Industrious in Brooklyn

Nowhere on earth is hospitality more important than the office. That is the concept behind Industrious, a co-working company Jamie Hodari founded with his best friend, Justin Stewart, back in 2013.

Hodari remembers having the most important meeting of his life, and realizing two hours beforehand that he was embarrassed by the space he was in because it just wasn't professional enough.

He called Stewart that night and the two got to work, figuring out a better way to do business.

They set out to create a co-working company that would be engaging, fun, and hip, but also professional, elegant and mature in a way they didn't see anywhere else at the time.

Headquartered in Brooklyn, they opened their first Industrious in Chicago.

Hodari says New York is where you go when you really know what you're doing.

So even though they're headquartered here, New York was actually their 9th city.

They're now in 11 cities including Atlanta, Columbus, Minneapolis, Nashville, and Philadelphia.

They've raised $51 million in funding to date and have tripled in size each year.

In October they announced their first space in Manhattan, set to open in Union Square next spring.

What makes Industrious different are the things you can see, like social events, a great coffee lounge, a speakeasy for happy hours, and a community manager who handles just about everything.

But there are also subtle touches you don't see, which Hodari thinks are just as important.

How are you treated? Do you walk in and feel like you're special and looked out for and that every single detail is paid attention to?

That level of service is drawing a range of clients from big companies like Hyatt, Spotify, Chipotle, and Pinterest who use Industrious for their regional offices, to smaller local companies who want a classy place to call home.

Elisheva Fhima with Bais Chana Women's International calls Industrious an adult space where things are getting done. She says that's what her organization is all about, so it was a good match for them.

Samantha Raddatz of Logic Department LLC says she'd never be able to have coffee every morning or a conference room if she had to go out on her own, and thinks her office would be a much smaller and boring place.

For Hodari, it is all about creating the most warm and inviting high-quality workspaces in America, and they plan to keep growing.

When they started 3 years ago, Hodari says big enterprise customers were only 5% of their business. They're now nearly half of his customers across the country.

He believes the future of shared workspace has lots of room for growth and believes it could be 70% of the office space market down the line.

www.industriousoffice.com

www.baischanawomen.org

www.logicdept.com