Launch HN: Worksphere (YC W21) – Manage flexible in-office or remote workspaces
Aakhil, Theresa & Mark here at Worksphere (https://worksphere.com). Our software helps companies manage a safe workplace where employees can work flexibly in-office or remote. Worksphere automates desk reservations, safe entry, and gives companies office usage data to right-size their workplaces.
We previously worked together at Lish, a corporate catering marketplace startup catering (pun intended) to tech companies. Last March our revenue went off a cliff. No people in office = no lunch orders. We love our clients and our team, so we got to work on solving a new problem for our primary users - HR, Office, and Facilities Managers.
At the start of the pandemic, our users were struggling with how to return to their offices safely. New problems like enforcing social distancing, screening for COVID-19 symptoms, and contact tracing could not be solved at scale with existing tools. New coronavirus workplace regulations have cropped up, which are a pain and come with big financial risk if companies don’t comply (we’re looking at you CA businesses dealing with SB 1159 & AB 685 - learn more at https://www.worksphere.com/blog/covid-19/guide-to-ab-685-and...).
As the pandemic has continued (and continued, and continued) businesses are facing a new challenge. 75% of office employees report that they want a hybrid in-office and remote schedule. No one misses their 5-day-a-week commute. At the same time, collaboration and culture are hard to foster on Zoom and Slack alone. Employees still want access to an office when needed, but don’t want to come to work in an empty space. Businesses want the upsides of flexibility, but don’t want to pay for empty or only occasionally used desks — office space costs $10-12k per employee annually in major US cities. We believe that a hybrid workweek is a better workweek, and that an active approach is needed to make it a win-win for employees and businesses.
Our features help businesses reopen safely and realize the full potential of a flexible workplace. We automate the wellness surveys, contact tracing, and capacity limits needed to enforce internal safety guidelines and regional regulations. This alleviates a ton of manual work for Office and HR managers. Employees can create in-office schedules and see who else is in the office to increase collaboration. We track office utilization data so companies can make smart decisions about their office space and lease.
Worksphere is $6 per active employee/month, and our clients only pay for employees that come to the office.
If you’re one of the 3 of 4 people who wants to work flexibly post-pandemic, or if you manage a workplace, we’d love to hear from you. How frequently do you think you’ll need office space? What problems are you facing in this changing work environment? We’ll reply in the comments or you can email us at info@worksphere.com. Thanks so much for your feedback!
34 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 72.4 ms ] threadWe only charge for active employees who are scheduled in office (excludes remote employees). Customers have responded positively to this pricing model so far. But we are still learning.
My gut is people are responding positively because they see it as so insanely underpriced as to be not worth worrying about.
For one thing, no one who sees $6 of value won’t see $10 of value, so you could raise prices 67% right there. (Maybe there’s an odd person who sees $5 and is willing to pay $6.) You might even find more takers at $100-200/desk/month than $6/user/mo. It’s easy for them to budget; it solves a problem they have; you might look more credible or easier for the office manager/harried HR person who doesn’t care if they pay $120/mo for 20 users or $400/mo for 4 desks. Those numbers are “the same” for office managers.
Look up patio11’s general advice (tl;dr: charge more) and take it to heart. Best.
There's simple things for crazy cheap, complicated things with giant price tags, all intertwined in a brand new land-grab to get adoption.
The founder of Superhuman.com recently introduced us to the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter, and recommended we also check out the book 'Monetizing Innovation' -- more to learn!
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Half of the value might be "if you use this solution then you are compliant" with the other half coming from the actual tooling to orchestrate "you can work in office today but you can't because you came in yesterday and other people need to have meetings".
I'm not familiar with competitors in the space but my gut reaction to the pricing is that most companies will see $6/mo of value from streamlining an employee's return to the office.
I don’t think they can realistically promise that, though...
The other part is getting people to do all the things needed. Mostly that's making it easy to do, which is where this kind of put-it-on autopilot approach to set an office schedule helps, and making it really easy to go into the office for a day.
It's not machine learning and sensors to make sure people are wearing a mask and staying 6 feet apart, but it does meet the bar for most companies.
> If you’re one of the 3 of 4 people who wants to work flexibly post-pandemic, or if you manage a workplace, we’d love to hear from you.
One of those is Andy Jassy, CEO-elect at Amazon, who is on-record that Amazon is likely to switch to a hybrid model where folks would may be reserve desks when they intend to be in-office but mostly work remotely otherwise.
Absolutely a huge market.
> Worksphere is $6 per active employee/month, and our clients only pay for employees that come to the office.
Curious: What merited, if I may, the current model? Did you also happen to consider charging for something like total office-desks in management (that scales nicely and makes for a predictable cost accounting)?
Thanks.
[0] https://youtu.be/izbg7CpoSqg?t=2079
The per active employee pricing model was driven by the level of uncertainty from companies on how many employees will use the office on a regular basis. For some of our clients who have opened their offices only 10-20% of their employees are using it. Customers would prefer not to pay for all their desks when only a small fraction are actually being used.
Good points on the cost accounting and predictability of costs. We haven't gotten pushback on that so far. But we'll keep an eye out.
Our workspaces are pretty personal. If you come into work, the chair is at the wrong height, monitors wrong, and you don't have what you need, it doesn't work.
But if you know you can have the same desk for the next 2 weeks on the days you want to come in, it can work. Losing the reservation or a penalty could be an interesting addition too -- we'll keep it in mind.
I feel like I've heard about Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Salesforce embracing remote work. And Stripe, Gitlab, Automattic, and many others had already embraced remote work.
Worksphere is definitely on the upswing of a sea change.
Then you might force people to memorialize that idea in some form, but you can’t/shouldn’t/can’t stop people from chatting in the break areas and, especially at the start of hybrid, it’s going to be very fertile ground that your company should encourage and foster (and maybe channel) rather than taking steps to discourage. “Sorry Pat, you know the rules; we’re not allowed to speak except on slack.”
massive, massive citation needed here
Love the user name, BTW. :-)
If you're curious, source is here: https://www.adeccogroup.com/future-of-work/latest-insights/w...
A fair few people I know do want to visit the office 3 of 5 days, sure.
Reading this sort of thing is just bizarre. It's like that special brand of American "fake smile".
Open offices cut costs too. Are they better?
"Everything is fine".
Not the same use case, but I think it's not far from what you offer.