Knotel debut on Cheddar TV
We announced our Series A in March 2017.
Watch!
NPR Marketplace came to visit Knotel and talk H1-B visas
We told them what we think and so did our founders.
Standing up for things we believe.
Knotel has taken some public positions on court briefs against bans and restrictions and discrimination of various sorts. We think these hurt America, so we say what we believe. In other cases, we just took public pledges.
If your company feels similarly, we’d love to be adding a little more conviction to making that stand public.
Pride Pledge - Pride Inside Pledge here - www.executivepride.org/membership.
Amicus 1 (9th Circuit) - www.forbes.com/sites/mattdrange/2017/02/06/nearly-100-tech-companies-join-forces-to-oppose-donald-trumps-immigration-ban/#46a291ff374a
Amicus 2 (Trump EO EDNY) - www.gibsondunn.com/news/Documents/Leading-Companies-Amicus-Brief-Darweesh-Litigation.pdf
Amicus 3 (Grimm) - techcrunch.com/2017/03/02/amicus-brief-gavin-grimm-apple-ibm-microsoft/
Amicus 4 (Trump EO Hawaii) - www.engadget.com/2017/03/15/58-tech-companies-file-amicus-brief-against-revised-travel-ban/
Tech:NYC Letter - www.technyc.org/trumpeo/
Knotel profiled on PBS Nightly Business Report
Your introduction to what we do, public television style.
Starts around minute 20.
Knotel on PBS talking robots
Here is our CEO Amol Sarva on PBS Nightly Business Report talking jobs and robots and the future of the economy.
Check it out from around minute 20.
Watch Knotel’s founders Amol Sarva & Edward Shenderovich discuss Knotel and the future of workspaces.
Headquarters as a Service is on the march.
Big news in Knotel world.
We’re now open with ten buildings, 1000s of people moving through Knotels every day, some big internal milestones on financials and growth, and today we released the news of an important financing round -- a $25mm series A led by great investors.
We started out as a hobby more or less, a place to run our other companies and host our friends companies. And by 2015 we realized we were on to something important.
It’s just about a year later now and we have proven to ourselves and a community of companies, team, and investors that there is a huge market for what we do.
Companies can’t live their life in coworking, but they also shouldn’t tolerate the annoying lifecycle of real estate “business as usual” with leases and the rest.
Here’s a logo and some lovely pictures too.
Have a look at Knotel.com for more on our latest culture-coded locations that are spreading all around town. If you are a building owner, you might consider partnering with us and drop a line here.
Standing up against the “Muslim Ban”
Knotel is proud to have joined 100 technology companies -- including the likes of Google, Apple, and Facebook -- in filing an amicus brief against the President’s Muslim Ban -- targeting people from several mostly Muslim countries, including the most vulnerable refugees.
As a business-based in New York, with Knotels a few steps from Ground Zero, operating headquarters for companies founded and staffed by immigrants including from affected countries -- Knotel is, in no uncertain terms, against this order.
The ban, along with other executive orders issued or in the works by President Trump -- like the rollback of foreign work visa and parole programs -- are against the values of openness, opportunity, and humanity that we stand for, against good sense on security, and are bad for business.
Without immigrants, Knotel, along with the New York tech community, wouldn’t be the rich, thriving hub of innovation it is today. Many of our own employees and community of entrepreneurs are legal immigrants on foreign work-visas who are building game-changing companies across borders. Virtually every single company at Knotel is led by or staffed by either foreign-born or Muslim entrepreneurs and technologists.
We want to continue to attract such talent to both Knotel and the American tech sector that has risen to global prominence so far, thanks to our industry’s foundation on meritocracy.
At Knotel, we’re not only sending the Trump administration a strong message about these issues, we’re part of a movement in the tech community to continue discussion and action to ensure a safe and robust economy for anyone with the smarts, skills, and the drive to realize their dreams.
We signed the Tech:NYC letter along with thousands of leaders last week, chartered a bus for our members and staff to DC for the Women’s March, have provided a platform for concerned citizens to meet and organize to protect America, and today have joined an impressive group of companies arguing for what’s right in the amicus brief.
Julian Jost - SpaceBase
Our series on inspiring founders continue, this time with an exception, featuring a Knotel partner - Julian Jost of SpaceBase.
