Indeed, your company isn’t your home, but there is a group of young entrepreneurs working tirelessly to provide a co-working space that feels like home to more than 300 start-up teams. These warm office spaces have a uniform name: Woo Space, or as Jiangsu residents call “Other people’s office”. Detailed pictures below.

Woo Space opened its first co-working space in July 2015. As of July 2017, they’ve quickly expanded into 20 unique but like-minded co-working spaces. At the same time, Woo Space has secured funding from Jingwei Ventures, Plum Ventures, China Equity, Cyanhill Capital and other venture capital firms.

Quickly expanding from 0 to 20 outlets, attaining the support of venture capitalists, the exponential expansion of Woo Space has been intertwined intimately with the management philosophy of “Mobile Internet”.

Woo Space Baiziwan outlet

Universal Butler in Service!

I had the pleasure of interviewing Woo Space Co-founder & COO Ms. Xinqi Han, to explore the secrets behind the successful operation of Woo Space.

Ms. Han had earlier graduated from Cornell University, an Ivy League elite school, majoring in Hotel Management. Hence, when elaborating on the management ideology of Woo Space, she occasionally displayed hotel management DNA.

For example, we spoke about Britain’s Hilton Group, which has more than 400 high-end hotels globally. To be able to simultaneously build and manage so many hotels well, there must be a uniform and standardized management style. Hence, Ms. Han mentioned, in order to expand quickly, there must similarly be a uniform management style. In the early stages since the inception of Woo Space, we had already built the process for this uniformity.

Within each Woo Space outlet, standardized butler service is offered:

When one is alone and working outside long-term, there is a lack of the warmth of house. In order to give guests a feeling of having returned home, many established hotels in the U.S. provide a butler service. Guests only need to liaise with one person, and will be able to solve all issues relating to food, transport, fees, utilities and hygiene.

In the same way, most entrepreneurs had left their hometowns in order to work. We did not wish for entrepreneurs who stepped into Woo Space to have to be transferred to 18 departments just to deal with problems relating to business registration, finance administration and projection issues while having to contend with high pressures from work.

Of course, this placed an expectation of even higher levels of service onto Woo Space staff: they must be adept at universal functions. They must know how to sell- how to introduce the space; they must know finance management in order to help customers with billing efficiently; they must know legal matters in order to help customers complete their business registration smoothly; must know human resources to help customers open social security accounts and be familiar with taxation rules; and must know office equipment in order to help the customer use the photocopier, projector and attendance machine.

Woo Space Sanyuanqiao outlet

The root of “user-centricity”

Woo Space offered this Butler-style service and helped entrepreneurs solve small problems one by one so that entrepreneurs could focus on solving the big issues.

At this point, I would like to talk about user-centricity. This is not exclusive to internet companies, the hotel industry, which was established long before the birth of the internet, is already skilled at this.

Of course, other than the highly-efficient butler-style service, the beautiful interior of the co-working space and the fully-equipped hardware facilities, all that Woo Space provides can be traced back to customer experience.

Ms. Han concluded on the core of Woo Space: “Truly, it’s being people-oriented. We start from placing customer experience as the most important product and our character, processes and people.”

A good product arises from constant upgrade

Hence, the problem that keeps product managers all over the world up at night appears: people-centric? How do you know what your users want? This was also the question I posed to Ms. Han.

Ms. Han elaborated:

I proactively communicate with my customers. Every day, our colleagues in operations would give feedback about problems from the hardware and facility management. This is because we believe our product can be improved iteration by iteration. We have beds, cafes and new software added to our space in order to increase our functionality.

So how do we know the user experience of the hardware? We periodically communicate with our customers and experiment time after time in order to find out the answer.

Isn’t this like the constant upgrades for apps? Isn’t like just like a new generation of mobile phones? We constantly upgrade our spaces in order to constantly improve customer satisfaction. I think this is the prerequisite for Woo Space to offer a good product and gain customer recognition.

Woo Space Dayuecheng outlet

Co-sharing space, Co-opting the Future

At this point, you might ask: since Woo Space offers this butler-style service, good customer experience and beautiful spaces, wouldn’t the prices be expensive?

After looking at the price list, I was astounded by how low the prices were. On the issue of pricing, Ms. Han expressed “It’s not that our prices are too low to be profitable, but we’ve managed to effectively lower the overheads for the office space.”

This is because Woo Space is modelled after joint offices (meaning rental of work desks, sharing office facilities). This model can raise the utilization rates of office facilities and distribute overheads to every work desk. This is what sets it apart from traditional offices.

During the process of the interview, Ms. Han also mentioned the community operations of the co-working enterprise: breaking down the boundaries of the 300 start-up teams, working together to win together.

Lastly, Ms. Han introduced Woo Spaces’ business direction for the next half-year: to open up outlets in Shanghai and Shenzhen in order to reach more entrepreneurs. The highly-rated mobile office product, WStudio, will also be placed with the co-working spaces, adding variety to the office space scene in Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Post-interview notes:

From my conversation with Woo Space COO Ms. Han, I observed a character that strove for excellence in management- clear logic, agile responses, passion for work and a quest for innovation. Operational work is weaved into the core of Woo Space’s expansion. By understanding the management philosophy of Woo Space, we can clear understand the underlying factors behind its success.

Furthermore, my conversation with Ms. Han touched not just on operations alone but extended into three main trends for start-ups in this day and age. Mobile internet, user-experience and sharing economy. It may be common for a team to master one trend, great if it can master two but exceptional if it can master all three.

Many thanks to Woo Space COO Ms. Han for her friendly sharing, may Woo Space scale greater heights. I also hope that you would gain from this article, all the best!

