Why We Are Bringing Back Founding Members: Making Work Work, CEO Series Vol. 11
The best workplaces aren’t built when the doors open. They’re built in the first 90 days after.
That’s something I didn’t fully understand early on and boy did I take a lot of flack for it.
In the early days of Workbar, our most loyal members had opinions about everything.
The coffee.
The layout.
The vibe.
And not quick takes, thoughtful, detailed feedback about how people actually work. Where connection happens. Where it breaks.
At the time, I’ll be honest… it drove me crazy.
No one cares more than I do. Right? Wrong.
What I was seeing wasn’t criticism. It was ownership. And once you see that clearly, you realize something important: You don’t build great workplaces for people. You build them with the right people.
In 2018, we were refreshing our Cambridge Central Sq location. We shared plans with members, including layouts, timelines, the whole thing, and got back a flood of responses. Not about finishes or aesthetics.
About flow.
About where people naturally gather.
About where they don’t.
About how to create more opportunities for real interaction without sacrificing focus.
These weren’t designers.They were people living their workdays in the space, whose only motivation was to make it better. And they were right. That was the moment I realized we weren’t just operating coworking spaces. We were building an environment that people felt responsible for. Not in the cap table. In the culture.
That experience shaped how I think about every new location. So as we open new Workbar spaces, including Harvard Square, we’ve gone back to something we haven’t done in a while:
Founding Members.
Not as a marketing tactic. As a core part of how we bring a space to life. Because the early group matters more than most people realize.
They set the tone.
They establish the norms.
They influence how people interact, collaborate, and focus.
They are the difference between a space that simply opens…and one that actually works.
What It Means to Be a Founding Member
Being a Founding Member is about shaping what the space becomes.
Here’s what that looks like:
Lock in pre-opening rates
The people who take the earliest leap with us should benefit from it. Founding Members secure preferred pricing before the space opens, recognizing the role they play in getting it off the ground.
Get immediate access to the Workbar network
Even before the new location opens, Founding Members are fully part of Workbar. They can work at other Workbar locations. Workbar has never been about a single location. It’s a regional system designed around how people live and work.
Help shape the culture from day one
Founding Members don’t walk into a finished product.
They help define it.
How people use the space.
Where energy builds.
Culture isn’t something you install later. It’s something that forms immediately, through behavior.
And the earliest members set that in motion.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
Most office spaces are designed, built, and then handed over. The assumption is: once it’s open, people will figure it out.
But that’s not how work actually happens.
Work is dynamic.
It’s social.
It’s behavioral.
And the difference between a space that people tolerate and one they choose, again and again, comes down to how well it supports those behaviors.
That doesn’t come from floor plans alone. It comes from the people inside it.
From the signals they send.
From the norms they establish.
From the friction they help eliminate.
When you get the early group right, everything else becomes easier:
- Stronger retention
- Better utilization
- More meaningful connections
- A space that evolves in the right direction from the start
Built With, Not For
There’s a misconception in coworking, and in office space more broadly, that the operator creates the experience.
Design matters. Operations matter. Programming matters.
But the most important layer is the one you don’t fully control:
The people.
The best version of Workbar has never been something we built on our own.
It’s been shaped by members who cared enough to speak up.
To push.
To refine.
To make it better.
Founding Members are how we bring that energy in from day one. Because the goal isn’t just to open another location. It’s to create a place that works, immediately, and for a very long time.
The Bottom Line
Founding Members aren’t just early adopters. They’re the people who turn a space into a community. And a community into something people don’t want to leave. That’s how we’ve always made work work.
And it’s exactly how we’re approaching what’s next.