Office Evolution Doubles Franchise Footprint in 2018, Anticipates 80 Open Locations in 2019
Office Evolution, the fourth largest shared office franchise in the nation, had an incredible year of growth in 2018. The brand doubled its footprint in 2018, opening 25 new locations, and signed multi-unit agreements in Sacramento, California; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Seattle, Washington; Phoenix, Arizona; Broward County, Florida and single unit agreements in Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Indianapolis, Indiana; Lisle, Illinois and Ontario, California.
According to Mark Hemmeter, CEO of Office Evolution, the brand’s success can be attributed to its inspiring culture and approachable business model, as well as the growth of the coworking industry.
“When we founded Office Evolution, it was based on the idea of ‘ohana,’ or ‘family’ in Hawaiian,” said Hemmeter. “Everyone in our system, from franchise owners to business managers to corporate employees, works together to achieve a common goal. This alignment of our vision is one of the reasons Office Evolution stands out from other brands, and inspires like-minded franchise owners to join our system.”
Hemmeter highlights Office Evolution’s single employee, recurring income, B2B part-time model, as well as the low investment level relative to the competition, as other factors that make the brand approachable to a wide range of potential franchise owners. Plus, Office Evolution’s niche is in suburban environments, with a focus on local entrepreneurs that have built thriving small businesses with just a few employees, which is unlike every other brand in the segment.
“We continue to lead the charge with the small, suburban business owners. That strategy has created a long-term, stable business model that has been perfected over 16 years in business,” said Hemmeter. “We have loyal, long-term clients, many of which have been with us since the beginning. Because of this, we don’t have a lot of turnover, which helps our franchisees see success early on.”
John Przedpelski, who opened his first of three Office Evolution locations in Tampa in March of 2018, was one of those franchisees.
“We were very fortunate in 2018 to have a great start. We opened in March and were at 92 percent occupancy with our private offices by November,” said Przedpelski. “We are expanding with four new large team offices and an extra-large meeting/training room that can accommodate up to 30 people. We will be opening our second location later this year, with plans to eventually open a third.”
The success of franchisees like Przedpelski helped Office Evolution land the #1 spot in the coworking and flexible spaces category in Entrepreneur Magazine’s Franchisee 500 ranking, and jump nearly 40 spots overall from 198 to 160. Looking ahead to 2019, Hemmeter anticipates Office Evolution will open 23 new locations for a total of more than 80 units open by the end of the year. Another exciting achievement from 2018 was the brand’s first conversion of four independently owned coworking spaces into Office Evolution franchises, a strategy Hemmeter and his team plan to continue in 2019.
“Our goal is to sign agreements for 34 new units in 2019, with a focus on states that have already seen success with the model, like New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Florida, as well as Chicago, Dallas and Houston,” said Hemmeter. “We’ve learned that we prefer to sell to fewer, more qualified franchise owners that we feel confident will be successful with Office Evolution than just focusing on bringing a certain number of new owners into the system. Our hope is that by partnering with strong entrepreneurs, we’ll accelerate to 30 to 40 openings per year in the near future.”