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🎉 Coworking celebrations
🏆 Rural coworking founder wins outstanding business leader award #
Kate Dezarnaulds, founder of WorkLife coworking spaces, won the Outstanding Business Leader award at the inaugural Kiama Business Awards in Australia, describing the recognition as "absolutely delightful" and unexpected. Dezarnaulds founded WorkLife in 2017 in Berry after growing tired of her daily commute to Sydney (at least 882 times), initially trying remote work from home and cafes before opening her first coworking space.
The company expanded to Kiama and Coledale, lost their Kiama location during COVID, and bounced back by opening a Picton location in 2023, with WorkLife also nominated in the Excellence in Small Business category.
👉 Read this.
🎂 OfficeRnD turns 10 & CEO transitions to Chairman role #
Miro Miroslavov, founder and CEO of OfficeRnD has announced his transition to Chairman of the Board after more than a decade of leading the coworking and flex space management platform company. He also shares a recap video celebrating the firm turning 10 years old.
Congrats Miro, and team OfficeRnD!
👉 Read this.
🎂 Industrious location hits 10 year milestone #
Congrats to the Industrious team for their Avenue of the Arts location for being the first of their spaces to hit the 10 year mark!
👉 Read this.
📰 Coworking news & views.
🌍 Coworking brand is Africa’s 5th fastest growing companies #
Cape Town-based coworking and coliving operator AfricaWorks was ranked fifth in the Financial Times’ 2025 "Africa’s Fastest Growing Companies" list, making it the only coworking company in the top tier based on growth between 2019 and 2022. Founded in 2019, they operate over 25k sqm of office space across 15+ locations in Dakar, Accra, Lagos, Abidjan, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Lusaka.
AfricaWorks achieved revenue growth of over 3,500% during the measurement period, multiplying revenue by 40x to reach approximately $5M in 2022, while employing 150 people (or $33.3k p/employee). The company serves over 1,000 corporate clients including Spotify, TikTok, L’Oréal, Mastercard, and Flutterwave, and this marks its fourth consecutive year appearing in the FT ranking.
👉 Read this.
🌆 Lessons for scaling coworking operations from Tokyo #
COO of Hub Australia, John Preece, wrote an article drawing parallels between Tokyo’s urban management and scaling strategies for coworking spaces.
He presents seven key lessons for operators including designing dense but flexible modular layouts, building reliable invisible infrastructure, fostering culture-based compliance rather than rule enforcement, and creating polycentric networks of locations rather than single large spaces. He emphasizes Tokyo’s approach of decentralized neighborhoods, each with distinct character but connected by efficient transit, as a model for coworking operators to create location families that serve different audiences and needs.
John’s analysis positions Tokyo’s resilience planning, third-space curation, and balance of innovation with tradition as essential frameworks for sustainable coworking growth.
👉 Read this.
🛋️ The primary coworking competitor, isn’t other spaces #
A creative and insightful LinkedIn post from Clockwise Offices‘ Scarlett Benton positioned "working from home" as the flexible workspace industry’s biggest competitive threat, drawing parallels to Netflix’s founder calling "sleep" their main competitor.
The post highlights the ongoing challenge five years post-2020 of convincing workers to choose office space over home comfort and convenience, particularly when companies commit to 12-month licenses but worry about low utilization rates.
She emphasized how Clockwise’s strategy focuses on building community-led, experience-driven programming including events and networking opportunities to create compelling reasons for members to choose office attendance over remote work.
👉 Read this.
✉️ An open letter to flex brokers #
The dialogue around brokers, operators and whether to disintermediate (or not) continues, this time with an "open letter" form of communication addressing deteriorating relationships with real estate brokers in the flexible workspace sector. In this letter, Michael Dubicki, outlines problematic broker behaviors including claiming indefinite client ownership, pursuing renewal fees on long-term members, sending poorly qualified leads, misrepresenting products during tours, pressuring for enhanced fees, and gatekeeping client communication.
For a while now, TWIC has been covering the up and down dynamics between brokers and operators. Many insights and opinions have been shared on what the future of flex brokerage looks like and most importantly the role technology plays in that future.
Many acknowledge that structural flaws incentivize "parasitic" behavior while also calling for transparency around client ownership and incentives, better lead qualification, fair fee structures, and industry regulation to establish common standards. There’s a lot of talk, but not a lot of action. What is the best way for brokers and operators to evolve these partnerships around accountability and long-term value creation?
