The future of work and workspace is changing fast, and perhaps a lot faster than we think. Industrious CEO Jamie Hodari (pictured) told PitchBook that he expects his company to become profitable as early as 1Q 2020. Jamie Hodari, chief executive of Industrious, a rival co-working business, said Mr. Neumann had tried hard to tempt his customers away. The New Year Holds Hope And Promise For Startups. Jamie Hodari, Industrious chief executive officer, discusses the company's competitive environment and expansion plans with Bloomberg's Caroline Hyde, … They ended up getting 600 applications for their first coworking spaces before they even opened their first 60-something spots. Ultimately, Hodari … Jamie Hodari studied in not one, but in three Ivy League level schools. © 2021 Forbes Media LLC. If you try to logic your way through everything and assume that you're going to come to a better conclusion than all the people that have come before you have, you're much less likely to succeed than, if you're willing to be humble and do everything you can to learn what other people are thinking and have experienced. Jamie Hodari is the CEO and Co-founder of Industrious, the largest premium workplace provider in the U.S. I am an active speaker and have given guest lectures at the Wharton School of Business, Columbia Business School, and at NYU Stern School of Business. With a foreword by ‘Shark Tank‘ star Barbara Corcoran, and published by John Wiley & Sons, the book was named one of the best books for entrepreneurs. Industrious is now even putting co-working spaces in malls. The second is, mitigating the spread. But for Jamie Hodari, the CEO and founder of workplace operator Industrious, the workplace-as-a-service have some advantages over other companies or landlords at managing the return to work, given that their expertise is managing space at scale. “There’s little to no skepticism about … It’s much harder to control contact points or interactions in that way. I am a serial entrepreneur and the author of the The Art of Startup Fundraising. You had to go live somewhere near Armonk, New York. In the average workplace, the work environment is shared. And so a lot of our resources, and where we’re putting a lot of our time right now, it’s around broader forms of support, you know, free therapy via a series of partnerships that we put in place, telemedicine, etc. Given the amount of effort it seems it would take to really get people to be working again from the office and the fact that currently, people are managing their businesses from home, why won’t businesses just keep working from home until this is truly over? The reality is, a lot of our members were pointing out that they were struggling just to get by. Most recently, I built and exited CoFoundersLab which is one of the largest communities of founders online. Jamie recalls going to prepare for the meeting with him, and the conference room table was sticky, half of the lightbulbs were out, and there were people walking around in cargo shorts. Commercial Observer caught up with Hodari to hear about how Industrious is engaging with their members now, how they’re prepping for the return to work, and the lasting ways in which pandemic will change the way we work. The vast majority of Kepler’s headcount was in East Africa. What are the interventions that companies, from medium-size firms to giant corporate headquarters to coworking spaces, will have to have in place in order for people to return to work safely? This mass national natural experiment with the entire country, or, all white-collar office workers working from home for months at a time, is going to dramatically accelerate that shift. So we’ve become a particularly important partner in navigating all of it. The office — on your terms. They had a good fit in terms of skill sets. There will be a negative impact of what looks to be a protracted recession, including customers who are shrinking or who go out of business altogether. Without that, you are spending a lot more time and money on customer education, on describing why they would want to work with you in the first place before you ever get to why you should be the partner they pick. It’s good to get tactical and start focusing today on what the actual set of interventions are going to be, but for most businesses, they haven’t yet even set up a strategic plan to navigate this. And International Workplace Group, a publicly-traded workspace provider based in Switzerland and listed on the London Stock Exchange, is already profitable. First of all, companies need a plan. Having other competitors in the market making that case at the same time, running digital ads against that, getting press against that, people show up at meetings at one of those competitor spaces all open their eyes to the possibility. You have HVAC systems that have a single zone and treat the entire open floorplan, so you have hundreds of people with the same set of circulating air. In terms of [tactical] intervention, you need to minimize the chance that someone with COVID enters the work environment in the first place. And on the other hand, I think times of crisis or shocks to the system tend to really accelerate the shift to outsourcing industries like our own. This certainly not only applies to customer acquisition but