How I built one of Wework’s UK competitors — using a little bit of colour
Gabriela Hersham had to borrow a man to raise capital for her business. Ten sites later, the founder of Huckletree is not looking back.
I cannot help but look up and around at my surroundings while Gabriela Hersham tells me how – and why – she has grown her business into one of the UK’s most well-known co-working office spaces.
Usually, a lack of eye contact comes across as rude. But if you’re in one of Huckletree’s 10 locations, it’s hard not to look around.
In fact Hersham seems to be taking it as a compliment, given how much passion she is projecting while telling me about all the effort she has put into making each location a vibrant and inspiring space for the UK’s innovation ecosystem.
“I could talk to you about the spaces and how they look, but you can see that yourself,” she laughs.
“I mean, I think we do things quite differently around here.”
Indeed they do, and it might just be why the business has managed to maintain its speed of growth after being one of the first to introduce the UK to the co-working concept back in 2014, boasting eight sites in London and one each in Dublin and Manchester.
Back to the beginning
For all the technicoloured walls and green, leafy ceilings, the most colourful takeaway this morning is when Hersham tells me she needed a man to sell her business to investors.
“I had a friend who was helping me raise the money, he wasn’t going to be operational in the business – it was my idea, my business, I was going to be the founder, the CEO – but he would be the one addressed in the meetings and I wouldn’t even be looked at,” Hersham says.
This isn’t necessarily surprising. Only 2 per cent of total private equity funding in the UK goes to female-led businesses.
However, over a quarter of a million square feet and 10 locations later, Hersham has turned Huckletree into the go-to for some of the UK’s most innovative founders and creative industry employees – despite her initial struggle of securing funding as a female founder.
With these achievements came a whole new sense of confidence, Hersham says while telling me how she could easily run a room full of investors today.
Huckletree’s focus on the UK’s innovation sector – offering space to budding tech entrepreneurs and creative industry teams – is what also sets it apart from the rest, Hersham says.
And, I can attest, the spaces are definitely not for everyone – especially if you might be bothered by a bright pink and bubbly sofa or the occasional lingering smell of permanent marker.
Steering clear of competition
I didn’t want to do what my competitors were doing in that they were creating a space for anyone.
Gabriela Hersham
Hersham in fact worked in an early Wework in New York, before it became a byword for corporate drama, and admits to being inspired by the uniqueness of the spaces the company built.
“I actually do think that Wework did an incredible job. I think they built an incredible brand and that there was a lot to be admired there,” she adds.
But it’s not just a case of copy and paste. Plenty of co-working spaces have tried – and failed – to muscle in on the action. Why have people stuck with Huckletree?
“I think loyalty stems from your mission as a company,” she tells me.
“My mission has always been – since the very first space in Clerkenwell – to support the innovation system.”
Indeed, Huckletree seems to be more than a few funky desk spaces. It provides monthly events, including investor workshops, industry roundtables, and founder circles, too.
“Founders always need other founders to bounce ideas off, I am a massive believer in that,” Hersham says, with a smile.
That model – smart people, in the same place – has been at the bedrock of City building for centuries. Now it comes with a little colour, is all.