Launch Pad Brings Coworking Spaces To Startups Who Need Them Most
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Launch Pad Brings Coworking Spaces To Startups Who Need Them Most

|Aug 31, 2021
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There's already a start-up community in all these markets and we’re coming in to help catalyze it and grow it and connect it to a national network.

Autonomous recently sat down with Chris Schultz and Anne Driscoll - co-owners of Launch Pad and married couple extraordinaire to discuss the coworking business and how they have managed to not only maintain a competitive advantage but also expand in such a competitive market. They are valued and long-standing partners of Autonomous as well as a source of equal parts insight and inspiration and it was a great pleasure discussing with them. Please enjoy.

In your view, what helps you stand out and consistently attract the ‘doers’?

Chris: I think it's the community and culture that we have built here at Launch Pad. We have built a really supportive community of what we call ‘First Believers’. These are people who believe in each other and support each others projects, whatever it is; whether a creative project, starting a business, building your career, etc. It’s a community made up of people who are really trying to achieve things and it is, like you said a culture of ‘doers’ and I think that attracts fellow ‘doers’.

Anne: The other piece is that we are building this network of coworking spaces and it’s really about the cities that we’re going to and we’re looking at great cities across the U.S. that maybe have not had as much coworking or entrepreneurial hub activity centralized. I think that we really look at being able to connect cities, build that network, and make these cities feel like they’re part of something that is bigger and growing stronger, and so people really want to be part of the movement.

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What got you into the coworking industry?

Chris: We used to do a lot of meetups in and around New Orleans in a post-Katrina environment and so we were really trying to build back the entrepreneurial community, not to what it once was, but rather to the vision of what it could be. We had all these meetups and there was something called ‘BarCamp’ and I read about this coworking space called ‘Citizen Space’ that was founded on the premise of ‘what if we could have BarCamp everyday? And basically work together in that kind of collective environment everyday’. I flew out to San Francisco out to visit Citizen Space and then flew up to New York to a space called New Work City. Both of these places preceded us and preceded many of the other players like WeWork and many of the others. So, soon after that we opened Launch Pad. We decided to do it New Orleans and that was the origin of Launch Pad in 2009.

Congratulations on the 10-year anniversary! Did you do anything special for it?

Chris: As a matter of fact we did! We had a big party and a big celebration in New Orleans.

Anne: We had a lot of the original members who started with Launch Pad and really helped catalyze the community in New Orleans come by and share some of their stories, especially sharing some of their war stories that happened and some of the inside jokes and whatnot. It was kind of an interesting marker as it also coincided with our expansion where we also celebrated in that same week, or quickly thereafter, our 1-year anniversary in Newark. We had been 1 location for a long time and now we are at 6 locations and that is just since 2018. We have been really rapidly expanding the network.

What made you guys decide to go into Newark?

Chris: Firstly, Newark is a great city and we like these great American cities. Right now we’re focused on American cities but we’ll see where we go! Specifically though, at the moment, cities with downtown cores, CBDs (central business districts), and those with cultural and historic components. Cities that may have been overlooked or underserved and underestimated and are sort of on the same ‘come back’ trajectory that New Orleans has been on post-Katrina. We call these markets ‘Momentum Markets’. They are places that people might be moving home to or rediscovering and Newark is a great example of this. The downtown is vibrant, there is an awesome art scene, and so there is arts, culture and music. All of the great artists that are getting forced out of New York and now forced out of Brooklyn are migrating to Newark, so it’s a really cool vibe right now.

Anne: Newark is the new Brooklyn, and that transformation has happened in the last 15-20 years. It’s phenomenal to see what’s been happening in Newark and how fast it’s changed. As we look at other cities who would like to make similar changes, we hope to be one small part of how they reinvent themselves in this world. I think coworking itself as an industry has helped shape people’s view of how you need to work. I think work is changing with more remote workers and I think you can now find employees anywhere. The reality is that coworking spaces give us the opportunity to think differently. To get out of your house if you’re working by yourself and go work amongst other ‘coworkers’ who might not be your actual coworkers. We’re able to create that community at work where we really strive, especially as companies change the way that their head-offices are actually done.

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What do you think of the term ‘human capital’?

Chris: It’s an interesting reference! We use it and think its our most important resource as a company. The people are what power us, on all levels. Our employees, our team, and everyone we depend on and need to help build the company. They’re our greatest asset. But also obviously, the human capital within our spaces and our communities. As much as we love our furniture and our desks and chairs from Autonomous, really our members are our magic and so the human capital really is the people who are within the coworking space that really make it a special place. So, I think it's a very descriptive and apt term for our greatest asset.

