Looking back and looking forward

I’m generally not the type of person that cheers for the new year as if it is some sort of magical end point to everything that we’ve been experiencing. That said, 2020 was a doozy for our company and this seems like a grand time for some reflection.

Team Gravitate!

First and foremost, I’m thankful for all of our members who have hung with us. Over the past seven years, we’ve built a great community around the idea that people are inherently social and need connections with each other to stay healthy, productive and efficient in their work (and in their lives). Our workspaces have always been the vehicle that convenes our community and the revenue driver that allows our business to operate. Our particular model of coworking focuses on a dense office environment, flexible membership terms and regularly serving visiting groups with meeting room and event space rentals. That model—which I’ve always thought of as the future of work—was suddenly not so great for pandemic times.

Starting in mid-March, I watched as many of my small business owner friends pivoted to online sales and curbside service. It was a small fraction of the revenue they were used to doing (and it drove some out of business), but it was at least something that could hopefully carry them through these unfamiliar times. Our team watched every webinar that the coworking industry offered, talked to countless other coworking companies, researched alternative business models and unfortunately realized pretty quickly that there was no version of online sales or curbside service that could replace what we offer in-person.

Masked up and socially distant goodbye party for Kyle and Gravitate Valley Junction

So, we’ve continued on throughout the year operating our model to the extent that we feel we safely can. Revenues are down significantly, we leaned on PPP funding in the Spring, depleted a lot of the cash we’d saved for future expansion throughout the Fall and I’ve cut my own income from the business, but we entered 2021 with our full team still employed and our two Des Moines-area coworking spaces and our publication, Clay & Milk, all still operational. In short, we survived the year and it's worth stating again: That is thanks to you!

We’re very bullish on the prospects for our company post-pandemic. If there is anything that these terrible times have shown us it's that our core belief—that people are inherently social and need connections with each other to stay healthy, productive and efficient in their work (and in their lives)—is true. I personally miss walking into our workspaces and seeing them vibrant and full of people, I miss chatting about sports and tech with my friends in the kitchen when refilling my coffee, and I miss hosting meetups and events. Now that the world knows that many companies can operate successfully in a remote environment, we expect work-from-wherever to be a growing norm in the business community. Working from home will always have its place, as will working from coffee shops, but coworking communities have so much to offer people with work flexibility that we’re excited for the potential growth. We’ve spent the last year simultaneously in survival mode for the business and setting the table for the post-pandemic world. It’s not without its stress, but it’s helpful to be able to look forward to something good!

One of our daily Gravi-Staff team meetings.

Part of that setting the table for the future has been making sure that our workspaces are well positioned, in stable locations and staffed appropriately. Just prior to the pandemic starting here, we were negotiating a lease extension on our West Des Moines location when the relationship with the landlord turned shockingly sour. It was a surprise, in particular because we’d previously been given assurances that the landlord wanted us to stay, and I was personally worried about what that meant for our members who preferred the near west-side of the metro. Many of these members went to bat for us with the landlord in ways that we never expected. Although that didn’t work out for us in the end, it did open the possibility for what is now the Gravitate Midtown space in Windsor Heights that we opened on September 1. The new space isn’t quite as big; it meant a change for a lot of people and the amenities aren’t quite the same. However, it is more visible to the community, has more direct access to I-235 for anyone commuting in from further west and amazingly was built-out with a design that fits very well with the style of our other locations. Most importantly, our new landlord is excited for what we bring to the community. This location has been very active since launch and will only grow as the public health situation improves.

Gravitate Downtown this winter.

Gravitate Downtown evolved a lot in 2020, as well, most notably in its new ability to host startup accelerators. Central Iowa is home to half a dozen or so timeboxed programs that help early stage technology companies grow rapidly. Since these programs have large space needs for a limited period of time and then very small space needs for the majority of the year, a place like Gravitate Downtown with the scale and ability to transform and adapt makes a lot of sense as a host venue. Last year two accelerator programs who are new to the Des Moines market—BrokerTech Ventures and Techstars Iowa—launched and partnered with Gravitate Downtown. The public health situation created an interesting rollout for both programs who had planned to bring companies from all over the world to Iowa. They each did as much in-person as they could and we hope to get a chance to reconnect with all their cohort members on the other side of all of this.

The coworking room at Gravitate Jefferson

Finally, our team spent a lot of last year working on the creation of our first rural coworking space: Gravitate Jefferson (it officially opened this week, huzzah!) in the seat of Greene County, about an hour northwest of Des Moines. This location is something that we’ve been thinking about and researching for over two years. We’re in Jefferson because the community reached out and presented a compelling case for us to find success there. It’s not guaranteed, and we’d obviously prefer not to be launching new coworking communities in the midst of the pandemic, but this is how the timing worked out on this one. We’re all excited to see how our first rural space grows and if the model that has traditionally worked so well in dense markets will provide the same benefit here.

2020 was a year that took our company and the world by surprise. It’s something we hope to never repeat but looking back on it and looking forward at what 2021 could be, we’re filled with a lot of hope. All three (3!) Gravitate Coworking locations are currently open and welcoming new (and old) members who need that social connection or just a safe and controlled place to go outside of their home for a few hours to get some work done. The table is set and all are welcome to join us!

Geoff Wood
Owner, Gravitate Coworking