Thank you, WeWork.

The day we moved out of our private office space in SoHo to a co-working solution around the corner was the day we rediscovered who we are as a company.

Two years before that day, we thought we were taking a giant leap forward. The air was buzzing with big-city dreams as our Bovitz NY team moved into its new office on Spring St. The space had a cool ad agency feel, creating the perfect backdrop for the in-person work sessions and refined wine and cheese parties we imagined having with our favorite NY clients.

It was perfect. We had arrived.

But just a few weeks into living the dream, we were brought back down to reality. Despite our stylish new presence in the city, our busy clients didn’t have much time to collaborate face-to-face on our turf, and so the only people experiencing our chic, new office was us. And boy, were we experiencing it—with lousy property management services, we were getting down and dirty (literally) with all the hassles of maintaining a private office.

This wasn’t working. We were frustrated and disillusioned.

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We needed a better solution. But even more so, we needed to do some soul-searching.

Who was Bovitz NY? What were the true underlying needs of our organization and our culture? How could we be true to ourselves—no matter where we were?

So, instead of sticking with convention, we searched for a place that really worked and felt more like us. A place where we belonged. A place we could call home.

Enter WeWork West Broadway.

If you haven’t heard of WeWork yet, it’s time for you to get to know them. Put simply, they provide shared workspaces in major cities all over the world. Think back to when you studied abroad in college and just needed a bed in a hostel for the night; WeWork is kind of like that but for office space. You can come and go as you please, it has a cool, friendly atmosphere, and everyone there has some level of like-mindedness.

WeWork offers month-to-month rent plans for everything from a floating desk at any WeWork location, to office space for hundreds of employees (like KPMG has in our building). Included in the rent are tons of office services, like shipping packages or providing shared technology solutions (e.g., community printers, scanners, etc.). But even beyond just basic work needs, you also gain access to invaluable community perks, like regular networking events and happy hours, discounts at hundreds of partner companies, and free coffee, tea, and water (and even beer on tap!). In other words, WeWork identified real needs for everyone from the individual freelancer to businesses small and large (including us), and designed a modern, human-centered solution for them.

When we moved into WeWork West Broadway six months ago, we had yet to learn just how perfect of a match it would be for Bovitz NY.

All of the perks and the convenient rental arrangement sounded good to us, but the real value that WeWork offers goes far beyond the tangible. For us, it is the pervasive sense that we—as people, as a business, as customers—matter to WeWork. That our needs are their needs. That our success is their success.

That emotional charge in the atmosphere at WeWork stems from a mission that speaks to their focus on people: “To create a world where people work to make a life, not just a living.” And that’s exactly what they’ve created in their workspaces—a feeling of community and purpose that goes beyond getting your job done, while also addressing the fundamental needs for operating a business.

Just like we strive to do in our own work, WeWork paid close attention to all of the pain points of office workers and designed solutions that would replace that pain with delight, day in and day out. Then, also like us, it packaged all of those solutions in an open and collaborative environment. And all of that stemmed from a genuine, unwavering desire to make people’s lives better. Again, just like us. It was a perfect fit.

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Photo credit: WeWork

Turns out, WeWork is the real dream we were after.

We thought we wanted to make a statement about how we can fit in with NY culture and thus be more attractive to our NY clients. But really, we just wanted to have a local presence for those clients while continuing to do the awesome work we already do for them. To be true to ourselves and to do great work—our needs were really that simple. And for that, we just needed a few desks and some positive vibes. With WeWork, we got so much more.

We found a new home and a new favorite company to admire. We found a place to spend 40+ hours a week that reflects our company’s identity with little effort on our part. We found a successful implementation of human-centered design that solves our problems every day. We found a brand and a physical environment that inspires us every day to put people first.

We found ourselves again.

Are you the dream that people are after? Do you provide solutions to real needs? Is your brand a home?

Do you put people first?

We know we’re trying to.