What are you most proud of regarding your team?

Anne: In my career, one of the things that is really important is creating a team that is resilient and can adapt to changes and dynamics with work and the business. We had a pretty big transformative event last year when Chris and I welcomed our daughter to the world and I gave birth 3 weeks early. None of the plans had been put in place yet, the bags hadn’t been packed, and the team was still in the process of getting prepared for what they were gonna do when we went on maternity leave. Through that, there ended up being a time when Chris and I really had to shut down and step away from the business very quickly, focusing in on family life and this new baby that was in our world. We sort of stepped back and hoped the business thrived and survived and all those things and it did, it thrived. The team rose to the challenge and took over and it was 3-4 months of them working and building our company and moving forward on all of the plans and nobody ever skipped a beat. That was a really proud moment for me: seeing how well the team did in those circumstances and it was a really great moment for Chris and I to realize how great a team we had built and how strong, smart, and capable they were and it gave us so much confidence in what we can do in the future.

Chris: The other thing that’s notable about it, is that once we came back into the business, we didn’t go back to the way it was. Everybody who stepped up as leaders stayed in leadership roles and continued to operate and it allowed us to level up. The whole business leveled up through that experience.
Anne: That's exactly right, it’s very easy for leaders to come back and say ‘Well thanks for doing that, I’ll take over the reigns now’. What it actually did though, was it gave us the space to think about bigger things, more important stuff - while coworking is at its core - we’re also in the process of launching a foundation to support underrepresented groups and we’re creating a venture fund to invest in companies in the cities that we’re going into.

How would you describe your company culture?

Anne: We’re a bit scrappy, just like all of our members. We spend our money where it matters. We buy Autonomous furniture because that really is a critical piece for delivering a great, world-class experience for our members. We really do believe that constraint breeds creativity and so that is a model that we adhere to - how can we do more with less, how can we be creative with less resources so we follow that a scrappy mentality which really aligns us well with our members. Our members are trying to figure it out too. They’re often entrepreneurs, they’re rubbing their pennies together trying to be able to make it work and invest in themselves when they come to Launch Pad.

The other piece I think really is just to be empowered. The ability for people to have ideas and to create their path. To take the reigns. To do what needs to be done and to feel that their contribution is always valued and that you don’t always have to wait for permission to do something. A culture of empowerment is really important.
The final thing I’d say is purpose and mission driven. I recently had a text message from someone who had recently joined the team and he said ‘I am so stoked to be apart of this community, everybody I talk to on the team is really mission aligned and driven to have an impact, driven to make a difference in the world that we’re in.’ We talk about that and we say that it is important in our culture and really believe it but it’s especially nice to see people feel it. It’s one thing to put it on the wall and it’s another when people really feel it from your team everyday. So yes, mission and purpose driven is really important to us. We also have a set of core values that are put up on the walls of all of our locations. They’re sort of the way we work and the culture that we want to create within the community. They’re a little different from our company culture but they align very well.
Chris: Our core values are: Start with YES. Our members are our magic. Diverse and inclusive, not exclusive. We are First-Believers. Be one, and we go long!

What was the biggest challenge your business has ever faced and what was learned from it?

Chris: We spent the first 8 years of the company strictly focused on the New Orleans ecosystem very deliberately but through that period we certainly talked about expansion and what is the right model for expansion. Whether we should franchise, should we do this, or should we do that, and eventually we decided to just do it. To grow ourselves, and so we opened a location in Charleston, South Carolina and we actually, totally, stubbed our toes, is how I refer to it. It did not go well. It was all due to the initial underwriting and bad lease. We made a bad decision to sign a bad deal.