Chinese:

“公司不是家！”这句职场箴言，在无数公司高管的微信朋友圈转发。是的，公司确实不是家，但总有一群年轻的创业者，努力为300多个创业团队提供如家般温暖的办公空间。这些温暖的办公空间有一个统一的名称：无界空间，江湖人称“别人家的办公室”。

无界空间从2015年7月开出第1个办公空间，到2017年7月，迅速发展出20个风格各异、理念相同的办公空间。与此同时，无界空间获得了经纬创投、梅花天使、信中利、青山资本等投资机构的A+轮、天使轮投资。迅速地从0到20家店、获得资本市场的有力支持，无界空间的迅速发展，与其“移动互联”的运营理念密不可分。

万能的运营管家！

我有幸采访到无界空间的联合创始人、COO——韩昕锜女士，一探无界空间后背的运营秘籍。韩昕锜早先毕业于常青藤名校——康奈尔大学的酒店管理专业，所以在深谈无界空间的运营理念时，时刻展现着酒店管理的DNA。

比如，我们谈到英国希尔顿集团，在全世界有400多家高质量酒店。要同时建设、运营好这么多的酒店，这其中必须有一个统一的、标准化的管理。所以，韩昕锜表示，要想迅速地完成“从1到20”的扩展，也必须有一个统一的、标准化的管理。在无界空间创建的早期，我们就搭建了这个标准化的流程。

在无界空间的每一家分店里，都统一设立了标准化的管家式服务：只身一人，长期在外奔波，缺少家的温暖。为了给旅客们回家的感觉，美国很多知名品牌的酒店为旅客提供管家式的服务——客户只需要找一个人，就能解决吃饭、交通、收费、水电、卫生等全部问题。

同样的，创业者大部分都是离乡背井、在外打拼。我们不希望入驻无界空间的创业者，在每天承受高强度工作压力的同时，还要为工商注册、财务开票、投影仪播放等一系列问题，而转接18个部门。他们在无界空间，只需要找一个无界的运营人员，就能解决他们可能碰到的所有问题。

当然，这就对无界空间的运营人员提出了更高要求：运营人员必须是万能的。他们必须懂销售——知道怎么介绍空间；懂财务，为客户高效开票；懂法务，帮客户顺利完成工商注册；懂人事，帮客户完成社保开户、熟悉缴纳规则；懂办公设备，教客户使用打印机、投影仪、考勤机。

“以用户为中心”的根源

无界空间通过为创业者提供“管家式服务”，为创业者解决一个个小问题，让创业者集中更多精力去解决大问题。聊到这里，我想说“以用户为中心。”绝不是互联网公司的专利，早在互联网产业诞生前的酒店业就得到了纯熟的运用。

当然，除了管家式的高效服务，还有充满美感的办公空间、功能齐全的硬件设施，无界空间提供的这一切，最后都只有一个落脚点：客户体验。韩昕锜对无界空间的运营核心作总结：“真正做到了以人为本。把客户体验当成最重要的产品，以及我们规章、制度、人员的出发点。”

好产品是升级出来的

于是，全世界产品经理日夜焦虑的问题出现了：以人为本？你怎么知道用户想要什么？这也是我对韩昕锜提出的问题。

韩昕锜详细地解答道：我和客户保持积极地沟通。我们运营的同事每天会反馈硬件设施改造的问题，因为我们认为产品也是在一代一代地提升。我们有床、茶座啊，等等新的软装去加入到我们空间，去增加我们的功能性。那硬件设备的使用体验到底好还是不好？我们只有时时刻刻地与我们的客户沟通，一遍一遍地去尝试，才能得出答案。

你瞧，这不就是一款APP的不断更新吗？不就是一款手机的更新换代吗？对办公空间不断地更新，以不断地提高用户的满意度。我想这是无界空间获得客户认可，更是做好产品的必要条件。

共享空间、共赢未来

讲到这里，你可能会问：无界空间拥有这样的管家式服务、体验舒适的硬件设施、充满美感的空间设计，那它的入驻价格应该不便宜吧？我看了无界空间各家店铺的价格表，脑子里出现了五个字：这么便宜啊！谈及入驻价格问题，韩昕锜表示：不是我们的价格低，而是我们的有效地降低了办公空间的建设成本。

因为无界空间是联合办公的模式，所谓联合办公即是：出租工位，共享办公配套。这样的模式可提高办公配套的利用率，降低平摊到每个工位的成本。这是却别于传统写字楼的整租模式。在访谈的过程中，韩昕锜还谈及了建立入驻企业的社群运营：打破300个创业团队之间的边界，实现抱团取暖，合作共赢。

最后，韩昕锜介绍了无界空间下半年的布局：在上海、深圳开设办公空间，服务更多创业者。而无界颇受好评的一款移动办公产品——WStudio，也会与办公空间一起，去优化上海、深圳两地的办公模式。

访谈后记：

这次与无界空间COO韩昕锜的深谈，我在她身上看到了一个卓越运营人的素养——清晰的逻辑、敏捷的反应、工作的热情、创新的追求。运营工作是贯穿无界空间发展的核心。通过理解无界空间的运营理念，可以清楚地把握无界空间成功的本质。

进一步来看，其实我和韩昕锜谈的不仅仅是运营本身，更是在谈这个时代创业的三个趋势——移动互联、用户体验、共享经济。一个团队能把握好一个趋势，只是普通；能把握好两个趋势，只是优秀；能把握好三个趋势，那才是卓越。

感谢无界空间COO韩昕锜的友情分享，愿无界空间能取得更长远的发展。也愿看到这篇文章的你能有所收获，加油~