PivotDesk’s office sharing marketplace will continue to run independently, with the support and resources of SquareFoot, the country’s largest tech-enabled brokerage. SquareFoot will help hosts get their spaces filled quicker, and help guests and hosts find traditional leasing options when office sharing or coworking don’t make sense.
You can read the full press release here, or SquareFoot CEO Jonathan Wasserstrum’s summary of the acquisition and how it will make it easier for businesses to find the right office for their needs.
SquareFoot x PivotDesk Enables:
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SquareFoot to be the one-stop shop for all your office space needs — from your first desk to corporate HQ, our proprietary technology and team of brokers has you covered.
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Tenants to make money on space they don’t yet need — the ability to grow into a larger space minimizes the headache of continuously finding and moving into new offices. In addition to the marketplace platform, PivotDesk spaces can be shown to SquareFoot’s brokerage clients, meaning your available desks can get filled even faster.
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Businesses to choose from a variety of flexible office space options — this is also why we recently launched FLEX by SquareFoot, a product that lets businesses lease any space in NYC for 2-3 years instead of the traditional 5-10.
In the meantime, SquareFoot is looking to hire a GM (here’s the job description) to own growing the PivotDesk platform — if you or someone in your network seems like a great fit, give us a shout at [email protected]
Find PivotDesk Spaces in Your City
]]>Yet, when we opened up registration for our webinar, Designing your workplace: What you can learn from millennials, we were stunned at the response.
…We more than tripled our normal registration number in just a few hours.
Clearly, leaders are hungry for guidance when it comes to hiring and managing millennials.
As we ramp up for the live webinar co-hosted by TriNet on Tuesday, August 30th (it’s not too late to sign up!), we’re sharing a Q+A from webinar co-host, and VP of Sales and Marketing here at PivotDesk, Ginevra Figg.
As a seasoned leader and millennial herself, Ginevra has a unique perspective on what it takes to effectively hire, train and manage millennials. Plus — ways businesses can level up and accelerate growth with this knowledge.
Q: You consider yourself to be a millennial. Please tell us a little more about what it means to be a millennial.
Like most millennials, freedom and flexibility are huge for me. And I mean this on a few levels. First, in the work itself, I find that I dive deepest into businesses that allow me the opportunity to think independently and give me the trust to solve problems for the company and my team at rapid fire.
Second, in support of my personal life, I view my job and my life as one entity. I prefer not to segment them as I don’t connect with the idea that I “stop living” during working hours. Instead, my work is part of the passion that makes up my life. In order to live this way, I need the two not to combat each other.
So long as I have a leader and a team that trusts me, it’s not difficult for me to allow work and life to bleed into each other. In most cases, this actually means I’m working harder than I would if I was asked to draw a line between the two — and this approach allows me to do that without burning out.
Check out the rest of the interview over on the TriNet blog.
Save your spot for the live webinar here.
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Every morning, as I open my closet, I am reminded of how I spent my 20’s. Neatly organized on a rack, 4 feet wide, hang dry cleaned suites, starched white button down shirts and a vast assortment of neckties.
You guessed it, before jumping head-first into the startup world, I worked in corporate America.
Fair warning, this is not going to be a corporate suit bashing piece.
In fact, I loved my job, the work we did and the people I worked with were nothing short of awesome. The problem that I ran into was that eventually, the fire I had right out of college to wake up every day and try to take over the world had diminished. Like countless others striving to climb the corporate ladder, I found myself questioning my motivation to work hard.
So, as I approached 30, I realized that at no fault of my employer, the corporate lifestyle, for me, had run its course.
After accepting this, and seeking guidance from an amazing mentor, I decided to do something to get myself un-stuck. In November of 2014, I resigned for the only adult job I’d ever had. Next, I locked all of my custom suits away, grabbed a backpack and bought a one-way ticket to Southeast Asia.