It was actually executed wonderfully though. We sold the place out and had an awesome community but we were losing money every month and we just weren’t gonna make it work and we realized that early on. We were fortunate in that we were able to transfer the lease to another company. The landlord was happy, we were happy, our community in Charleston still asks us when we are coming back but it was a real lesson. I think that the most important thing is it helped us incorporate a lot of learning around not just running a coworking space but also underwriting a great real estate deal. Now one of our mantras is ‘every deal is better than our last’ and as we go into new communities we really focus on that.
It’s the type of thing that could have been a company killer but, as a result of getting through it, actually made the company a lot stronger and more resilient. It’s a challenge that we have overcome.
Anne: I joined the company as we were transitioning out of Charleston and it was a really huge lesson. I really appreciated Chris’ work on it, which showed the importance of building strong partnerships and not being transactional in our way of dealing. The reason I say that is because what I saw was that it was a really tough time. Making rent was probably one of the hardest things we had to do and I think there are probably a lot of coworking spaces that struggle with this as well. Luckily though, the relationship Chris built with the landlord, the relationship they had together to figure out how to make it work was the thing that saved us ultimately. A really open and honest dialogue, a relationship that was not challenged. So in the end, we worked really closely with the landlord and now that is something we really believe in overall.
Business is about relationships, it’s not about the transaction and some people can get lost in that. What we were able to do with that strong relationship was to get out of it smoothly, feel good about it, with everyone feeling as good about it, including our members, as they possibly could. We were open and transparent about the why and what was next and so we take these lessons with us.
When we are going into markets, we are looking at developers or landlord partners who aren’t just looking to fill up a buncha free space with a coworking space. We look for those who are also looking to build a relationship with us. To learn together. To work on the community and they are usually aligned with our mission to have an impact on their community or their city. These are the partners that we pick and the deals that we strike and that helps how we think. We don’t just look at a bunch of floors and rent them out, we really look at the holistic approach to the community and what we want to achieve.

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Where did the scrappy mentality come from?

Chris: We started the company in a bootstrap way, we didn’t raise any funding for the first 8-9 years of the business and that sort of instilled the scrappy mentality. When we were spending money, it was our money. But I think it’s both scrappy as well as a ‘we’re all in this together’ mentality. One of the true cliches about coworking spaces is that when our members need a new pot of coffee brewed or are doing the dishes, there’s no maid service here. We’re building this community for you and we want to serve the membership so everyone pitches in and does their own dishes and that sort of thing. We think both the scrappy and the ‘we’re all in this together’ mentality is a really important thing that we work to maintain today because we’re not the most expensive boutique or fanciest coworking space. We’re a coworking space with incredible design, we hire local artists to do murals and do all of the art in the space. We have great furniture and awesome standing desks from you guys but we focus on scrappiness from an economic standpoint because if it costs us more money, we have to pass it on to our members. We believe that entrepreneurs are constantly making value decisions. They don’t necessarily want the fanciest coworking space, they want the coworking space that makes the most sense for their business and hits the economics for them.

Tell us about a defining ‘aha!’ moment (if there was a particular moment) where your company experienced noticeable growth.

Anne: We really believe that there can be great companies built in every city in the U.S. so we had this view, by coining the term ‘Momentum Markets’ that we should start looking into different cities that we could go into that would be interesting. Cities that would align with our notion for ‘people with pride, cities with soul’ - something we kind of tack onto all of our locations. We look for cities that embody that. Actually, there was a really interesting change with the tax law that just came out that created ‘Opportunity Zones’. This allows investors to put capital gains into opportunity zones, and there are now thousands of these zones across the country and the goal was to take these capital gains/dollars, divert some taxes on them and help attract investment into the communities who need it most.

Oftentimes that looks like real estate but it also means businesses. As we looked into our business, we discovered that a lot of our businesses happen to be within these zones - in downtown cores where they want to do revitalization. So as we speak we happen to operating within a zone ourselves with our head-office in New Orleans. That discovery was an amazing accelerant because all of a sudden there’s all this investment, and all these policy people who are really interested in our business strategy because it fits and aligns really well with this new legislation that has happened.
That was for us, a moment where we said ‘oh we’re onto something here’ and it’s certainly nice to not be the only ones pioneering this notion and to have a lot of other folks who are caring about revitalizing communities across the country - boosting up entrepreneurship, and supporting the creation of these entrepreneurial hubs. We call these places ‘Momentum Markets’ because increasingly, people want to live in a city where they can buy a house. Where a lot of millennial populations actually want to move to and they usually have a lot of great corporate assets and they have a lot of momentum starting there. If we can keep the momentum going, things in motion tend to stay in motion.

I know that you’re growing rapidly and plan to open many coworking places in the upcoming months, what do you think is the secret behind your ongoing success?

