this.
😎 How-to: Build an Inbound Sales Skill with Claude #
Nexudus co-founder Carlos Almansa and Fran Castillo break down just how to build an inbound sales pipeline using Claude Skills.
They cover lead enrichment, ICP scoring, product recommendation, SPIN demo scripts, and a ready-to-send email sequence. Practical, step-by-step, and built specifically for coworking operators.
👉 Read this.
⚠️ PSA: Vibe-coding platform leaking code and creds… #
AI tech founder Alex Turnbull shared a PSA that vibe-coding platform Lovable is experiencing a mass data leak.
"If you built a project before Nov 2025, your source code, database credentials & AI chat history can be viewed by any free account today."
The security, reliability and management of vibe coded tools is a conversation I’ve had a lot recently.
👉 Read this.
🤖 The agents are coming… into OfficeRnD #
Although we hinted at it a few weeks ago, this week OfficeRnD officially launched AI Hub – a new AI automation layer for operators using OfficeRnD Flex to run their businesses.
Up first? An AI Sales Agent to handle leads while you sleep, or you know… run your business.
👉 Read this.
📈 Coworking data.
🚀 Some thoughts on JLL’s elastic portfolio piece #
Mark Gilbreath, skipper at Liquidspace, digs into a piece by Scott Homa, Alex Colpaert, Lee Fong and Matthew McAuley at JLL that makes it abundantly clear: flex is now a core CRE strategy.
"The data is pretty hard to ignore: only 3% of large enterprises use flexible space for more than 10% of their portfolio. Average utilization sits at 54% against a corporate target of 79%. And 43% of corporate leaders expect headcount to grow."
"…The 3% figure isn’t a ceiling. It’s the starting line." Yes, Mark!
👉 Read this.
🗺️ Yardi releases Coworking Index dashboard #
In case you missed our podcast episode about this with Sam Rosen and Peter Kolaczynski, Yardi and Coworking Cafe have introduced an interactive dashboard for tracking US coworking data, benchmarked against office market data.
Best of all? It’s updated monthly.
👉 Read this.
🤝 Coworking market moves.
🇺🇸 Office Evolution expands in Texas #
Office Evolution is adding a new location in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area.
The space is managed by franchise owner Daryl L. Newman and his wife, Kimberly Newman, who will open the location on May 4 at 122 W. John Carpenter Freeway, Suite 325, in Irving’s Las Colinas neighborhood.
👉 Read this.
🇺🇸 IO Southlake cuts ribbon with chamber of commerce #
Intelligent Office opened a new Southlake location with the Southlake Chamber of
Commerce on April 21st.
👉 Read this.
🇺🇸 COhatch opening in Hamilton #
COhatch have shared that their Hamilton location is opening in early May.
👉 Read this.
🇺🇸 Industrious opening at 875 Third Ave. #
Michelle Page shares that Industrious is expanding in Midtown NYC, with a new location opening in July.
👉 Read this.
🇸🇮 Co-op coworking brand launching new hub #
Jose Antonio Morales shares that Aurora Coworking is expanding to their third community-owned hub, launching in Celje, Slovenia.
👉 Read this.
🥒 WOTSO goes all pickle-y #
WOTSO share that they’ve launched PickleSpace at their Pyrmont location, adding two pickleball courts under their management. The courts are bookable by the hour, and available for corporate events.
Regional Manager Matilda Eder says pickleball is considered Australia’s fastest-growing sport and tournament-grade courts such as Pyrmont are in short supply.
👉 Read this.
🇺🇸 Bond Collective gets a new CEO, from within #
Gregg Jackowitz officially announced his shift (from his most recent role as CRO) to the CEO of Bond Collective.
ICYMI, he first joined the firm 10 years ago.
👉 Read this.
🇩🇪 Industrious opens first Frankfurt location #
Coworking Europe reports that Industrious has opened its first location in Frankfurt, expanding its German network to three sites, with two in Berlin.
The new 22,485 sqft workspace, spans three floors in a refurbished office tower.
👉 Read this.
🇬🇧 UK workspace brand launching an incubator #
Claire-Louise Taylor shares that British Land Workspace are launching a dedicated coworking lab and office space for science and technology founders, featuring specialist lab facilities, and expert lab support.
The Lab Ready Incubator will run at Paper Yard, Canada Water in partnership with Prosemino.
👉 Read this.
🎙 Coworking conversations.
Daniel Wesson and Chelle Peterson join Jamie Russo on the Everything Coworking podcast to explore how they, as co-founders of The Post Workspace, built CoLevel AI out of the frustration with their previous tech stack.
Chiko Abengowe joins Kevin Whelan and Taylor Mason on this episode of 2 Marketers and a Coworking Podcast to share how he grew Perfect Office Solutions to 25 locations and 7-figure revenue without following the traditional coworking playbook.
In this episode of Brave Ideas, Caleb Parker and Eyal Lasker, CEO of Flexspace AI sit down with James Panepinto, Group Ancillary Revenue Manager at Clockwise, to unpack what hospitality really means in a coworking environment, and why getting it right can directly impact retention, pricing power, and long-term profitability.
Rob Archer, CEO of Codebase Coworking chats with Jamie Russo and Giovanni Palavicini on the Flex Uncensored podcast about spending 8 years to build a space that actually feels good to work in.