Adam in India
Scared as hell and quite inexperienced as an outdoorsman, I resolved to adhere to one common theme throughout the journey, “Everywhere I go, I will find a way to give back to the community that is nurturing me.”
[bctt tweet=”Everywhere I go, I will give back to the community that is nurturing me. – Adam Greenfeld” username=”pivotdesk”]
This credo manifested itself in a series of volunteer jobs at orphanages, ashrams, farms and even a Crossfit gym in Sri Lanka.
I could write forever about my trip, but this is about the 2 lessons I realized when I got back:
1. Life is much shorter than I had fully realized — I can’t waste time living a life that’s not exciting.
2. Unless I feel like I’m truly helping people, I won’t feel fulfilled or motivated.
In solidifying these realizations, I had also laid out the prerequisites for my next career. So, I set out on a wide search that resulted in dozens of meeting and weeks of research.
Singburi, Thailand
It wasn’t until I started sitting down with the PivotDesk team that I saw what a significant issue they were working to solve… the epidemic of irresponsible real estate spending that had struck the global business community. I understood quickly that what PivotDesk was doing could help countless businesses and entrepreneurs, and with my background in corporate sales, there was value I could add. So the idea and the vision were there — excitement box checked.
Next was the deeper question: did PivotDesk tout a culture that allowed its employees to create and perform to their maximum potential? I decided to truly dig deep and lift up the hood to learn what makes the people at PivotDesk tick. Because I believe culture needs to come from the top, I started with the PivotDesk Executive team. What I found was a group of leaders who blew me away with their honesty and transparency. After meeting the rest of the team, I was sold. And lucky for me, they were in need of someone to go out and spread their message.
Adam exploring Hampi, India
It took me about 7 years and several thousand miles worth of travel to learn this, but it has become crystal clear that the first real sale any good salesperson needs to make, is selling him or herself on the fact that the product they represent really helps people.
If we can get to a point where every time we leave a meeting, end a phone call or send an email, the person on the other end is better for having spent time with us, we are setting ourselves up for amazing success — the kind of success that keeps our metaphorical fires lit, day after day.
Nearly 10 months into my time with PivotDesk, I consider myself one of the lucky few who has found just that.
If you’d like to contact Adam, you can reach him at [email protected]
]]>So, we started to host events designed to give you just that…more!
Rather than limit the benefits of these events to attendees only, we’ll be sharing the key insights we covered live, right here on the blog.
Keep an eye out for more PivotDesk event recaps coming soon.
Space Matters: Revolutionizing Company Culture
Leaders from top NYC tech companies on building and maintaining inspiring organizations with kick-ass cultures.
A few months ago, we teamed up with TriNet to bring you the first installment of our Revolutionizing Company Culture events (you can read about it here). This past Thursday, we were at it again. Our Revolutionizing Company Culture: Space Matters panel co-hosted by TriNet, brought together execs from PureWow, YellowHammer, Contently and PivotDesk. The panelists laid it all out on the table as they shared their own experiences (good and bad!) on creating a strong company culture while considering the influence of their physical space.
Q: True or False, the physical office is now about enabling the workforce, instead of external audiences?
Hagan Major, COO and Co-founder of YellowHammer kicked us off by stating how strongly he felt that this statement was true. “At YellowHammer, we spent a lot of time and money designing and furnishing our space. But you know what, it was worth it because it feels very lived in–because it is!” Hagan told us. He feels that there is no better advertisement for their company culture than to have an office full of people who want to come in and work in their space, in comparison to a nice sign when people walk through the door.
Nicole Olver, Head of People Operations at Contently agreed as well. The dogs, couches and overall layout of the office induces a feeling of family in the Contently office. “ We spend more time in the office with colleagues than at home with our own families, so the office should most definitely be a comfortable place to work” she said, hitting the nail on the head.
When creating the new PureWow office, VP of Finance Phil Vuong made sure that all employees were given the opportunity to voice their ideas and opinions. He explained that they wanted to ensure that the new office properly represented who PureWow is as a company not only to employees, but also to visitors.