👉 Read this.
💭 Thought leadership framework to avoid overwhelm #
Cat Johnson shared an eight-step Thought Leadership Framework to help professionals clarify their market position and value proposition. The framework covers vision, mindset, positioning, unfair advantages, expertise categories, target audience, communication channels, and publishing cadence.
This structured approach addresses everything from identifying purpose beyond profit to establishing consistent content systems.
👉 Read this.
⭐️ How to ask your members for Google Reviews #
In this newsletter, Cobot gives you 11 tips on how to ask your members for Google Reviews (both online and offline) without coming off as pushy.
It also includes a free checklist to download as PDF
👉 Read this.
🌇 Can enterprise strategies be built from scratch? #
Many operators open spaces with the intention of welcoming customers of all shapes and sizes, but find it difficult to land enterprise accounts. Whether that be from brokerage firms or direct outreach. Kayley DiCicco from Expansive shares her experience in developing a profitable enterprise sales vertical from scratch over five years, starting with cold calling Fortune 1000 companies despite limited brand recognition in the flexible workspace market.
The strategy development process involves defining the market, shaping product offerings, crafting targeted messaging, building sales processes, establishing credibility, and scaling through iteration with operations and marketing teams.
👉 Read this.
📚 Historical buildings make for excellent storytelling and marketing #
StartDock launched a new episode of their "StartDock Chronicles" podcast focusing on the history of their original coworking location at Herengracht 420 in Amsterdam. The Golden Age canal house previously served as a residence for Amsterdam’s elite before becoming a bank, with the former bank vault now functioning as a meeting room within the coworking space.
There are so many coworking spaces housed in unique and historic places (including banks). Don’t forget that historical storytelling makes for great marketing for coworking operators to promote their spaces by highlighting the unique heritage and character of their buildings.
👉 Read this.
🏬 Going beyond location, location, location. #
Coworking consultant, Jana Greer shares that for investors and owners alike, choosing the right location is often the single most critical factor in a CRE project’s long-term success. But how do you distinguish between a good location, an okay one, and the right one?
The process begins long before you start touring properties — it starts with clarity.
👉 Read this.
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💻 Coworking technology.
💻 Industry vendor adds two new products to it’s platform #
Flexible workspace technology provider technologywithin added two new products to its twiinworkspace platform.
The first being twiinmeet, tablets mounted outside meeting rooms that provide live room status, on-the-spot booking, and meeting details to eliminate overlaps and reduce admin burdens. The company also introduced twiinconcierge to automate the check-in process for members and visitors, automatically notifying members of guest arrivals while helping operators manage front-of-house staffing, parking allocation, guest flow, and incoming/outgoing deliveries.
👉 Read this.
🤖 AI Agent successfully books meeting room, automatically #
Can Chat GPT’s Agent mode book meeting rooms on behalf of your coworking space operating teams?
Spacebring‘s Igor Dzhebyan shares a video of the Agent mode accessing their platform, logging in, selecting appropriate room capacity, and completing payment using personal credits with only pausing for a final purchase confirmation.
For tech providers, Igor predicted that AI agents will handle more and more routine administrative tasks like data migration, customer onboarding and even bookings – referencing Carl Pei’s prediction that most apps may become APIs for AI agents; and questioning whether traditional UI/UX might become obsolete in the "agentic future."
👉 Read this.
🔧 Eight essential coworking tech stack integrations #
OfficeRnD published a comprehensive guide covering eight critical integration categories for coworking operators including: CRM systems, accounting platforms, payment systems, WiFi, door access control, community management tools and automation integration platforms like Zapier.
The article cites McKinsey research showing automation can reduce operational costs by 30% while advocating for open integration ecosystems over rigid ERP-like platforms.
👉 Read this.
📈 Coworking data.
🇺🇸 Office vacancy hits 19.4% as conversion proposals surge #
Jerome Chang shared CommercialCafe‘s June 2025 report that showed the US office vacancy rate reached 19.4% in May, up 160 basis points year-over-year, while average listing rates rose 4.8% to $33.15 per square foot.