As a former strategy consultant, Julian spent three years sitting through monotonous and unproductive meetings. He was so bored that he co-founded Spacebase, so that he’d never have to waste time in another boring meeting again. Spacebase enables companies to easily and transparently book unique meeting locations, host creative workshops and events, and save valuable time while organizing. The platform is home to over 2,000 spaces in more than 30 cities across the globe.
Since launching in 2014, the Berlin-based startup has become one of the top contenders for booking online meeting locations worldwide. On November 1, 2016, Spacebase launched in New York, making over 200 workshop venues across New York City and Brooklyn available for booking on the platform. Jost’s passion combined with his sharp entrepreneurial skill makes him a force to be reckoned with as he continues to innovate and shake off the dusty cobwebs of the meeting and event industry.
Book your next meeting at Knotel with SpaceBase here.
“The Garden” You Haven’t Heard Of
Whenever you hear of “The Garden”, you think flashing lights, cheering crowds, and a buzz of activity that offers endless possibilities. If you were asked to describe it in a word, “homey” would probably be at the bottom of the list. But a few blocks from Knotel Houston is a secret garden that packs as much magic as its midtown counterpart, albeit in a cozier kind of way.
A Garden of Artists
Established in 1921, the Macdougal-Sullivan Gardens is made up of 21 row houses that share the type of picturesque courtyard only seen in the movies. In fact, it's been reported that production designers used this neighborhood as inspiration for the set of Hitchcock's Rear Window. With that said, you'll be happy to know that the similarities between the real garden and the one in the film are purely aesthetic.
Speaking of aesthetics, some of the world's most influential artist call, or have called the garden home. Among the most notable names are Anna Wintour of Condé Nast and Vogue, electronic music pioneer Edgard Varès, and folk legend Bob Dylan. With such high profile residents, you'd assume impromptu house visits and neighborhood barbecues would be off-limits. However, for anyone who grew up there, that couldn't be further from the truth.
Building Blocks of a Community
How do you build a community in a city where it's easy to go years without taking note of who's next door? Simple: Just break down the walls. According to Alexander Rower—a former “garden kid” and the current president of the Calder Foundation—it's important to be able to “see your neighbors”.
Of course, it helps when your neighbors aren't just good friends, but fellow committee members. Back in the baby-boomer days, the garden had a committee to fit just about every need, be it grounds keeping or a resident-operated nursery school.
After putting in the effort to forge such a tight-knit community, it's understandable that residents would want to protect it; just ask actor Richard Gere. When he tried to build a “wall” by growing a privacy hedge, the neighbors reminded him that they valued a more inclusive policy...by cutting it down. This may seem a little extreme (okay, it is), but when a formula is working, why mess with it?
Although, no matter how badly we want to hold onto the good ol' days, things change, and the garden is no exception.
End of the Golden Age?
If you were to compare the Macdougal-Sullivan Gardens of the past with its contemporary face, one of the first things you'd notice is the lack of children. In spite of its many notable residents, the garden was a place where a middle-class professional could lay down roots. These days, with properties listed for as much as $16 million, it's out of reach for families who aren't among the top money-makers.
Undoubtedly, things aren't what they used to be, but that doesn't change the fact that the Macdougal-Sullivan Gardens is still a gem. Being able to walk across a yard to chat with neighbors is rare in Manhattan, so it’s encouraging that the garden retains some of its cozy, small-town charm. Let's just hope no one else tries to grow another privacy hedge.
Giordano Contestabile
Knotel Founders: A series where we look at the talented founders building businesses inside the Knotel platform.
With international experience that spans Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the U.S., Giordano Contestabile has strategically lead the development and operations of some of the world's most profitable mobile ventures. As the Executive Producer of the Bejeweled franchise, he played a pivotal role in growing Bejeweled Blitz's audience to 10 million monthly players, making it the top “freemium” cross-platform social game across the globe.
Taking the interactive, user-centered approach he honed in the video game industry, Contestabile co-founded Finale, an app that turns discovering fashion into a fun and social experience. In June 2015, Finale was acquired by Bloglovin', and Contestabile was hired as the company's CEO. When not strengthening Bloglovin's reputation as the premiere bridge between users and their favorite influencers, he works as an active angel investor with such organizations as Tablelist, The RealReal, and Blue Bottle Coffee.
