How A Simple Desk Mat Turned Into a Best Selling Product
It all began back in 2014. I was running a thriving dealership in the heart of New York City. With one of the best project teams you could ever ask for (yes, they know who they are!), we embarked on a journey that would change how we looked at office spaces. Little did we know that our adventure was way ahead of its time, long before the era of COVID-19.
We were tasked with furnishing a 140,000-square-foot office space in downtown Manhattan, primarily designed for non-assigned desking. What made this project special was our client's willingness to take risks and embrace a bold vision. The head of Real Estate had a forward-thinking perspective that was ahead of its time. He believed that the perfect workspace should be incredibly flexible, with minimal immovable furniture. To him, conference rooms held greater value than individual desks because he understood that focused work could happen anywhere, while the real magic occurred in collaborative spaces. This visionary, whom we'll affectionately call Tom for this article, pitched this groundbreaking concept to management, and it received mixed reviews. But Tom was determined, and he had the charisma to convince them. The success of this project meant a lot, and it turned out to be both the most stressful and the most enjoyable one we had ever worked on.
The traditional hardwired benching spaces of the time couldn't deliver the kind of flexibility Tom envisioned. It simply wasn't practical to deconstruct workstations whenever the need arose. Department sizes were in constant flux, and each department had its unique requirements. What Tom understood, and what now seems obvious, was that the new generation of office workers operated out of their bags and laptops. So, why not let them choose any open desk on any given day? For a project designed to accommodate 2,000 people, they provided only 800 desks but tripled the number of meeting and training rooms. Tom also foresaw the need for comfortable lounge areas and cafes where one-to-one desks would traditionally have been. This was all happening before WeWork became a household name, making Tom a true pioneer in office space design. Tom was, in today's lingo, "based."
The project ran like a well-oiled machine, delivered on schedule, and the space was nothing short of spectacular. It looked like a high-end tech haven, minus the ping pong tables and bean bags, but with a healthy dose of swagger and style.
It was like a WeWork space with a touch of Don Draper's charm—very cool.
However, it wasn't until a few months later that the issues began to surface. I have a habit of doing a space walkthrough a few months after move-in; it gives me a sense of what's working and what needs improvement as the space settles in.
In theory, users were supposed to grab open desks and stay within their team areas. But soon, a "first-come, first-serve desk next to the corner window" phenomenon emerged. Early birds claimed their spots, and whether they were working there or not, those desks became their territory. These employees, albeit a small but problematic group, repeated this every day. Some went so far as to claim meeting rooms for their own. Dropping their bags off in the room and returning sporadically throughout the day (don't we all have one of these people in our offices?). Some employees worked late and didn't arrive at the office early, leaving them with less-than-optimal hot desk spots and no meeting rooms. It became a challenge. No facilities Director wants to spend their days policing desk policies.
Every employee had a locker, which initially seemed like a brilliant idea. You don't have a desk, but you get your locker to stash everything—gym clothes, personal deliveries, old food, and more. If you thought your high school locker was a mess, you should have seen some of these. To make matters worse, users had so much stuff in their lockers that they resorted to makeshift desk mats (often made from cardboard or plastic box lids) to easily transfer their keyboard, mouse, and mousepad to their desks.
I'll never forget the day Tom stopped me as we were walking through the space. He gestured toward all the desks with cardboard and plastic lids, backpacks, and bags and shoes scattered underneath. "You can spend so much time and money planning a space, yet it's the small things that make it look terrible," he lamented. I was determined to make things right. When a client entrusts you with their project, they are going to bat for you, and I felt an obligation to ensure that I did not let them down. Tom's words had a profound effect on me. He added, "You'd think that someone would have designed a simple office locker organizer." So, I did!
I returned to my project team, and together, we brainstormed a solution: a stylish portable desk mat/ caddy for lockers. It would be contoured, mounted at the top of locker cubbies (leaving space for bags to prevent them from cluttering the floor near desks), and could be easily transferred to desks and mounted underneath via a mounting bracket. Since users didn't have storage pedestals at their desks, this would provide them with a storage unit. It would also serve as a notification system, indicating that a desk was in use for the day. With the addition of name tags, it even included built-in signage! This product took on a life of its own and ended up solving more problems than we had even anticipated.
We opted for felt because it was not only fun with its textured surface but also sustainable, made from recycled plastic bottles. We determined the size based on the laptop and keyboard that were being used.
The end result is our current Essentials TOTem Hot-Desk Storage caddy. It not only addressed our client's problems but also became a massive hit, quickly embraced by users. It made our client shine in the eyes of upper management. Additionally, it was a personal turning point for me. It reinforced that my future career lay in product design and development, although I still cherished the art of selling.
I ended up divesting my role at the dealership to grow Slyde and am happy to say that this product helped us find the growth of Slyde and is used by many Fortune 500 companies that have moved to hybrid-type workspaces. We even enhanced the initial concept into the TOTem Enhanced lockbox caddy.
The moral of this story is crystal clear: always listen to your client's problems. The best products often emerge from clients who are in the trenches, experiencing problems firsthand. And remember, a calling may find you later in life, so be sure to heed its call.
In the ever-evolving world of office spaces, we're here to keep things organized, flexible, and just a tad quirky. Join us in making office chaos an adventure, one locker organizer at a time at www.slydeinnovations.com.