Chris: I think it boils down to that core value that our members are our magic. I think at the end of the day we think of our spaces as platforms to support the growth of our members and support that growth in terms of impacting the communities that we serve from a job creation as well as a wealth creation standpoint. One of the stories I can recall that’s one of my favorites is a company that started at Launch Pad soon after we opened called Lucid. A guy named Pat Comer was the CEO and he was just 1 guy sitting at a coworking desk. He started this company and I was fortunate to get to know him and I became his first investor, so I was sort of his first believer in building the company and it just took off. They grew within Launch Pad to about 12 or 15 employees. They then graduated out of Launch Pad and we always celebrate it when companies graduate. Now they're one of the biggest Employers in New Orleans.

They have over 400 employees in their downtown New Orleans office and a lot of our colleagues and friends’ children work there and are able to have a great job rather than having to move to New York or San Francisco for a tech job. So, all of that transpired and 8 or 9 years later, we’re still going strong today and that type of impact is exactly what we are aspiring to have on these cities around the country. So I think that ‘Our members are our magic’ sort of sums up exactly what is sort of the secret to our success.

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How do you manage to build businesses together and maintain a creative and motivated environment in your workspace?

Anne: I think one of the things that’s really important in each of our spaces is that each location is different. Each city is different, each community is different, and that is brought to life by the members. They really are the magic, and the things that really create that feeling and that vibrancy in the city and within the location. I think being able to give people the opportunity to design the space they want to develop, with the programming they want, and to lead how the community evolves really helps us to create that.

We also look at bringing in folks to support us so we might recruit members to come and take scholarships because they have a really interesting business that is going to be additive to the community and give them an opportunity to work regardless of their budget. So they are able to create some vibrancy within the space. We will also hire ambassadors and when I say hire, I use that term loosely but we’ll sort of have an ambassador program where they will come spend some time with us, maybe support some of the community development activities and really be that Launch Pad ambassador we strive for. So we’re bringing in fresh new ideas to the space, new programs, new folks to support it and so we have an ongoing program around that.
If you think about it, it stands the test of time for the communities in New Orleans. That community is still really strong and one of our core values as I said is we go long. Some of the first coworkers in New Orleans 10 years later are still there and still part of that community and the stories that continue and the relationships that were formed through that, they’re still some of the strongest relationships you see in that city. They're still the leaders and the hustlers, and the ones who are making a difference in different ways and they're the ones who are really continuing to create that momentum.

What are some misconceptions about your industry?

Anne: First of all, I think a lot of people, in particular, probably folks in real estate think it's as easy as creating an open-concept environment on a floor and putting in some cool desks and chairs, some conference rooms, and throwing up some art and some murals and thinking ‘if I build it, they will come’. I think there is that perception and some of the big guys obviously have great brand recognition there and might be able to take multiple floors but the reality is that when coworking is done right, the infrastructure and the table-stakes of what the space is falls to the background and the community moves forward. And building community is one of the toughest things to do but it's also the most important piece. And again, building community is not like ‘oh I just threw an event or I had a beer tasting’.

It’s really about understanding what is core to the human condition and what they need and what they want and what they're looking for. It's also about having supportive people around you because being an entrepreneur is very scary. You’re often told no more than you’re told yes. You're often on the ropes even if you have to pretend like you're not and having a community of fellow folks who are there to be supportive and care about your success, is probably one of the most valuable things you can have. So I think that a lot of people think it's about the desks, and chairs, and the office space and that is important but it's really a lot more about the people, and the community, and the engagement that happens there.

How helpful was the experience of building Launch Pad in understanding your members needs?

Chris: I think we are definitely aligned with our members. We experience the same thing everyday and I think that's our core values really inform us. I think they can relate to that, whether it’s from listening to this kind of interview, they’re learning about our business and we’re really open with them. Doing things like town halls and sharing our experiences as we're going through it. We definitely relate well to our members.

Anne: There's also probably a bit of a misconception that people who operate coworking spaces are just rolling in money and I think more often than not, it's a lot of work to be able to do that and provide the service and so we recognize the importance of delivering a value product for our customers. We really try to be able to navigate that fine line of being profitable and also not being so expensive that people can't afford it. I think that's one of the things that we've held really true and is most important for us.

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Where do you see the startup trends heading in the foreseeable future and how will you adapt?

Chris: Each market will be different. I think that one of the one of the important startup trends that we’re seeing and are hopefully playing a role in, is the disbursement of startup communities around the country and around the world. As much as people think of tech in Silicon Valley as the epicenter of tech. The truth is, all sorts of industries are becoming tech-enabled and all sorts of industries are going through a transformation. In a lot of cases, those industries are going to be based where those businesses have historically been and where there is an asset or natural advantage to building the business there.