Kelsey Recht
Knotel Founders: A series where we look at the talented founders building businesses inside the Knotel platform.
Holding an MBA from Northwestern's prestigious Kellogg School of Management, Kelsey Recht first applied her expertise to the world of finance. After falling into the role of “accidental planner”, she realized that it was a struggle to find proper venues for alumni events and even small fundraisers. Needing a solution, she took the inspiration from this light-bulb moment and dove head-first into entrepreneurship.
In 2010, she became the Founder & CEO of VenueBook, the first end-to-end online management software for event venues. By using this platform, the entire booking process is streamlined for both planners and venue coordinators; everything from menu selection to lead management is included in VenueBook's comprehensive scope. Perhaps best of all, users are able to search for venues based on relevant, specified criteria. As the company continues to grow, Recht is as devoted as ever to her mission of making “people's lives easier”.
Carolina Guerrero
Knotel Founders: A series where we look at the talented founders building businesses inside the Knotel platform.
Through her efforts as a promoter of social and cultural projects, Carolina Guerrero has helped to bridge the gap between organizations in the US and Latin America. Driven by the passion to solve inequality of access, she co-founded Radio Ambulante, a bi-weekly podcast that shares long-form Latin American stories with Spanish speakers all over the world.
Utilizing her background as a JSK Journalism fellow of Stanford University, Guerrero collaborates with accomplished producers and storytellers to create high-quality content that gives a voice to those who often go unheard. Among her most esteemed collaborators is her husband (novelist Daniel Alarcón), who is also the Co-founder and Executive Producer of Radio Ambulante.
In 2014, Radio Ambulante won the Gabriel García Márquez Prize for Innovation in Journalism, which is the most distinguished journalism honor awarded in Latin America.
Samer Hamadeh
Knotel Founders: A series where we look at the talented founders building businesses inside the Knotel platform.
For nearly two decades, Samer Hamadeh has been a creator and leader of successful startups in the tech industry. During his tenure at Vault.com, he helped to establish the company as a thought leader in career information – Forbes, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal are just a few of the noteworthy publications that have endorsed Vault’s influential reviews and rankings. Now, as the Founder and CEO of Zeel, his Massage On Demand® service allows users to book massage therapists to their homes, hotels, and workplaces through a user-friendly app.
Equally committed to growth and innovation beyond the tech sphere, Hamadeh sits on the board of the PeaceWorks Foundation and is a proud David Rockefeller Fellow. With a hand in close to a dozen budding organizations, he continues to act as an adviser and angel investor to the likes of SaberEsPoder, Accela, and Blueprint Health.
Melisse Gelula
Knotel Founders: A series where we look at the talented founders building businesses inside the Knotel platform.
Melisse Gelula is the Co-founder of the Webby Award-winning Well+Good.com. She leads the editorial team of this influential site, reporting the latest on nutrition trends, natural beauty products, and everything related to wellness culture. Prior to the launch of Well+Good, she worked as an editor and beauty director for acclaimed publications like Fordor's and Luxury SpaFinder Magazine.
As an expert in natural beauty, she is a staple at conferences that range from Create & Cultivate to Foundermade. Gelula's position as a thought leader has also been spotlighted by CBS This Morning and the New York Times. Undoubtedly, her six years of training as a psychoanalyst have contributed to her unique ability to relate to readers and consumers across multiple demographics.
PJ Parson
Knotel Founders: A series where we look at the talented founders building businesses inside the Knotel platform.
For 20 years, PJ Parson has been one of the most distinguished venture capitalists in Europe. Focusing primarily on early stage internet media and consumer fintech, he was a Series A investor for Spotify, and presently sits on their Board of Directors. Also a General Partner of Northzone Ventures, his expertise supports the firm's specialty of investments in growth capital. Among Northzone's most notable investments are Tobii – the world leader in eye tracking technology solutions – and the mobile advertising company Widespace.
Once a touring musician, Parson has an undying love for heavy metal. Using the insights gained from this art form, he co-wrote a guide to success in the corporate world. Heavy Metal Management has since become a bestseller, and continues to influence business leaders of all walks.