WeWork Labs: Where everyone should Beta test
I work in a collaborative workspace called WeWork Labs. It’s kind of like an everlasting summer camp for tech startups. I mean to say the office is filled with nerds who never want to “grow up.”
But there’s nothing wrong with this type of environment. How else is tech innovation fostered? Not in stiff boardrooms. Yeah, we take work breaks to play Foosball, pinball, and Sega Genesis, but we discuss new tech ideas while intensely playing NBA Jam. Having fun and working hard are inherently intertwined in our community.
And because of this unique adaptation of “Work Hard / Play Hard,” WeWork executives decided last October to use its members as Beta testers for a new internally built social media platform. Currently, it’s exclusively made for its members, but the development team has discussed the possibility of eventually opening the platform to the public.
The platform integrates necessary daily business tasks (i.e. reserving conference rooms, general community announcements) with the natural social characteristics of a collaborative work environment. For instance, the user dashboard is separated into three columns: news feed (like Facebook), reservations and guests, and community updates.
The news feed is populated with user posts, which range from business suggestions/help to gifs of neon cats. Again illustrating the bizarre nexus of productive and playful. I’ve even used the newsfeed to find freelance work for friends, give search marketing advice, and find the latest tech world news. It’s a useful tool as is, but WeWork’s social media platform has the possibility to do so much more.
Enter WeWork Labs members.
Successful, industry-changing products and services are built when innovative, hard working, and fun individuals work in close quarters. That’s why the WeWork Labs open floor “Pit” is an ideal place to Beta test.
WeWork Labs is mostly an open pit of individual tech companies ranging from 1-5 people. It opened March of 2012 and has since expanded to office spaces in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The basic concept is to provide affordable office space for early stage tech startups. But since its birth, the companies that have rolled through its floors have expanded, broken down, and reformed. And new side projects have been created. For instance, Test Tube Tuesdays came out of a new friendship formed in the Labs open pit.
Because Lab'ers are constantly testing products and making revisions, we understand how to give important, actionable feedback. In other words, we know how to break things (and rebuild them). These characteristics combined with the amazing amenities provided by WeWork Labs, such as private demo days and influential speakers, make for a fast-paced, rapidly-growing space.
Labs is a living, breathing entity – it’s a beast growing with its inhabitants. If I were testing a product, I’d use us, too.
