The Future is Amazing!

By: Zach Holmquist, Co-Founder & Chief of Workplace Experience at Teem

In internal company messages I’ve sent out over the years to our Teemmates, I always end with the sign-off, “The future is amazing!” Despite my cheeky catchphrase, the reality is that to date and every step of the way we have continually validated that the future is even better than we ever could’ve imagined. Since the beginning, our essential and critical mission has been to build software that powers the workplace of the future by connecting people, places, and technology in an increasingly isolated world. More simply, we believe work shouldn’t suck, we believe you should love what you do, and we are feverishly pushing forward on our vision — in many ways, we are just getting started.

To help catalyze the impact of our collective missions, I’m excited and overjoyed by the news we shared today . . . that Teem is now a part of WeWork.

In the months leading up to today, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of WeWork employees at all levels of the company. With each individual I met, I was greeted with genuine kindness and excitement about their work. It didn’t take me long to realize that the core cultural traits at Teem were identical to those at WeWork. While we’ve been working towards the goal of a harmonious convergence of people, places, and technology, WeWork has been building thoughtful spaces to support companies and communities. Together, we’ll move even faster toward the future we’ve both always envisioned.

Over the last five years, we’ve hustled hard to express our vision for the future of work. Along the way, we’ve met thousands of incredible people — our team, investors, interns, vendors, contractors, advisors, partners, our clients, and many of their families. Every single person we connected with on this journey has contributed their individual and unique energy to refine our mission further. Together, we are doing something amazing, and every single person who played a part in our story should be proud of their contributions — to each of you, thank you.

With an abundant amount of hindsight, it’s surreal to look back and see the beautiful tapestry the Universe has carefully woven together. It is funny to think back to how it was a rather uneventful night when I wrote the first lines of code that would in time become Teem. It was just a few hours worth of late-night coding, and a few movements forward that would turn out to be the spark that would start a well-kindled wildfire.

The next day I published my project to the App Store and by the end of the week my inbox flooded with excited emails from popular startups, all the way to well-known generation-defining Fortune 500 companies. Every message was filled with stories of frustration, and then sudden relief when they deployed our product. I shared these stories with my then-bosses, Dan Caffee and Shaun Ritchie, and later that day after a private discussion between the two of them, they simultaneously fired me and partnered with me — it was in that same meeting they gave my little project angel funding and the backing of successful, experienced entrepreneurs. In total shock by what just played out, Dan grinned in his usual Cheshire fashion, “Zach, in life you will come to realize that all you need is just one person to believe in you and then vote for you. We believe in you; you are our vote, it’s time to get to work.”  

Today we celebrate a milestone, but let’s not lose sight that in many ways, this is a massive vote for our vision, product, our team, Salt Lake City, and the world-class talent we have here. There’s still a ton of work to do, and with WeWork’s team, resources, and community on our side we immediately accelerate our vision and we are able to dream and scale even bigger.  

Together our ideas and plans – even the crazy late night ones – have a place to thrive, and make the world a better place.

Echoing what Dan told me all those years ago, “it’s time to get to work!” I can’t wait to see what’s next in this new and exciting chapter, and like always, the future is amazing. Onward.

With all the love in the Universe,

❤️Z