Laurent Hollande is the CEO of Pacific Workplaces and of CloudVO. He shared the experience of Next Space coworking space's takeover by his serviced office company, in Northern California.

1. Integration of Nextspace into
Pacific Workplaces ( )
A Coworking Acquisition Case Study
By Laurent Dhollande
CEO Pacific Workplaces & CloudVO
Coworking Europe
Dublin Nov 8, 2017

2. June 2017: Pacific Workplaces
Acquiring NextSpace Assets
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3. • Born in 2009 in Santa Cruz, CA
• Expanded to 7 centers (small)
• Charismatic leaders
• Born in 2003
• Expanded to 19 centers (larger)
• Strong financials

4. NextSpace:
• Open space
• Community-focused

5. NextSpace:
• Freelancers
• Informal, Funky

6. NextSpace:
• Socially conscious
• Events-rich

8. Pacific Workplaces:
• Boardrooms
• Reception
• Rich in Services

9. Pacific Workplaces:
• Private offices
• “Professional”

10. Pacific Workplaces:
• Class A buildings
• More expensive

11. How different could they be?
Nextspace Pacific Workplaces
Image Highly Informal Highly Professional
Community Culture Strong & immediate Grows on you
Organization Decentralized Process-driven
Marketing Word-of-mouth SEO - SEM
Virtual Office Services 6% of revenue 30% of revenue
Financial Profile Weak Very strong

12. 30 miles
Pacific Workplaces
NextSpace
Enerspace

13. What did Nextspace do wrong?
1. Too geographically dispersed
2. Unplug unproductive experiments too late
3. Lacked business processes, standards, weak technology
4. Insufficient inventory of meeting rooms/day offices
5. Did not sell enough services beyond coworking membership
6. Did not use channels very well

14. Integration Challenges
Suspicions:
• Members
• Community coordinators
Value proposition of portfolio?
• Community-centric versus convenient & private
What Synergies?
• Brand
• Products
• Technologies

15. What we did
• Kept Nextspace Brand
• Kept Nextspace web site, Focused on PacificWorkplaces.com
• Realized the models will converge, accelerate the process
• Bring Pac training, support and processes to bear
• Switch to WUN Systems/KUBE, Intacct
• Develop Virtual Office and Meeting Room business
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16. Lessons learned
• You can’t rest on your Laurels
• Strong communities need to be curated with care
• Economies of Scale and organizational strength matter
• Virtual Services are essential to financial health