Pauline Roussel (EDHEC BBA 2010), founder of COWORKIES

Pauline ROUSSEL (EDHEC International BBA 2010) co-founded COWORKIES, the first recruitment website dedicated to coworking spaces and their communities. 

Can you tell us how your business came about? 

COWORKIES started in 2015. I met my co-founder Dimitar in a coworking space I was managing in Berlin that focused mainly on early-stage start-ups. As time went by we realised that each company founder that joined the space needed three things to expand: 

1. Extend their professional network
2. Recruit freelancers, interns or their first employees
3. Raise funds

The space I managed was an investor-driven initiative, and so we were able to help members find potential investors in Berlin or elsewhere.

However, I quickly realised that we could do better when it came to recruitment and networking. Because the space was mainly used by a community of business founders, it was very difficult (if not impossible) for them to find new talented staff or key partners like accountants or lawyers within the coworking space.

There was another coworking space nearby that welcomed freelancers and other service providers we needed. There was no structured or organised link between our two communities, although our respective teams knew each other and often collaborated together. Dimitar came up with the idea for this online platform that would allow coworking spaces to connect their communities in order to: 

- extend their networks
- find new talented peopl

To validate his idea, we set off to meet with business founders and managers of coworking spaces in Berlin to pitch the concept to them. We got very positive feedback, and the type of platform we had in mind didn’t exist on the market at the time. At the beginning of 2016 we decided to create COWORKIES.

To build up our community beyond Berlin we also undertook quite a unique journey: travelling to meet our clients across the world to understand their needs both locally and globally. Through COWORKIES we have visited 412 coworking spaces since we started in 47 cities worldwide, including Tokyo, New York and Paris. 

Who are your clients? What is your strategy to get them onboard?

We have two types of clients: 

- coworking spaces
- and their members – freelancers, SMEs or larger companies

Our recruitment vision goes far beyond a simple job description. Finding a job you love is also about the work environment and growth and learning opportunities available to candidates. Coworking spaces offer all this at once: a work environment that is stimulating and flexible where you can meet new people every day through the events organised there.

However, none of these spaces really promote this when recruiting. And furthermore they don’t really know when their members recruit someone and don’t have the right tools to help them. Through our Coworkies platform, we help these spaces not only build up their teams but also support their members by offering an additional service.

Who are your partners?

We have a network of partners enjoying strong growth. They give these coworking spaces the chance to benefit from training in different ways. We work for example with French start-up KYMONO, which focuses on outfits as a branding tool. This allows the coworking spaces in our community not only to benefit from reductions but also to undergo training on issues like brand/branding and why it’s important for coworking spaces, etc.

Tell us about your encouraging initial outcomes:

Since we started we have brought together and supported more than 800 coworking spaces worldwide, uniting their communities and teams, and enabled thousands of candidates to find jobs in work environments they can identify with and where they can enjoy both personal and professional fulfilment.
We were also presented with opportunities that we never would have imagined. For example, we have supported major brands like IKEA to understand their vision of the future of work: coworking spaces, strategy and HR flexibility, etc.

How are you managing the current health and economic crisis? 

Initially it was really a tough blow to see all our plans for 2020 dry up, but after the first week of lockdown we decided to see the health crisis as a good opportunity to get closer to our clients (who really need us in these difficult times) as well as our partners to come up with solutions that may be of use to them post-COVID-19.

We launched an event called Hack Coworking Online at the end of May 2020. The idea is to bring together a diverse range of coworking communities from around the world to discuss and build the future together. The aim is to come up with solutions that will not only allow members of coworking spaces to return but also to feel confident and safe within their communities.

What is your initial assessment of this entrepreneurial adventure?

Setting off on your own entrepreneurial adventure is far from easy, the road is paved with doubts and uncertainties. It is also above all a personal adventure. You can read thousands of books and articles about successful entrepreneurs and take inspiration from them, but what worked for them won’t necessarily work for you.
The most important thing is to remember that whatever happens there are no failures, only a great amount of learning. Society puts a crazy amount of pressure on start-ups to follow the traditional path of “business accelerator, demo day, fundraising, growth, growth, growth”, sometimes even to the detriment of the product and clients. Each entrepreneurial adventure is unique, and I think it is important to listen to yourself and not be too influenced from the outside. You need to be able to filter the different advice you get because ultimately it is up to us, the entrepreneurs, to make the decisions we feel are best and most closely reflect our vision.
And so to all future entrepreneurs reading this interview: trust yourself and go for it!

You graduated from the EDHEC BBA programme. How does your education help you on your current path as an entrepreneur?

I graduated from EDHEC BBA in 2010, and at the time entrepreneurship wasn’t as developed as it is now, we were all looking for corporate experience (I started my career at UBISOFT) by concentrating on a particular business sector (marketing in my case). With hindsight I realise that at EDHEC BBA I received a comprehensive education that now allows me to understand and develop my knowledge in areas like accounting, law, marketing, HR, management, etc.

What’s next for your business? 

COWORKIES is expanding and we are developing new functions that will enable coworking spaces and candidates to continue their development in different ways. Our ambition remains the same: to be the leading recruitment website dedicated to the coworking industry.

What are your expectations from the community of EDHEC graduates?

We are always looking for potential investors, partners and clients. If as you read this article you would like to discuss any of this in more detail, don’t hesitate to send me an email at: pauline@coworkies.co.

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