Providing more than just a desk for Calgary small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Many businesses get started with the goal of making money. At the end of the day, if you don’t make money, your business will fail. But, starting a business should mean more than just the numbers in your bank account.
At Work Nicer, there’s a greater purpose—just because you work for yourself doesn’t mean you have to work by yourself.
“Our main goal is to connect people together that are going through similar journeys,” says Alex Putici, the founder of Work Nicer. “We’ve built a co-working alliance that takes the premise of collaboration, instead of competition, to heart.”
That kind of approach makes for a very different kind of working space. At its core, Work Nicer offers members a physical location to use as a home base. Although they offer space to rent for members, a true co-working space is very different than a traditional rent-a-desk office atmosphere.
“They are two different things,” adds Dario Hudon, co-founder of Work Nicer. “Our concentration has very much been on building community. A co-working space needs to be more than desks—it needs to be a point of resource.”
That small tweak of building a true community, instead of simply providing rental space for entrepreneurs, means Work Nicer has over 150 members. These members are able to build true connections, regardless of their careers, providing a crucible where new ideas are the norm and members are making connections with other local businesses all the time.
From purpose to value
There’s no doubt that having a higher purpose is a great way to connect with customers and clients. After all, it’s one of our key pillars here at BottomLine Marketing. There’s also no doubt that Work Nicer has this covered with a workspace that provides an atmosphere of collaboration in the otherwise lonely world of entrepreneurship.
But, it’s about a lot more than purpose. At Work Nicer, it’s about providing an exceptional value to their members.
One of the biggest values they have to offer is the ability to collaborate with others quickly and easily—something you can’t do when you’re sitting in your home office.
Dario elaborates by saying, “Our focus really is about our neighbourhood, our members, and bringing them, not only value benefits but some really unique community benefits.”
Some of these benefits you would expect from a co-working space. Work Nicer provides high-speed internet access, printing, office supplies, and coffee, but some of their community benefits are truly unique!
Work Nicer has a gym with 24/7 access. Boardrooms are always available for meetings, and perhaps most surprisingly, even beer is unlimited. As amazing as all these perks are, the best perk of all is the fact that Work Nicer offers communal bikes that members can use anytime. That’s extremely beneficial since parking is at a premium in downtown Calgary.
“Yeah, we actually don’t have any parking,” Dario says with a chuckle.
They’ve turned that fact into a benefit, not only with their bike sharing program but with their partnership with car2go that enables members to accumulate more minutes, making it even easier to get to the co-working space.
With benefits like these, it’s easy to see that their sense of community extends beyond the office walls, creating a unique combination of both purpose and value.
Dario adds, “We have influence. We might as well use that influence for good—support the things that we ourselves love about the city that we live in.”
Planning for the future
As any purpose, value-driven business will tell you, in order to stay relevant, you have to look towards the future. Members really are the most important resource for Work Nicer, which means Alex, Dario, and the community managers listen and ask plenty of questions. The answers they receive are then used to propel the business forward.
Currently, Work Nicer is working on subsidizing bus passes in a unique way that allows members to gift coffee and other items from local businesses in the neighbourhood. This kind of partnership encourages consumer spending in the area, further establishing the co-working space as a true member of the community.
Additional locations are also a possibility, but not at the expense of the company’s purpose or their values.
Alex says, “It’s a matter of shifting into that next gear and trying to figure out what that gear is supposed to be. What does that mean for our individual roles, and systems, and organizing?” Dario adds, “We need to really be smart about not overextending and growing with purpose.”
No matter what the future brings for Work Nicer, you can bet that their members will continue to come first. That means offering innovative concepts and benefits that you won’t find at other co-working spaces.
Dario said says it best, “We need to be more than just a space, or else you might as well work in a coffee shop. It is our responsibility to make sure that we provide more.”
With such a dedication to community and providing an exceptional value to members, we can’t wait to see what kind of an impact Work Nicer has in Calgary and beyond in the years to come.
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