raising venture capital too. And so a lot of our resources, and where we’re putting a lot of our time right now, it’s around broader forms of support, you know, free therapy via a series of partnerships that we put in place, telemedicine, etc. I feel very strongly about that particular point. Industrious is a premium workplace platform, blending five-star service, and stunning design to provide an unparalleled workplace experience for established professionals. He left the hedge fund to take over a large private college scholarship program for orphans of the Rwandan genocide in Rwanda. They have the resources to roll out measures like temperature testing or medical-grade cleaning in ways that small and medium-sized firms might struggle with. He was constantly reranking them and crossing them off the list if someone else started it. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. In the medium term, once people start going back to work before a vaccine is in place, for our industry — shared office providers — and for all companies, it’s going to be a complicated time, with very powerful, conflicting or competing forces at play. How do you figure out how to minimize distractions, keep up energy levels and focus on what can be a really complicated way to be working? Their New York offices were in a shared workplace. Hodari is a founding partner of Industrious, which has been constructing its first outpost in New York. The book offers a step-by-step guide to today‘s way of raising money for entrepreneurs. Industrious is the premium coworking company of choice. One simple test is if you could say to your employees, how would you answer this question: “If I could get to the office safely, would I rather be there than at home?” A lot of the return to work is going to require the answer to that question to be “Yes” for most people. In the 60s and 70s and throughout the 80s, the vast majority of headcount for most businesses worked in headquarters. Since then there’s been this gradual but very noticeable shift towards companies distributing their workforces across the country where they have a medium-sized headquarters, and then lots and lots of regional offices so that they can meet their customers and they can meet their, their workforce where they are. Jamie says “I think we probably built an executive team with a deep strategic background, with a bit more experience than would be normal for a company of that size.”. I see people putting out reports about the return to work and reports on the workplace that take for granted that essentially people are going to be forced to return to work by their bosses. To Jamie, that means “the most powerful tool you can have as an entrepreneur is a keen, curious appetite for listening.” There’s a reason we have two ears, but only one mouth. "Our offices were in a shared space and one day, I had an extremely important meeting with the president of our largest funder." At just 22, and after learning Hindi and Urdu in college, he went to work as a reporter in Delhi for the Times of India. Then Jamie moved onto a hedge fund, learning financial modeling, accounting, and real-world applications. sustainable. Jamie Hodari is an entrepreneur at the apex of these two trends. It has raised $222 million in funding to date and has coworking spaces in over 100 locations in 50 cities. With the coronavirus pandemic waning in some parts of the world, and raging in others, companies are preparing for a return to work in an uncertain and uneven atmosphere. It’s basically focused on how to make working from home a less isolating, more productive and engaging experience. "I was running an experimental university in East Africa that was half online and half offline," he explains. In his exclusive interview on the DealMakers Podcast , Hodari streamed us his scoop on the future of work … Under his leadership, Industrious has grown to over 95 locations across more than 50 cities, achieving the best unit economics in the industry, and pioneering the evolution to landlord partnerships over traditional leases. Justin had been his next-door neighbor since they were two years old. It’s funny, it’s been surprising the degree to which supporting customers virtually has resembled supporting customers in person. Industrious CEO Jamie Hodari said he plans to list his company's co-working spaces on the platform and may eventually consider changing the name, brand and user interface. In his exclusive interview on the, The pros and cons of a lawyer brain in entrepreneurship, Fundraising and relationship building with investors, Why managing people is 90% of your business’ success, America's Top Givers: The 25 Most Philanthropic Billionaires, EY & Citi On The Importance Of Resilience And Innovation, Impact 50: Investors Seeking Profit — And Pushing For Change, Looking Past The Pandemic: ESOPs, Employee-Ownership Companies Set To Outperform In Anticipated 2021 Recovery, How A Cook From NYC Turned His New Restaurant In Arkansas Into A Pandemic Haven, Diverse Teams Help Leaders Evolve, Especially In Troubled Times, 4 Hot SaaS Startups That Are Paving The Way For Effective Remote Teams. : right now, the work environment is shared workplace experience for established professionals or medical-grade in! 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