Sam Rosen Podcast Transcript
Sam Rosen joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Sam Rosen. Sam Rosen is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Deskpass, an industry leading online marketplace, offering access to teams and individuals, thousands of unique coworking spaces and conference rooms nationwide.
A habitual problem solver, Sam first directed his creative energies toward a solution for managing co working spaces after seeing the challenges firsthand as co-owner operator of The Coop, Chicago’s first co working space. Sam has an established reputation as a successful entrepreneur and well-respected voice in the design community.
Before launching DeskPass, he co-founded the art collaborative, The Post Family, as well as one design company. This digital branding agency creates powerful experiences at the intersection of research, communication, design, and technology for some of the biggest brands in the world.
Well, good afternoon, Sam. Welcome to the show!
Sam Rosen: Thanks for having me. Great to be here!
Brian Thomas: Awesome. Sam, I appreciate it. Staying in the same time zone today, I traversed the globe. As my audience is probably tired of hearing me say, but great that you’re in the time zone, hailing out of the great city of Chicago. And I’m down here in Kansas City.
So, I’m glad you’re on the podcast and Sam, let’s jump into your 1st question here. You started your career as a co-owner and operator of the coop Chicago’s 1st co working space. And is that coop or co op? I’m sorry.
Sam Rosen: It’s the coop. It’s you got it. Right. It was named after it was in an old chicken coop processing plant.
So, we thought the name was a funny one.
Brian Thomas: Yeah, no, that’s great. Awesome. Well, maybe you can share some of the initial challenges you faced in the coworking industry and how they shaped your vision for Desk Pass.
Sam Rosen: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know being one of the first operators of coworking spaces in the whole world, the world has changed quite a bit since then.
But when we open, I came across coworking because of my, my girlfriend was in New York and it was very early onto this concept and looked to see in Chicago to say, Hey, who’s. Who’s doing this coworking thing? There were about 300 coworking spaces in the whole world and there were none in Chicago.
So, at the time I was running a digital branding agency and my partner and I decided, Hey, let’s, let’s give this a shot and see if we could open up a space in Chicago. And you know, back then it was actually, I think, much easier to open and fill up a space than it was today because there was a pent-up demand of just a select group of people who had heard of this concept of coworking, thought it was a really interesting concept and were interested in finding it in Chicago.
So, we opened it. We, we reached out to, it was actually a coworking wiki at the time. That was really the only way to find these spaces. And most people had no idea what coworking was. So, when we opened our space, we really had a, a passive audience of folks that were really interested in the space. And it was quite easy to fill it up initially.
It’s changed a lot today. You know, I mean, now there’s a good 30, 40,000 coworking spaces. So, I actually think opening a space back in the day was an easier prospect than it is, you know, opening and being a new operator, opening a space today.
Brian Thomas: Well, you’re one of the pioneers, as I would say, I certainly love that story.
Certainly, would resonate with a lot of folks in our audience, especially those that are utilizing that coworking space today. So, appreciate that really do. And Sam, DeskPass operates at the intersection of design and technology. How do you integrate these elements to enhance user experiences and what role do they play in the strategic growth of your business?
Sam Rosen: Yeah, I mean, I think ultimately the design and the user experiences around the humans that are utilizing these spaces, right? I think that traditionally, the office and the office experience has been designed around a select few. It’s been designed around the banks, you know, that own the buildings, the landlords that run the buildings, and then the, the executives who manage the businesses and hasn’t historically been around the human beings that do the work every day and the work environment that.
You know, enables them to do their best to work. So, what really made me interested in, in coworking and this concept of flexible work in the first place was really just thinking about my, my experience in, in design and, and, and, and, you know, mapping out human experience was that there was a big opportunity to build a work environment that was more inclusive really designed around the human beings.
That do the actual work than the bosses that decide where everyone gets to work. So, the beauty of coworking is really, it gives you the ability to find a workspace that is convenient to you and your life, and that might change based on where you are in your life. Do you have kids? Do they have school today?
