Welcome to Market Makers!
In this Q&A series we chat with the humans behind the workspace tech companies that are working hard to open up whole new markets and opportunities for flex workspaces.
Today we share our Q&A with Ginger Dhaliwal and Christophe Garnier from Upflex, who are helping connect corporates and other organizations to flexible workspaces around their employees.
Tell us a little bit about your founding team, and what drew you into building this proptech company?
Four years ago, both Christophe and I were itching to do something new. We started having very profound conversations (over coffee and occasional cocktails) about the macro changes occurring around us in life and work.
We live in a world where it’s no longer possible to turn off work at the end of the day. Our work is always in our pocket, and we live in a connected instantaneous world. We can’t escape the demands of our jobs. So, how do we create a more balanced, sustainable work-life and continue to be happy and thrive as people?
And as we started digging into the research, we realized there was an opportunity to create a new paradigm of working — one that meets both the demands of the organization and the work-life balance that we all crave. That is the genesis of Upflex: flexible organizations, happier people.
In one-sentence can you share how Upflex helps flex workspace operators?
Companies are shifting toward hybrid work, which is a great opportunity, but it’s hard for independent operators — especially smaller ones — to compete for this business, because they aren’t well-positioned to serve all of a global company’s needs all on their own: Upflex helps them augment what they can offer, plugs them into a global network of real estate, provides tech to help with relationship management, and creates new revenue streams for them, allowing these smaller workspace operators to compete for business they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to.
There’s an ever-growing number of platforms available for workspace operators to leverage, what makes your approach different?
What makes Upflex different is that we’re a technology company enabling hybrid work, as opposed to an aggregator of space. We build the technology layer that allows companies to provide seamless custom hybrid workplace solutions to their employees, and then we work with the broker community to facilitate the real estate side of that.
And how do you improve the process for tenants, members or potential members?
We make it easier for companies (and the tenants or members they bring) to access the world’s largest global network of workspace locations — thousands of options — so that they can provide workplace flexibility and choice to their employees.
What’s the business model at Upflex? Who pays, and how much?
We work with our broker community to build hybrid workplace solutions for their clients, and their clients — the companies, the occupiers — pay a monthly fee for that service.
As workspaces shift towards a more modular tech stack, why did you choose to integrate via Syncaroo?
Syncaroo automates the process of providing data to platforms like ours so that there’s minimal human effort involved in keeping all our systems in sync — and that helps us promote our flex operator partners to a larger audience and deliver the most amazing experience to companies and their employees.
Which layer would you recommend flex spaces leverage Upflex in their Ops Stacks?
Marketing, leads, sales, hospitality — we’re embedded in all of these stages. We’re essentially a demand engine for them to communicate all aspects of business to a new customer base. Through our platform, operators can market to new potential customers. We’re sending them leads. We’re helping them close sales. And, when someone shows up at their location, that location is already informed through their existing operational stack. So in these ways, we encompass all of this.
Let's end with a big picture question. If it were up to you, what does the world of work look like in 10 years?
We love to work. We’re motivated creatures. But we want to have our work be synchronized with
the rest of our lives — and our lives have become — and will continue to become, I think — more
complicated. So, I hope in ten years time, there’s a balance. I hope ten years from now, we’ll have
found ways to get rid of the noise so we can focus just on things that allow us to continue to be
creative, and inspired about the work that we do: Get rid of the commute. Get rid of trade-offs.
Integrate all of what inspires us into our day. Ultimately, we’ll be happier — and our work will be
better.
We hope you found this Q&A as interesting to read as we did to compile it! You can keep an eye on Upflex’s roadmap page below to subscribe to be notified when two-way syncing with their app is available for your preferred management system.
We are also excited to soon share more Q&As with other market making platforms that are working together to create the interconnected infrastructure to power the future of work for decades to come.
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