Here is a startup that can help other startups and businesses find needed short-term office space. WorkinSpot is an online community marketplace that matches temporarily surplus office space with businesses looking for temporary office space â an Airbnb for office space. This startup company is generating a new avenue to combat the problems of offices having no use for empty desks and the problem that there are not enough locations for businessmen and entrepreneurs to work while out of their home office. WorkinSpot also provides companies that may have too many offices and those that are lacking offices to collaborate and work together to occupy that unused space. A young, driven, and soon-to-be graduate of California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB), man by the name of Sal Ornelas-Reynoso has set out to take this idea and make it a reality. With his backstop being his family and friends he is striving to get his company up and running. At the moment it is still pre-operational, yet there are plans for a soft launch by the end of the year 2017. Their alpha testing is taking place with a few office spaces within commercial businesses in Salinas, Watsonville, San Jose, and San Carlos. Before they launch they are focusing on making sure their services meet the needs of both the clients using the working space and the businesses providing it.
WorkinSpot started at the annual Startup Weekend hosted by the Institute for Innovation and Economic Development on the CSUMB campus. This idea was started in Salâs team at the 2017 Startup Weekend. But the team from Startup Weekend disbanded, leaving him alone working on the idea. Since Startup Weekend he has continued looking for others who share his vision for WorkinSpot. He has been joined by Daniel Ornelas, WorkinSpotâs chief operations officer, Willie Eagleton, WorkinSpotâs business developer manager, and Andrew Ludwig, sales engineer and data researcher, After Startup Weekend, the team began preparing for and entered the Startup Challenge new venture competition (Startup Challenge Monterey BayCha) to keep them focused on forging ahead with development. Â Sal made it very clear that the Startup Challenge helped them create a foundation for the business as it helped him understand how to effectively create a service that customers would actually want. He stated that âgoing through the competition, I learned how to effectively communicate our business to customers and investorsâ (personal communication, September 14, 2017).
His team has continued their work on WorkinSpot, with guidance from their advisor Brad Barbeau, whoâs âguidance is phenomenalâ according to Sal (personal communication, September 14, 2017). The team hopes to move to beta testing before the end of the year, and plans to make another run at Startup Challenge in early 2018.
Through all of the hard work and countless hours that has gone into it, WorkinSpot is coming closer and closer to being a reality. It is certainly something to keep watch for as one day you may be in need for an office space for a day or a week.