How’s traffic? Do I want to be inspired? Do I want to focus? And I think what the beauty of co working does is it enables people to find space that’s right for them when they need it. The power of desk pass is simply, it’s a marketplace and it’s a tool that helps companies and individuals gain access to these spaces and find the right spaces that fulfill what they need for that moment in that day.
And just makes it easy for the, the, the human to see, hey, I need a space like this here and find that space and makes it easy for their boss. To offer that, and then to ultimately learn, Hey. Where do my employees like to work? Where do they get their best work done? And the beauty of a platform like ours too, is that tends to be a lot more cost effective and a lot more flexible than traditional real estate and traditional leases.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. I love it. You’re really just offering a plethora of. Options for people that would like to co-work and obviously there’s some ways that we’re helping out the landlords as well. Obviously, they have some vacant spaces and so forth. That definitely helps the whole equation. So, Sam, how did your experience at the coop influence the foundational concept of desk pass?
And what was the key moment that led you to transition from managing a single co working space? To creating a national way, a national platform,
Sam Rosen: international platform actually yeah, I, you know, I think for us we started solving this problem for our local community and we believe that there was a real demand and a real opportunity.
As the world got wise to these spaces the equation changed. So just naturally, because we owned a design and technology shop, as we ran a space, we started to build tools to make it easy for landlords and for coworking operators to manage their space, market their space, pay for their space, build community within that space.
And as more and more independent co working and flexible workspace operators started to pop up all over the world, we started to realize. And our aha moment was there’s a bigger opportunity. In helping these operators fill their spaces with customers and help those customers find the space that gets their best work done rather than just building software to manage a space and and also, you know, the opportunity to build a platform.
That’s a global platform. And today we’re in. Over 200 cities and nearly 20 countries. We could build a much richer, more interesting network of space. And I think we just realized that the opportunity in this space was to be a matchmaker and to help connect the dots and empower them with these amazing work environments that exist rather than just have our single space or software that kind of helps ourselves and other operators manage space.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. I love it. And again, I knew you had a nationwide presence, but yeah, looking here, you’re definitely. Taking this global, which I think is awesome and I just love the concept. So, thanks for bringing a solution to the world solving a problem that people had. So, thank you. And Sam, last question of the evening as a respected voice in the design community and a successful entrepreneur, how do you see the future of coworking spaces evolving, especially in the post pandemic era?
Sam Rosen: You know, I think it’s less specific to coworking and more specific to the office and where we work. And I think before COVID most companies were not open or very progressive to allowing their employees to work from coworking spaces, to work from home. They wanted people to work from the office because that’s the way work has been done, you know, for a long time.
And COVID really accelerated people’s understanding that people can get work, great work done outside of the office. And the way that office exists is rigid and expensive and, and long term. And what people want is often shorter and more flexible and more adaptable to what they’re looking for. So, I think ultimately what we’re seeing is.
The office, the HQ isn’t going anywhere, but I expect it to be smaller. I expect it to be more specialized. If you run a media company, you’ll probably have studios or you’ll probably have collaboration space. If you run a manufacturing company, you’ll have manufacturing space, but we would expect that.
Companies have less space and that they own and operate by themselves. And it’s more specialized and more geared to what it does best. I think companies are also clearly more open to remote work and folks working from home. But the reality is home is not always a great place to work. So, it enters this plethora of other types of workspaces that are available by the day, desks for the day, meeting rooms by the hour, private offices just for a month or a week or two months.
So really, ultimately, what I think this comes down to Brian is office is an ecosystem and offering companies, offering workers and workers having a, a plethora of work that is outside of just traditional office working from home, but really a ecosystem of workspace that adapts to everybody’s needs, what they need, when they need and where they need it.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. Again, you’ve kind of wrapped up. The podcast here with where we’re headed and really, again, that problem that you’re solving for people that are trying to figure out their most creative selves and their most creative workspaces. So, I appreciate that. And Sam, it was just such a pleasure having you on today, and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Sam Rosen: Oh, appreciate it. Appreciate the opportunity to chat. And thanks for having me.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Sam Rosen Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
