The right tech is very much a modern business essential so when WOTSO couldn’t find an off-the-shelf FlexSpace management platform it liked, it was time to do something different.
That turned out to be developing its own system, Hamlet, after a chance meeting with tech entrepreneur James Brouard at WOTSO Bondi Junction.
Brouard and his business partner Mitch Sato had experience installing well-known FlexSpace management systems for clients and felt they could do better.
“Already our heads were in the space, and so we started putting together a pitch deck for creating a space management platform,” says Brouard.
“It was just through a serendipitous opportunity that I took up space in WOTSO Bondi Junction, and literally on the second day, I got talking with their data analyst who described the pains they’d been experiencing.
“I told him we were building something, he introduced me to WOTSO’s management, and it went from there.”
In no time Brouard and Sato, through their company Livmore, started working with WOTSO on a new system that became Hamlet, a name that references the small village and community every co-working space becomes.
James Brouard from Hamlet at WOTSO Sunshine Coast
Jessie Glew, Chief Executive of WOTSO, says in the early days WOTSO put the cart before the horse – opening spaces before having the tech to properly support them.
“We trialled a number of other co-working space operating platforms and found them really complicated to use with too many functions we didn’t need,” she says.
They even flirted with a gym management system before Livmore came on the scene.
“We told them we want our own management platform because everything we’ve been trying to use doesn’t work for us,” explains Glew.
“It’s really been developed using us as a test case. In the past 24 months we’ve realised what it does for us and where it can go.”
Glew says the best aspect of Hamlet is that its automation liberates staff from mundane tasks, enabling them to focus on value-add initiatives.
“It’s all about us getting back as much time as we can for our team so they can do more of what brings in revenue for the business rather than inputting data into a system.”
After two years of development, Hamlet was incorporated in 2021 with WOTSO taking a 40 per cent stake.
Commercialisation soon followed and Hamlet is now used across 60 different co-working locations run by leading operators including WOTSO, Corporate House, Kingsmede, Worklife, and @workspaces.
The immediate priorities are adding new product features, incorporating AI, and securing more clients.
“We’re highly focused on Australia and NZ for the next 12 months,” says Brouard. “After that, I think we’d have the right suite of features to take on everyone else on the other side of the world.
“Our ultimate goal is 100 per cent automation for the operations of flexible space businesses so staff can focus on what’s bringing revenue in.”