Office construction pipeline continues shrinking with only 41.5M square feet under construction nationally, as cities push office-to-residential conversions with 149M square feet proposed for conversion (125M since 2022 start). Austin recorded the second-highest vacancy rate nationally at 26.7% while leading Southern development with 2.7M square feet underway, and Los Angeles logged over $1B in office sales through May despite average sale prices declining 30% from 2022. Office-using employment decreased 3,000 jobs in May with Charlotte outpacing all major markets in office job growth at 3.2% year-over-year.
Data that might lead to some growing distress in the market states "that about 14,000 office properties are encumbered by loans that have recently matured or that will mature by the end of 2027. That equates to 33% of all office loans and adds up to nearly $290 billion. Additionally, at the start of the year, Moody’s reported that the percentage of loans extended in 2024 dropped from the previous year and defaults increased. And, according to Trepp, office commercial mortgage-backed security delinquency rates rose to 11.08% in June, which marked a 3.5% increase from June 2024."
👉 Read this.
🤝 Coworking market moves.
🇬🇧 Techspace opens 7th London location on St Andrew Street #
Techspace will open its seventh London location in November 2025, a newly refurbished 20k sqft building located between Chancery Lane and Farringdon stations on St Andrew Street. The workspace provider’s expansion follows strong demand at its flagship Goswell Road location, which houses the London AI Hub, with the new site offering private offices for 8-32 desks across six floors plus amenities including a café-bar, meeting suite, and rooftop terrace.
The company completed a full refurbishment improving the building’s EPC rating from E to B through sustainable practices including reusing original materials and installing all-electric, renewably powered energy systems.
👉 Read this.
🇫🇷 Le POD closes Angers coworking location after two years #
French regional coworking operator Le POD, owned by Giboire real estate group, closed its 1,200 sqm Angers train station location on July 18, 2025, after operating at only 50% occupancy since opening in April 2023.
The space offered around 120 workstations but faced weak demand and economic challenges affecting smaller businesses in Western France. Le POD will focus on its other Angers location in the Saint-Serge district, a 1,600 sqm space that opened in January 2025 and is performing better with higher utilization rates. The company also continues operating an 1,800 sqm location in Rennes, Brittany, offering hot desks, private offices, meeting rooms, and event areas.
👉 Read this.
🏗️ Portal lands Raleigh office-to-warehouse conversion deal #
Andrew Runnette and Nathaniel Neman share that Portal Warehousing have closed the acquisition of Raliegh-Durham’s 3200 Gateway Centre Blvd for conversion from office to warehouse space through an as-of-right development process. The conversion will involve primarily interior demolition and the addition of loading docks to accommodate Portal Warehousing’s micro-warehousing operations. Portal Warehousing Raleigh is expected to open in late Spring 2026 following the completion of the conversion work.
This deal represents a clear trend of office space repurposing in response to changing commercial real estate demand patterns in the North Carolina market.
👉 Read this.
🌏 Multiple flex brands going public in APAC #
While this Reuters article pokes at a few concerns around WeWork India‘s IPO it also highlights two interesting things we thought you might find interesting.
First, the terms of the independent Indian network negotiated with the global brand (who is minority shareholder, alongside Embassy Groups 74%) – a 2.84% rev share as a management fee. And second, The Executive Center is also preparing to list and Smartworks recently went public in the region.
And yes, we need to split the WeWork and WeWork India coworking profiles on TWIC. We’re on it.
👉 Read this.
🎙 Coworking conversations.
The most recent episode of Caddo Conversations features Caddo Office CEO Tim Slaughter, where he shares his passion for "Work near, not at home".
Melissa Ansley, Head of Flex Solutions & Partnerships EMEA at JLL joins Brave CEO Caleb Parker and ReturnSuite Cofounder, Sam Gamble, to discuss what today’s customers really want from office space, why hospitality matters more than ever, and how flex is changing landlord strategies.
Tony Bacigalupo, founder of New Work City, Manhattan’s first coworking space, shared his unconventional approach to community building after moving to Connecticut 18 years later, on the Coworking Values Podcast with Bernie Mitchell – further exploring how his newer approach changes strategies for belonging, leadership, and local connection in coworking spaces, emphasizing that local community building beats global approaches.
Wesley Edmonds, Director of Workplace at OFS, and Kurt Patrick, Senior Executive at Essensys, join the Flex Uncensored podcast to talk about what it really takes to create a functional, flexible space, from physical design to digital infrastructure.
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🇺🇸 10k sqft space in Denver
Generating $70k-$80k in annual profits.
Asking price: $175,000
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