Broker Spotlight: Charlotte Kraus from Workaround

What is Workaround?

Workaround is an online marketplace and broker service for the flexible office industry. More specifically, this means Co-working spaces, Business Centres, companies with excess space to rent out in their offices and companies who wish to transfer their office leases to another company. We don’t advertise or broker traditional primary leases.
We are a team of 15 engaged employees invested in growing the flexible office space market and helping companies understand the benefits of flexible office leases. We work hard every day to educate companies about the Co-working sector and help as many companies as possible to the perfect office solution. We began in Sweden, where we have been a strong voice in the market for many years. Our marketplace and broker services are now available in all of Sweden, Amsterdam and Berlin, and we plan to grow into more Dutch and German cities during the next 24 months.

How and why did Workaround begin?

Workaround was born in 2015 out of the idea that it should be much easier to find and rent office space without having to go through the traditional primary lease process with non-transparent information through on-site brokers. Workaround has grown steadily in Sweden over the years and launched in Amsterdam in September 2021 and Berlin in February 2022.

Why Workaround - what makes you unique?

Workaround are different than other office marketplaces/brokers in three different ways:

1 – We invest heavily in our marketplace UX/design/functionality. With a strong in-house tech team, we have developed a marketplace that not only looks nicer and behaves better than our competitors, it also has a high conversion rate and provides us with vast amounts of data regarding who searches for what and where.
2 – We believe that a marketplace still needs knowledgeable brokers/matchmakers that will help the prospective tenants to find the perfect office solution. We work super close with every single lead we get and qualify them for our Co-working partners. We’re holding the tenant’s hand throughout the process to ensure the best solution for them, and don’t just send unqualified enquiries to our partners.
3 – We believe in long-term relationships, and that’s why we’re giving as much focus to a 1-person lead as to a 15-person lead. We have many stories of how we have helped entrepreneurs who have then come back multiple times with more employees as time has passed. A great example is the Swedish micromobility provider Voi who asked us for an office for 2 people in summer of 2018. Then they needed an office for 20 people, then 35, then 80 and finally 150 people and so on.

Who is your target market?

Most of our leads are for offices right now, from small companies to really large ones who want to rent whole floors. We have a lot of leads from other countries, businesses who want to settle down in Amsterdam coming from London for example. Now that COVID-19 restrictions have eased, it seems like it’s back to business and everything is possible again. It’s also nice to have companies who are looking for 4 spaces and want to grow really fast, so in half a year they might need 12. It’s nice to help them grow into bigger spaces.

What kind of impact did the pandemic have on the market, and how are things now?

There was no lockdown in Sweden, so we were able to go to the office as normal here, but the lockdowns had an impact on the Dutch and German markets for sure. A lot of companies now don’t want to have their 20 employees in their home offices, they want to have a cosy place for them all together, but with a bit of flexibility. For example, if they have 20 employees, then a 15-person office plus meeting room access could be suitable. The consensus now seems to be ‘back to the office’ and what I see now is a lot of leads coming in. We have never had as much work as right now!

What does the future hold for Workaround?

In Germany, the next city we expand into will be Munich, and then Frankfurt, then Düsseldorf. In the Netherlands, we will expand into The Hague, Utrecht, and Rotterdam through our partnership with Tribes, which we are excited about! We plan to build out to the Belgium market, and for sure the UK market too. We want to take over the world!
For more information about Workaround, you can find them here:
https://workaround.io/