Corporate Turns Coworking – Campus X & OfficeRnD
Miroslav Miroslavov
CEO and Co-founder of OfficeRnD
May 29, 2018|3 mins read 1
OfficeRnD was born in late 2014 when we, together with another Miro, started working on a software for space management. Both of us were managing software teams at Telerik, one of the leading software companies for developer tools. We were facing an interesting challenge ‘How to make sure our teams are productive and our teammates are happy and healthy in an office that’s constantly changing due to the dynamic nature of the software business.’
As software engineers, of course, we were sure the solution must be Software. Let’s develop a platform that streamlines the management of the office space – improve the occupancy and utilization while maintaining a well-balanced, well-planned thus healthy, collaborative and productive office environment.
We were still trying to conceptualize our idea when Telerik was acquired by Progress Software. It was a big success for an amazing startup. These events served us as further motivation to leave the security of our well-paid jobs and start our own venture.
The World of Coworking
Early on, PiLabs, the first #proptech accelerator in Europe invited us to join their program in London. The office was based in the beautiful coworking space called SecondHome in Shoreditch. It quickly became our ‘first home’ as we were coding 16h / day. That’s how we discovered the amazing world of Coworking. A shared workspace with an extreme focus on community and collaboration, good sense of hospitality and beautiful, productive layout and design. That was it!
SecondHome and the Coworking spaces we’ve seen were exactly what we thought the office should be:
- Collaborative offices with great communities
- Green, healthy and stimulating environments
- Dynamic, flexible and evolving spaces
The World of Coworking Software
Only 3 months after we started we decided to focus entirely on making the best software for coworking spaces. Although we started with the ‘space’ module and built beautiful interactive floor plans, we quickly developed a billing module, accounting integrations and started working on our first version of the community portal.
To be honest, most of our early-stage investors weren’t very excited about the coworking industry. It was a small, very niche market that on the surface seemed like a really tiny opportunity for a tech startup. One of the Telerik founders, also our very first investor, was joking with us about how we managed to pick such a small industry.
Campus X
Fast forward two years and there was an interesting plot twist in our story. While OfficeRnD was growing fast and adding more and more awesome coworking customers, the Telerik founders decided to take on their next challenge – building the largest incubator for tech
companies and talent in South-East Europe, Campus X.
Thanks to their vision and understanding of the startup community Campus X is turning into one of the most vibrant flexible workspace/tech hubs in the regions. After the final phase of the project, the campus will span across approximately 18 000 sq.m. of office space, hosting more than 1000 members.
Interestingly enough, Campus X premises in fact span across the same office buildings we wanted to build space management software for 3 years ago in the then ‘corporate’ environment. They are now converted to beautiful flexible workspaces that serve as a home base for Campus X’s amazing community. Turns out that in the end, we did build software for the buildings we envisioned 4 years ago, however not in the corporate environment we originally thought.
Today, Campus X workspaces management is powered by the OfficeRnD software platform. Automating the operations allowed them to focus on the important bits, such as growing the community and making their facilities great and hospitable. OfficeRnD is helping them with a number of elements, such as:
- Automated billing;
- Easy to use contracts & memberships management;
- Integrated door access;
- Connected community through a beautiful web portal and mobile app;
- Easy to use bookings, and;
- Interactive space management (yes, this is where we started)
This is just the beginning for us. We’re ready to do so much more for the world of Coworking and Flexible workspaces.
If you want to join the coworking industry, check out our careers page or drop us a line at info@officernd.com. We are growing and looking for JavaScript Developers and Quality Assurance Engineer for our beautiful office in Campus X, Sofia, Bulgaria.
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