Q: Did you have specific objectives around building a new space to enable culture, and the people within?
The motto at Contently is ‘Tell great stories’ Nicole told the group. She explained that all meeting rooms looked completely different, which meant a lot of conversation starters with clients and amongst team members. This encourages their company motto. Additionally, they have an open plan that encourages collaboration, while also separating salespeople from those that need to work quietly. It was really important to Contently to use the ideas of their employees when creating the space because they wanted them to take pride and ownership in their office.
“One of our biggest objectives, was also our biggest struggle,” Hagan explained. “When jumping from an extremely cramped office, to a space too large for our team at the time, we had to strategize how to keep the sense of family and camaraderie amongst employees. Having a space too large was worrisome in keeping our team close together. Our solution was to keep our team on one side of the office, until we expanded into the remaining space.”
At PureWow, their objective was to create an office that properly supported the work getting done while also reflecting the collaborative and fun culture within the company. They have incredible decor, and have even named (by a popular vote) their conference rooms after Gossip Girl characters.
Q: How often, if ever do you shuffle seats of employees? If so, what is the outcome?
According to Hagan, he is a ‘serial shuffler’ who is consistently moving his employees. While he may be overdoing it a bit, he said he has seen incredible work come from it. Initially, YellowHammer had an assistant creative designer that was moved to sit next to developers. After sitting with developers for a while, he learned that his real passion was for coding and software development. Years later he is now managing a large portion of the development that goes on at YellowHammer. All from a seat shuffle.
Nicole noticed that the teams at Contently were starting to develop their own silos, and unfortunately this created some gaps in communication across the company. To correct this, they decided to shuffle seats and split up teams to increase the channels of communication. Soon, the company noticed a positive shift in the way the teams worked together and the style of collaboration.
Have additional questions on company culture? Tweet @PivotDesk using #CCin2016, and we’ll keep the conversation going!
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1. How to pitch
2. Hiring and firing
3. Office space
PivotDesk CEO and Co-Founder, David Mandell has seen it all throughout his career as a serial startup founder and Techstars mentor. Through these lessons, his goal is to inform entrepreneurs based on his own past successes and failures.
Part 3 in the series focuses on a task most founders dread: Office space.
When growing companies graduate from their accelerator program or choose to leave coworking in search of space of their own, they are quickly confronted with the harsh reality that leased office space is the second costliest expense they will face after head count.
Add to that the notoriously static nature of the commercial real estate industry, and the challenge grows even more daunting.
Between securing a trustworthy broker, finding space, negotiating a contract, completing buildout and moving, the process can take months. And when you’re taking your top people off their normal responsibilities to manage the task, you’re not just wasting time, you’re wasting precious human capital.
PivotDesk CEO, David Mandell, has been through the struggle of finding office space many times and he’s ready to share what he’s learned.
1. How to pitch
2. Hiring and firing
3. Office space
PivotDesk CEO and Co-Founder, David Mandell has seen it all throughout his career as a serial startup founder and Techstars mentor. Through these lessons, his goal is to inform entrepreneurs based on his own past successes and failures.
Part 2 in the series focuses on two of the most difficult decisions a leader must make: when to hire and when to fire.
The most important things to remember about hiring and firing, is that you do it to create a successful business.
And your people make or break your business, full stop.
No doubt — there’s a ton of pressure involved when you’re impacting someone’s career, and by default, their life. But there are ways to approach both decisions — hiring and firing — with dignity and preparation to make the experience as positive and productive as possible for both parties.
Join PivotDesk CEO, David Mandell, as he shares some of the strategies he uses for managing a dynamic team through good times and bad.
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1. How to pitch
2. Hiring and firing
3. Office space
PivotDesk CEO and Co-Founder, David Mandell has seen it all throughout his career as a serial startup founder and Techstars mentor. Through these lessons, his goal is to inform entrepreneurs based on his own past successes and failures.
