Deskpass originally set out to be like a Classpass for coworking spaces, offering entrepreneurs and other remote employees the ability to work from a range of different shared workspaces.
In 2020, the Chicago startup was set to launch a new business-to-business product that let companies offer flexible offices spaces to their employees as a benefit, allowing workers to choose from a range of different coworking spaces to spend their workday.
Then the pandemic hit.
"We lost about 80% of our business," said CEO and co-founder Sam Rosen. "It vanished overnight."
With the grand Covid-induced work from home experiment fully underway, companies and their employees didn't have much of a need for a service like Deskpass. But with the worst of the pandemic now behind us, and companies implementing return-to-work policies, businesses are looking more closely than ever at flexible work options. And Deskpass is ready.
Deskpass has launched in four new cities in 2021, including in Sydney, Australia, its first international market. It's now in 26 cities, with more coming later in the year. Its platform has been used to book workspace more than 100,000 times, and it's seeing twice as many bookings now as it did in March, with companies like Threadless, TaskRabbit, GoodRX and InMarket among its customer base. In Chicago, workers can choose from 75 workspaces, including coworking spaces like Second Shift, Firmspace Chicago and Hub 116.
"Companies small, medium and large had to totally overnight change some really important pieces of their business. They had to offer remote work," Rosen said. "Most companies were not prepared for that change ... As of this year, companies are not just talking about change. They’re starting to make meaningful changes to how they think about their office of the future and a remote workforce."
Office flexibility is now not a nice-to-have, but a must-have, Rosen explained, as employees increasingly want hybrid options that allow them to work from home, from the office and from other productive workspaces. Rosen said companies are turning to Deskpass not only as a benefit to their workforce, but also an experiment to collect data on how and where their employees like to work.
"They’re looking to us to learn," he said. "What do my employees actually want? Where are they most productive?"
As firms reassess their office leases and square footage, Deskpass is becoming an increasingly useful tool for companies looking to reduce their square footage, or who want to ditch a central office all together, said co-founder Nicole Vasquez.
"It's really interesting to think in a few years how many companies may not even provide a company office any more, but instead a provide a solution like Deskpass," she said.
Deskpass, which allows companies to book space on demand and pay by the hour, day, week and month, says it now has access to more than 1,000 workspaces on its platform.
