No longer exclusive to the tech world, co-working spaces have been popping up like crazy since Raymond Rahbar founded Washington, D.C.-based co-working space chain MakeOffices (formerly known as UberOffices). Now, he's rolling out an ambitious agenda for national expansion.
"The industry is so young still," Rahber explained to me in an interview. "Co-working's not even five percent of what it could be yet."
To get to that potential, MakeOffices has hired Shana Glenzer as chief marketing officer. Glenzer, the CMO at energy management startup (and former MakeOffices tenant) Aquicore since August, is a prominent voice in the D.C. tech scene as a leader of both the DC Tech Meetup and DCFemTech.
"I felt the position was really tailor made for me. It was something I couldn't pass up," Glenzer told me, explaining why she decided to leave Aquicore for MakeOffices. "I love working with entrepreneurs and startups and now I have that opportunity in cities across the country."
MakeOffices has five locations in the greater D.C. area, one in Philadelphia and one in Chicago with a second opening this week. That number is going up, with another two locations scheduled to open in D.C. and another in Philadelphia. And the first location in Philadelphia is the largest co-working space in the whole city. Rahber said he and his team are looking at additional spaces in all three areas and have begun scouting space in New York City and elsewhere.
"We have our eye on a ton of cities for expansion, Rahber said. "Right now we're really focused on Philly, Chicago and our new places in D.C."
MakeOffices has been preparing for the national push for several months with the first real sign being the name change back in November. Rahber said that, although UberOffies was a well-known brand in D.C., it would have probably been confusing on a bigger scale. Even in D.C. there were occasional visits from confused prospective driver or customer for Uber.
"Co-working's not even five percent of what it could be yet."
"It's the expansion that led to the name change. I imagine it would be a lot harder to change the name in three cities at once," Rahber said. "We had a lot of focus groups on whether to change the name and to what. We didn't decide until two weeks before we did it."
Both Philadelphia and Chicago have rapidly growing startup scenes. Chicago has recently been the focus of angel investor network NextGen Venture Partners (which underwent its own name change from NextGen Angles recently), a group that Rahber co-founded.
MakeOffices is mostly self-funded. In D.C., open desks start at $300 per month and office space starts at $900 per month depending on the location. Rahber didn't rule out the idea of raising money but said it's not at the top of their priorities right now. Moving quickly into new spaces and attracting the best possible companies while raising the company's profile are where he is focused.
Glenzer's experience and enthusiasm for connecting entrepreneurs and encouraging innovation made her stand out as the obvious choice for the role, Rahber said, a sentiment she echoed.
"I really just felt like this was the perfect fit," Glenzer said. "It's incredibly well aligned to my passions generally."
Though co-working spaces of all stripes sometimes seem ubiquitous, the market is far from any kind of saturation according to both Rahber and Glenzer. It's partly because they are more prominent in D.C. than elsewhere, but mainly it's because of the kind of companies looking to join a co-working space.
"When we started, we were about 95 percent tech companies. They were more comfortable with the idea and more likely to hear about it," Rahber said, citing companies like Aquicore, Kit Check, LiveSafe and other tech startups in D.C. "Now, a lot of industries have heard about it and I get asked less about market saturation now than I did a few years ago. We're drawing more interest than ever."