Part 1 will focus on a challenge all entrepreneurs must master: The pitch.
Why start with the pitch?
When you’re running a business, focus is essential. Measuring all of your efforts against a finely targeted goal is the best way to move your company forward, and mastering your pitch is essential to finding this focus.
But learning to cultivate a strong pitch isn’t just for founders. Everyone should know how to create and deliver a strong message.
Because no matter what it is you’re selling — whether it be a product, an article, an idea or yourself — the truth is always the same:
No one gives a sh*t what you do.
So, how do you get someone to care?
Simple: Target emotion NOT logic.
Unfortunately, getting to simple is complex. Join David Mandell as he teaches the fundamentals of how to craft a killer pitch for any audience.
You’ll lie in bed, thinking there is no possible way you can make it through the day ahead.
Yet bowing out of the fight simply isn’t an option. At least, you shouldn’t let it be an option.
PivotDesk CEO, David Mandell sat down with Venture Capitalist and leadership guru, Jerry Colonna, on the main stage of this year’s Northside Festival to discuss this very dilemma.
Watch as the two get real about what it’s like to be a CEO with depression, and the choices we can all make to keep ourselves in the fight.
We launched into summer with friends and family from the CRE and Tech communities in NYC for some drinks, fun and games.
We finally got to share our office rooftop — arguably our favorite part about office sharing with Skillshare — with friends.
Jealous? Don’t be. Other PivotDesk Host companies are willing to share their awesome outdoor spaces as well.
We hope to see everyone again soon!
]]>We were lucky enough to have a group of dinner guests providing different perspectives spanning many industries — from Commercial Real Estate to Music.
Following dinner, we had in informal roundtable discussion where each guest stood answered the questions “Why do we still need an office?” and “How is the office environment changing?” from their own experiences.
Here’s a look at what they had to say:
The Office is the New Church
A majority of the attendees agreed that in a time where many people dedicate their lives to their work, the office remains a productive place for socializing and finding friends amongst colleagues. Sharing in the same daily stresses and victories creates a bond that is only enhanced in an office setting. And many felt that working from home or remotely can often become isolating.
Another frequent theme that came up was the fact that the office also allows for and encourages collaboration. Brainstorming and bouncing ideas off of colleagues or others within your office is known to improve creativity. While dinner guests agreed that working amongst others was good for their creative process, their opinions differed on the level of productivity within an office.
Those who focus on computer engineering and coding, and those in the journalism industry feel that an open office environment is often distracting and reduces their productivity. And many felt that when it comes to actually executing projects, a quiet isolated environment is preferred. This is why flexibility within office space is key in supporting all team members appropriately.
Pants matter
When asked about the importance of the physical workplace, one of the guests made a point about the physical act of getting ready for the work day in relation to productivity. While many of us have the ability to accomplish just as much at home in pajamas as we do in the office, the truth is many of us don’t.
Whether you wear jeans and a t-shirt to work, or a suit and tie, everyone agreed that the act of getting ready puts us in the right mindset to get sh*t done. This is an extremely simple, but often overlooked truth in the argument of working from home vs. working in the office.
While not everyone felt getting ready and going to a physical office is imperative to remaining productive, the overwhelming majority did.
Email is still annoying
We all work really hard every day to get to inbox 0. Unfortunately, that task becomes increasingly difficult when team members are working remotely and/or from home. Those who worked in journalism felt strongly that the ability to lean over and have a 3 minute conversation, can eliminate entire email threads over the course of the day. In addition, another dinner guest pointed out that often times when a team member works from home, they subconsciously want to prove they are accomplishing a lot. You guessed it, this means more emails.
Overall, while most of us can accomplish our tasks from home with the help of technology, the office environment is very much still alive and thriving.
A big thank you to Work Awesome and Knotel for hosting this great dinner!
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