On this glorious day, May is regaining her independence (from regular office work) by incorporating Monolab|Workspace, Inc., the company that will develop our workspace concept. We just received some paperwork from our lawyers (Fenwick & West), and are jumping head first into this new venture. Pretty exciting…

Yesterday evening, May and I met with our “advisors” (Eric Ly and Gadi Shamia) to go through some of our ideas. We met at the Workspace, and quickly realized that even our closest friends did not fully understand what we were up to. As it turns out, I write about many different ideas on this blog, and some materialize, while others don’t.

The Monolab|Workspace was undoubtedly quite ambitious, and it’s fair to say that most readers discarded it as yet another fad. Well, not quite. In fact, we’re dead serious about it, and the project is moving full speed ahead. We will be ready for the grand unveiling and launch party on July 14 (the other independence day), and we are prepared to welcome our first tenant on the same day. If you had any doubt about it, the project is real, as is the real estate that we leased to support it. Here are some pictures taken a week ago. Click on the “Notes” link to get more details about them.

The carpet and boardroom’s glass wall should be installed over the week-end. Every day, we’re receiving some new pieces of equipment. Next week, we will raid IKEA and buy most of our furniture. Unfortunately, our chairs will arrive only in a couple of weeks, for the lead time for ordering them is usually between 4 to 5 weeks. We are also discussing possible partnerships with Polycom and Xerox for the videoconferencing equipment and the multi-function printer. Last but note least, the boss (May) approved the anticipated ordering of the OSIM uSpace massage chair, and we just received the pieces I needed to complete the extravagant Monolab|Design Trunk, to be unveiled at the launch party. Overall, the space should look pretty nice then.

The launch party itself is turning into an interesting event. Originally, we were planning to have about 25 people (mostly friends and family), and to serve drinks and food ourselves in the Workspace. Instead, it looks like we should have over 100 guests. As a result, we booked the Zucca restaurant downstairs for a private party. If you’d like to join us, simply send me an email.

Our brainstorming session (conveniently scheduled using Eric’s Presdo application) was extremely productive. It confirmed our belief that our target market is not early stage companies, as we originally thought, but global companies, both small and large. As a result, we focused our discussions on the various elements of our services offering, and quickly concluded that the idea of having bedrooms in the workspaces simply does not fly. It would dramatically increase the complexity of managing the space on a day to day basis, and would not fit the profile of users for the facility. Instead, we will ensure that our worspaces are located close to good hotels (ideally affiliated with Starwood), and might add a couple of Kotobuki Sleep Capsules for contingency purposes.

We also spent a fair amount of time discussing what large companies need. According to Gadi, facility managers typically budget $18,000 to $24,000 per employee and per year, which makes our $1,500 monthly subscription right on target. On the upper end, perks include free lunches and access to a gym facility, which are services that we should consider offering as well. As a result, we will work on a set of options developed in partnership with local restaurants and a local gym club (most likely FORM Fitness, located a block away). Essentially, an enterprise-class membership with all options would cost less than $2,000 per month, and provide free lunches five days per week, and unlimited access to the very best gym club in town.

Toward the end of our brainstorming session, we switched gears to our international expansion plan. The main idea is that each workspace should be profitable on its own. Of course, getting multiple locations around the world will create a fantastic network effect, but individual workspaces should not rely on it for their success. We reviewed the set of locations selected for Phase I, and quickly came to the conclusion that Shanghai should be added to the list. As a result, Phase I will be made of the following eight locations (neighborhoods subject to change):

At this point, we’re giving ourselves a couple of months to see if the project makes sense. If we manage to sign a dozen members by the end of the Summer, we’ll commit to Phase I, and organize a presentation to potential partners on September 6, 2008, immediately after the Office 2.0 Conference. If you live in one of the cities mentioned above and would like to provide some help, drop us a note.