The CUBE
Helping professionals find belonging in a hybrid world
The Challenge
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a global real estate investment and management firm experienced a concerning trend: long time tenants were no longer renewing their lease. They needed to increase occupational capacity of their corporate offices and saw a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: the way professionals live and work was changing, with remote and hybrid work creating both loneliness among workers and underutilized commercial spaces. Traditional co-working models focused on space alone, but what professionals craved was community, belonging, and balance across their professional, personal, and social lives
The Approach
My venture team and I set out to reimagine “flex” space beyond co-working — toward co-being. As CX Lead, I led the research and design strategies, including activities such as:
Designing and running primary research sprints with young professionals to uncover pains and needs across professional, personal, and social lives.
Mapping customer journeys and identifying key pain points that would motivate people to leave home and engage in community spaces.
Creating and testing value propositions and experience prototypes (e.g., geo-discovery tool, curated Salon programming) to validate desirability and engagement.
Developing retention and engagement frameworks to measure adoption, repeat participation, and community stickiness.
Translating insights into a go-to-market playbook that balanced fast learning from an early MVP with a scalable model.
Producing a comprehensive CX insights report for executive board that synthesized research findings into actionable guidance for the venture team.
The Solution
We developed The Cube: an asset-light network of active communities and curated spaces designed to combat workforce loneliness and unlock new value for underutilized real estate.
Membership connects professionals to a network of spaces and communities.
Communities form around shared identities and interests, blending online and offline interactions.
In-space experiences (Salons, curated gatherings, and flexible workspace) help members balance work, social, and personal life
Positioned as “Life. Cubed. — Professional • Personal • Social”, The Cube extends my client’s role from property manager to community builder.
The Impact
Our work on The Cube showed how reimagining space could improve professionals’ work-life balance while also driving new activation of underutilized office real estate. The venture’s early pilots validated strong user engagement while unlocking new opportunities for my client to activate space and grow revenue. The success of this venture came from:
Validated wedge engagement: Salons proved effective in getting people out of their homes and into spaces, flattening the typical drop-off in user retention
Scalable business model: A flexible subscription + credit system demonstrated potential for strong unit economics (once scaled)
Tangible corporate benefits: For my client, The Cube increased space activation, unlocked incremental revenue streams, and strengthened tenant relationships
Human impact: Once launched, The Cube projected to reduce loneliness scores by >50% among members over five years while creating the world’s largest professional community network
Introducing: FABRIK
What began as The Cube has since evolved into FABRIK, a broader platform built to reignite the joy of gathering to work, play, and belong. FABRIK connects members with vibrant communities, empowers organizers through a digital platform, and helps space owners activate underutilized real estate. Since its launch, FABRIK has run multiple high-engagement events, opened pilot locations in London, and grown its reach to more than 300,000 community members, setting the stage for late-stage acceleration and scalable impact.
