Why I Started Work Heights in 2014 (Before Coworking Was Everywhere)

Today Work Heights is a network of seven coworking spaces across Brooklyn with around 300 members. It started with eight desks, an empty storefront, and a very lonely fashion consultant.

This is the story of why.

From 40 coworkers to zero

For seven years, I worked as a menswear designer at Ralph Lauren. On a typical day I was working with around 40 people: designers, developers, merchants, factory partners. I left to start my own fashion consulting business, working with smaller startups, and I loved the independence.

What I didn't expect was the isolation.

Working alone meant I could go an entire day without seeing anyone. I started walking to the bodega once or twice a day just to have a conversation. That's when I realized how much of work, for me, was the people around me. I didn't just miss collaboration. I missed having coworkers.

An empty storefront and a problem to solve

Back in 2010, I bought 1037 Dean Street in Crown Heights. I spent four years renovating it on nights and weekends, converting the upstairs into my apartment. The ground floor commercial space, I left unfinished. The plan was simply to rent it out.

The interest came quickly, but it was almost always the same pitch: a bar or a restaurant, with the big backyard included. I didn't want to live above a bar, and I didn't want to share the yard I'd spent years digging out of a junkyard.

So I asked myself a different question. What could go in that space that would help pay the mortgage and fix my own problem of working alone?

The answer was a coworking space.

Building what I wanted, with zero research

Here's something people are usually surprised to hear: I had never been inside a coworking space before I opened one. I knew the concept existed, but I didn't study what anyone else was doing. I did pretty much no research.

Instead, I designed the place I wanted to work every day and trusted that other people would want it too. As a designer, that's how I'd always worked: start with how something should feel, then build it with care. I finished the space with salvaged materials, farmhouse windows from Maine, and cubicles clad in reclaimed tin ceiling, and opened with eight desks.

Bringing life to the block

In 2014, Dean Street was a different place. Across the street was a derelict yard. Today there's a large residential building with a supermarket and lots of tenants, and the neighborhood has changed enormously.

Back then, the block was quiet during the day. Freelancers and independent workers were there, but they were invisible, tucked away in apartments. Putting Work Heights in a storefront was intentional. I wanted the neighborhood to see that people were working on the block. A lit window with people at desks tells a street that it's alive during the day, not just at night.

That storefront visibility is still central to how we build every location.

The members I didn't expect

I assumed my first members would look like me: graphic designers and other creatives. I was wrong.

Those first eight people included lawyers, nonprofit workers, and consultants. It was an eclectic mix from the very beginning, and it's stayed that way. Today, with around 300 members, people from nearly every industry work side by side in our spaces. That mix turned out to be one of the best parts of the whole thing.

"Nobody's leaving"

When I told friends what I was building, there weren't many skeptics. Mostly, people thought it was a nice idea and moved on. Most of them had full-time office jobs, so they weren't the audience.

It wasn't until I opened and started meeting freelancers, entrepreneurs, and small business owners in the neighborhood that the need became obvious. It was overwhelming.

My biggest fear going in was simple: that nobody would come. Instead, we filled all eight desks within the first few months. And then nobody left. Every new inquiry went onto a waitlist, and by the end of the first year, that list had 125 people on it.

Every time someone emailed asking for a desk and I had to say no, it felt like a real lost opportunity. In 2015, I started building our second location on Franklin Avenue. That was when I knew this was going to work.

What I saw that others missed

At the time, the coworking story was all about big spaces in big business districts. What I understood, at a deep level, was something much simpler: commuting is not a fun part of work.

The New York City subway is amazing and historic. But if you don't have to take it, most people would rather not. The best way to get to work is to walk there from home.

People want to work near where they live, but not where they live. That separation between home and work matters. You just shouldn't need a train ride to get it. That idea is the foundation of every Work Heights location.

What I'd tell myself in 2014

Go faster.

Work Heights has been bootstrapped from day one, and I'm proud of that. But in those early years, I was still working as a fashion consultant and didn't give the business my full focus. With a 125-person waitlist, the demand was clearly there. If I had committed earlier and opened more locations sooner, I think we'd be even further along today.

Trust what you know

If there's one thing I hope people take from this story, it's this: believe in your neighborhood, and believe in yourself.

If you know a place, you have a sense of what it needs. And if you have that gut feeling that you're solving a real problem, you probably are. You don't need to be an industry expert or wait for the market to prove you right. I'd never seen a coworking space when I built one.

Go with it.