Thinking ahead: Spaces attends 4YFN in Los Angeles

Do you like to have a five-year plan? How about a four-year one? It makes your goals seem that much closer to being achieved – by 12 whole months – and a touch more accountable for getting things in motion. Either way, it’s important to think ahead and have a vision for what your business could be like just a handful of years in the future. And guess what? There’s a conference for that…

4YFN LA, baby

In October, Spaces attended the 4YFN conference in Los Angeles, an event that empowers startups, investors and companies to join forces and launch new business ventures together. It’s the startup arm of Mobile World Congress (MWC), the industry’s largest. There are three 4YFN events each year – in Barcelona, Los Angeles and Shanghai – attracting a total of 75,000 attendees.

The inspiring agenda for the Los Angeles event included thought-leadership sessions led by heavyweights from the international tech realm. There were also events geared toward helping startups mingle with new international contacts that could bring game-changing business opportunities. All in all, 4YFN is about helping talented people with brilliant ideas get in front of the right contacts to make their ideas fly.

Naturally, we wanted to get involved. Some of our team members went along to 4YFN in sunny Los Angeles to meet some interesting entrepreneurs and share how our coworking hubs create the optimal environment for turning ideas into reality.

four years, big plans

Jim Doorn, Executive Vice President in the US for IWG, was one of them. “The event provided a great opportunity to showcase our multi-branded platform for startups and investors,” he says. “We’ve leveraged the event to highlight how companies can gain a competitive advantage by partnering with us. Speed to market, flexibility, access to talent and conserving capital are all essential to success when getting a business venture off the ground, and we are able to help with each of those needs.”

The 4YFN conference got us thinking – what will Spaces look like in four years’ time? Where does it want to be? Well, Michael Berretta, Vice President of Network Development for IWG, has rather big plans in mind: “I expect us to be the leading coworking brand globally, establishing itself as the most progressive and professional provider of flexible collaborative workspaces in the industry.”

Sounds like a grand ambition? Maybe. But we’re on the right track – particularly in the US, where companies of all sizes are recognizing the agility, efficiencies and aspirational working conditions that flexible workspace can bring for businesses. “The next few years will be very interesting as the industry continues to evolve,” says Beretta. “Demand from companies today is dynamic and ever-changing. The demand for flexible workplace arrangements in today’s economy has become the paramount conversational topic of the day.”

For Beretta, it all comes down to constant communication and recognizing what customers want from coworking. “We are continually polling our customers to bring the best experience to our locations,” he says. “This enables us to create a work environment that is always changing to create an experiential setting – that lets our users to have the best of all worlds while they work.”

Excited to find out where we’ll be in four years? Sign up for our newsletter to find out.