WeWork × Teem
Building the future of work together
In internal company messages I’ve sent out over the years to our team at Teem, 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.
A spark that started a wildfire.
It was a rather uneventful night when I first wrote EventBoard 1.0, it was my first app and just a few hours worth of late-night hacking to get something to submit to Apple. Earlier in the day, I had scribbled the initial UI of the idea, and my co-worker Scott Jensen kindly took my scratch and gave it life. What I didn’t realize at the time was that these few movements forward would be the spark that started a 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.”
The power of We.
My siblings and I grew up in a small home with an overwhelmed single mom. Though my mom made life seem abundant the reality was that she was struggling to make ends meet — we often had days without electricity, water, and food. Her secret weapon to creating abundance, I’d come to realize, was that she had rallied a village of family, friends, and neighbors to support her and us, to loves us, and to keep our dim flames alive. It was the power of we that saved me. It was also in those dark moments that I’d find her crying in her room alone trying to reconcile how she would get us to the next day. Somewhere in those late nights spying on my mother’s suffering, I resolved to do everything I could to make her proud — to give a glimmer of hope despite the decades of darkness she endured.
It was a few weeks before entering college, and I was panicking. I had selected a medical path, believing that my mom would be most proud of a future doctor son. She empathically tuned into my misery and sat me down for one of our late night heart-to-hearts. In the hours that passed in conversation, she called me a fool for trying to win over her affection. She followed with a warning that I’d be forever miserable if I didn’t vote for myself first and that I could never make her proud because it was an always forward moving target. It’s funny to look back at, but my mom believed in me so much that she actively encouraged me to drop out of college because she saw in me something more significant. She felt that by not choosing my happiness that I would be miserable, and that I would be wasting my technical talents. That night she voted for me, and despite the odds before us, she carefully and unconditionally carved a path forward for me.
The future is amazing!
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.
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.
Onward.
Echoing what Dan told me all those years ago, “it’s time to get to work!” To my co-workers, friends, family, my beautiful children and especially my lover, Katie, thank you for loving me and dealing with all the chaos — catch your breath, let’s dance, but know I’m not done. 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
