Work and meet at a beautiful place
In our series around Co-Working Spaces in Frankfurt I asked the team responsible for making Mindspace Frankfurt a reality to tell their own stories and talk about the challenges during the months before the launch. The young, exciting and very international team gracefully agreed. These are their stories in their own words. The intro and outro is by Florian. I left all the statements intentionally unedited.
About Mindspace Frankfurt (by Florian)
On September 3rd, Mindspace, a global provider of stylish coworking and private office space, opened its doors in Frankfurt. Mindspace has entered the Rhine-Main area occupying five floors in the skyscraper Eurotheum in Frankfurt’s banking district.
The office can accommodate over 450 members from forward-looking enterprises, startups, and small and medium businesses, as well as entrepreneurs and freelancers, offering individual desks, but also private offices and even entire office suites. Members of Mindspace have access to all the Mindspace offices worldwide. The Mindspace team is as diverse as its 14,000 members all over the world.
Flo: Florian Fellmer
My name is Flo and I am the Senior Community Manager of the space. Before joining Mindspace, I was working in consulting on digitalization, pricing and product portfolio topics, and when opening a new office in Hamburg, we were looking at Mindspace as a temporary solution. Walking into the space, I was instantly hooked by the design, the community spirit and the people working there. Two years, and a backpacking trip around the world down the road, I heard about the new opening in Frankfurt and instantly applied. Since then, I have loved every single day of working here: Interacting and connecting with different members, organizing events and gatherings, and learning so much from each and every one of them. Business and private connections built and there is an extremely positive vibe in the space. Now we are looking forward to fostering the community even more and keep on establishing Mindspace as a place of exchange for the whole ecosystem in the Rhine-Main-Area.
Tina: Tina Klussmann
Hi, I am Tina and I am the Office Manager at Mindspace Frankfurt. I have worked in the Frankfurt coworking scene since 2012 and opened one of the first coworking spaces in the city. After building the brand and making it a successful space including an expansion I was looking for a new challenge. And of course, when you’re working on that industry you know Mindspace.
So for me it was just the right time when Mindspace decided to open one of its amazing spaces in Frankfurt. And here I am! And I love it! We have a great team at this location which is completing the fantastic design with a warm and welcoming atmosphere! So I hope, this is not going to be the last Mindspace in Central Germany, as I would love to be part of more openings and see it grow.
Ana: Ana María García Avendaño
My name is Ana Maria, I am a Community Manager at Mindspace. I am Colombian, but also German at heart since I moved to this beautiful country two years ago in order to do my Masters in Social Sciences.
For four months I have been a member of the Mindspace family, witnessing the opening of our company’s Frankfurt location. It has been an interesting time, since the whole team was new to the company and had to build this branch from scratch, while our offices were still under construction. We used this time to learn and grow together. Our main task during that time was to show the paradise in the making to our potential clients, creating a future vision of the office’s beauty in their minds while they were looking at concrete, stones and empty space. It was challenging, but now that the construction is over we see that we didn’t promise too much — a relieving and motivating feeling!
I personally grew by learning from my experienced colleagues and building an expertise in Sales, Marketing, Community Building and Social Media.
Our community is growing into an inspiring group of diverse, but equally talented and passionate professionals.
I am proud to be part of the community as their Community Manager. It is my passion to support and work with people. Also, it gives me the opportunity to connect the concept of co-working with my studies on the future of work and how the dimensions of globalization determine our (work) future — whether it is in Frankfurt, Tel Aviv, London or San Francisco — all places where Mindspace has branch offices.
Maxi: Maximiliane Zöckler
I am Maximiliane and I am Community Manager at Mindspace in Frankfurt. My background is retail, communications and event management and I am a sales person and communicator at heart. During high school, I discovered my passion for sales and how I was driven by convincing others of products that I love. Especially products that have a high-quality craftsmanship, beautiful materials, and touched my sense for aesthetic forms, design, colors, and a useful, long-lasting habit.
After my studies of Art History I worked in the furniture industry where I was always surrounded by the nicest settings and people with a sense for beautiful products, and so I realized that the atmosphere and my work space affected me with such a positive energy that I never felt that I worked. I realized how a surrounding space can inspire and strengthen your work skills.
Now at Mindspace all my values, passion and what I love comes together in one place. The beginning here in Frankfurt was quite tough, because we had to convince people of a space that was still under construction. My team and I were able to build the imagination of this now so beautiful looking place. To see our members feel comfortable and almost like at home at their work place makes me happy. When I think of Mindspace now after our opening, it is a place where people meet and connect every day, get to know each other and exchange ideas. While interacting and communicating with our community every day, I like the most that I get to know people’s passion, but also how different people use and adapt to our different working options. This opens new ways of thinking for myself and is driving me in what I am doing.
People love to stay for our events even though they have been spending time at their work space since morning. This shows how much more fun and good vibes Mindspace puts in people’s days and how a special coworking space adds a lot of value to our daily lives.
Joe: Joseph Njoku
My name is Joe and am the IT Specialist at Mindspace Frankfurt. I am a guy who dreams about making people’s lives better through science and technology. Information Technology is something that has fascinated me from very early on. I was always fiddling with computers and so it just seemed natural for me to pursue this career path. My passion for technology and solving technical problems brought me to Mindspace. I like using my technical know-how to directly solve issues members are having and Mindspace has giving me the opportunity to be doing just that. Working at Mindspace is a truly amazing experience. The team is young and hard-working and everyone is motivated to grow the company.
There are many opportunities for personal growth.
You can learn something every day from colleagues or events that we organize. I feel excited about coming to work every day. There are always new challenges waiting for me and great people to talk to. I am happy I decided to join Mindspace. We have great challenges and the right mindset to tackle them. I am learning a lot and I have the space to make some difference, which I will endeavour to do on my journey here.
Outlook (by Florian)
The coworking industry is expected to grow significantly over the next few years and we expect Germany to be on top of this growth — also for our own expansion. Currently we operate 28 spaces in prime locations across major world cities in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, and Israel. With acute attention to detail and unwavering quality standards, Mindspace offers beautiful private offices, creative lounges, fully-equipped meeting rooms, and open plan kitchens. Our diverse community of over 14,000 members from global enterprises, SMBs, and startups is collaborative and supportive. Organic connections are made in shared areas as well as through weekly networking events, professional workshops, and Mindspace hours.
Mindspace’s flexible all-inclusive membership options let members focus on growing their businesses while enjoying valuable benefits and discounts from global and local service providers such as Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Launchpad, and Jimdo, nearby restaurants, car rentals, hotels, gyms, and spas. Among Mindspace’s customers are world-leading brands, such as Microsoft, Yahoo!, Barclays Bank, Expedia, Schwan-Stabilo, M&C Saatchi, Hertha BSC, Legia Warsaw, Techstars Accelerator and Startupbootcamp.