We have all sorts of different sectors in each of our different markets, there's a lot of media and podcasting in New York and you can align that well with a Newark kind of vibe. In Nashville there's a huge Healthcare community. In New Orleans there's a lot of work going on with resilience and combating the impacts of climate change happening. And so you see startups forming around those and I think that's one of the things that we're going to continue to see and that's one of the reasons that were betting on these ‘momentum markets’ across the country. There's already a start-up community in all these markets and we’re coming in to help catalyze it and grow it and connect it to a national network.

So you guys are thinking of expanding internationally as well?

Chris: We would love to. We've got a lot of relationships internationally and have done work all over Europe with Ecosystem Summit which is a conclave of people building ecosystems like ourselves around the world. We've done a lot of work in Africa, and have invested in companies in Nigeria. We have networks globally and certainly get people asking us about when we’re going to be bringing a Launch Pad to their market. But, one of the crucial components to being an entrepreneur is staying focused. There's a lot of things you can do but in terms of strategically, you have to do the right things in the right sequence so, for the moment, we’re focused domestically in the US. Ultimately though we would love to be International as well.

What can you tell us about your company that we couldn’t find anywhere else?

Anne: I'll give you two scoops on what we're doing. We’re obviously expanding our network. We’re hoping to be in 20 markets by the end of 2020. We continue that path and the reason why we're building that network is, as I've said, to focus on supporting entrepreneurial hubs across the United States in momentum markets. Another way that we're doing that is actually through our foundation that we just launched in the last 2 months as well as a venture fund that we're going to be starting to raise in the Fall. The idea around the foundation is that first of all, you can spend less on coffee then you would on co-working so it is a really good value product to invest in yourself but even then it is still a challenge for folks. So, the foundation both looks to support underrepresented groups, identifying individuals who would really benefit from the space and the community that we have to offer and underwrite some scholarships in each of our markets to be able to bring people into our space to develop curriculum to support entrepreneurs and help our members be successful. That's something very important to us.

Then on the venture fund side, we want to be able to offer services and support for members at all levels. From the smallest startup - the single person entrepreneur, right up to growth companies. So, what we are looking for in the venture fund is the ability to identify great companies as they start to graduate out of Launch Pad and be able to invest in them, giving investors access to these markets that maybe they don't see that often. We really see the Venture fund as a way to create a national fund that fills the gap that happens in a lot of these markets between the seed round and Series A and to be able to support entrepreneurs and create a level playing field. This is to be both investor friendly and also support the growth of companies across the US rather than making it impossible for companies to develop in their market, forcing them to move to another location.

How do you envision the future?

Chris: I envision a future where there are Launch Pads in cities across America and in cities across the world. I certainly envision our growth for our near-term goals as I mentioned of 20 to 25 locations in the next 2 years. But I think in a broader sense, this concept of people working entrepreneurially is really the way of the future, and it is already here in that regard. Not everybody is onboard just yet though. It's important to take ownership of your own career and the trajectory of what you're going to be doing and how you make a living. We find that people working entrepreneurially, sometimes are starting startups, sometimes they're working remotely or freelancing, like a digital nomad who is traveling all over the world.

But it’s really all about agency. What kind of life do you want to live and how do you create that for yourself. These are people who don't let life happen to them. If a business, like a traditional business or manufacturing business goes out of business they’re not just saying ‘okay well you know, what's next for me, what can the government do for me’. They're learning some skills, they're figuring out how they're going to pick themselves up and that's where, in this challenging time and transformation in the economy, we’re heading right now. The future is going to be won by people who are willing to work entrepreneurially and really take control of the life that they want to lead and build a career doing that.
Anne: I really believe that the future of work, the way people are starting to work now isn't going to change, we're not going back to the old ways. I think as work evolves, there is a massive opportunity for cities to be able to create, attract, and retain the talent that exists there because anyone can work from anywhere now and companies are changing their mindset around vacation days, how people actually work, and working from home. I think there's going to be a wonderful transformation where, you've spent a lot of time going into your office building and into your office and connecting with your existing co-workers but there is an opportunity now where the main street is being transformed and actually the coworking space can be the hub of the community. The place where you can see all the people that you meet when you're walking down the street and that's really what Launch Pad represents, is the notion of the community within the community and the hub within the city.

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Do you think the future of work will be mainly freelance for most people?

Anne: I think there's going to be constant evolution, whether it's a gig economy, the freelance culture, working remotely or working entrepreneurially. I think for people to be successful in any way, they always have to be learning, they always have to be pushing their boundaries and thinking about what’s next. I don't think the current state of affairs is where we're going to stay. I think it's going to continue to evolve. I wouldn't bet on ‘oh it's only going to be a gig economy’. I think we're actually going to shift and change and you're going to find out that actually personal relationships may matter more than connections to a marketplace of services through an app. I think it will be a constant evolution. I also believe that most importantly, at least I hope, we're going to see a trend back to real-life relationships and building strong connections and a strong community that actually cares about the community that we're within. I think we're already seeing that. I see that everyday and I think the world is craving that connection and I think that will be a very instrumental part of the future.

Do you think entrepreneurship is in a person’s DNA or do you think being part of a coworking community like Launch Pad will help develop the entrepreneurship bug?

Chris: I totally subscribe to the latter. I think that anybody has the capacity to be an entrepreneur. What seems to hold people back so often is self-doubt, with an imposter syndrome. But you can get into a coworking space or community where you have first believers around you and people who are starting with Yes rather than telling you ‘No that's a dumb idea’ and it really brings it out and at least allows you to try. Part of it is trying to put yourself out there. Things fail and that's okay but you build muscles as you fail and you build resilience. So yes, I do believe that everybody has the capacity to be an entrepreneur and being an entrepreneur can mean many different things. Today, if you're a freelancer and you're working for yourself, you're an entrepreneur. If you’re the CEO of a huge tech company that you founded, you're an entrepreneur. There's a whole spectrum, so you don't have to start the fastest growing VC fund or startup up to consider yourself as an entrepreneur. I think that everybody has that capacity.

Why did you choose Autonomous?

Chris: I have a couple stories about the path to Autonomous actually. As we were looking to outfit our space, we relocated our location in New Orleans to a new building and so we were in need of some new desks and furniture. We do think a lot about design and style and we were sort of looking into a more mid-century modern theme and one of the members of our team said ‘Oh well we should get all these West Elm desks that look like side tables’ and I was thinking you'll pull your chair in and you’ll stub your knees. It's just the worst place I can imagine actually working everyday. My concept of a work environment is really about ergonomics, wellness, feeling comfortable, and being healthy in your workspace.

So, this helped lead us to wanting to do standing desks and the adjustable desks that Autonomous offers. We found you guys and you’ve been a great company to work with. In fact, we’ve had a relationship with your company going back several years and all of our coworking spaces now are standardized with Autonomous desks and Autonomous chairs. It's been a great project. Another note that I’ll tell is that we brought on a project manager when we began expanding and she said ‘Ok well I’m looking at these Autonomous products but from a scrappy standpoint, there’s tons of these standing desk options out there so let me do some research and see if we can find another vendor for these’. I told her ‘I think I've done the research here but I'll let you go on your walk about’. So, she went out and surveyed the scene and looked at other products on the market and came back to us and said ‘Chris you really made a good decision here with Autonomous. These are the best on the market with the best value as well’. We're really pleased with the relationship.
Anne: The only thing I would add to that is that at the end of the day when the work space and the furniture works, it fades into the background and allows the members to come to the front. When it doesn't work it is a thing that takes over everybody’s perspective and so I think being able to partner with someone who we feel confident has a great high quality product that works, it works really well. I've seen plenty of manufacturers where the desks are broken, they can't move up and down, or they're not smooth and any number of problems. It really isn’t worth it to save a few dollars cuz this is actually the core and when it works, it works great. I can tell you, I'd rather be spending time fielding calls around how to make our members successful then complaints around whether or not somebody blew something up in the microwave. But when that happens, those are the calls that we get. So, for us, we really want to offer a world-class workspace and that means having world-class partners and vendors that participate in that.

Just out of curiosity, how often do you see people standing at their adjustable desks?

Chris: I would say probably, in my assessment, 30% of the time. ⅓ of the time, people are standing. I work at an Autonomous desk personally in our home and I love the presets and being able to set it to your height and have it go up and down. I see people doing that alot - alternating from standing-up to sitting-down. Also your ErgoStool, people love that too cuz it helps with your core and posture. So we’ve begun to incorporate that as well. So yes probably about ⅓ of the time people are standing if you just walk into a Launch Pad location and kind of survey the scene.

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