MassChallenge x inspace

MassChallenge, an innovation catalyst, grappled with the monumental task of managing diverse events and housing up to 300 annual entrepreneur residents at their Boston hub. Entrusted to a single office manager, the challenge was daunting: coordinating bookings, ensuring efficient use of space, and fostering a positive guest experience. Enter inspace – a technological solution reimagining workplace management.

Established in 2009 in Boston, Massachusetts, MassChallenge has made it their mission to empower entrepreneurs with bold ideas to challenge the status quo and bring about meaningful change. By connecting startups, experts, corporations, and communities, MassChallenge seeks to grow and transform businesses and economies across various sectors. As a nonprofit organization, they offer equity-free support, accelerators, and partnerships throughout the year to those who share their vision of transformative innovation.

Boston's thriving ecosystem of innovation, comprising major industries like health technology, biotechnology, and financial services, has been MassChallenge's global headquarters since its inception. The city's rich educational heritage, with institutions like Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and its world-class hospitals like Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital, make it a hub for cutting-edge research and development. MassChallenge's FinTech, HealthTech, and Early Stage programs contribute significantly to the growth and innovation within these industry ecosystems.

MassChallenge's bustling Boston headquarters regularly hosts multiple events each month, attracting between 150 and 200 guests. They also host several hundred entrepreneurs, called residents, to work in their space. That's 1,000+ guests every year. The facility has various meeting rooms and common areas, including a versatile meeting space with a removable wall that could be booked as three differently configured spaces.

To tackle these challenges, MassChallenge sought the expertise of inspace, an innovative workplace management platform designed to streamline the booking and management of spaces of all kinds, from workspace and meeting rooms to common areas. inspace's user-friendly interface, automation capabilities, and real-time updates empowered the office manager to manage bookings more effectively, optimize facility usage, and enhance the guest experience.

inspace began by installing patented NFC devices, customizing the interactive floor plan in the app for guests, creating a communication flow, and integrating their platform with MassChallenge's existing tools, such as Outlook, to enable seamless communication between systems. This integration allowed the office manager to manage bookings easily, monitor room availability, and allocate resources according to event requirements. The platform also provided real-time updates and notifications, enabling quick decisions and adjustments when necessary.

inspace also implemented a self-check-in system for guests and residents, freeing the operations manager to focus on other crucial aspects of the event or the space. This system enabled MassChallenge to gather valuable data on guest attendance and preferences, which could be utilized to improve future events.

To further enhance the guest experience, inspace's platform offered features such as personalized event reminders, directions to the venue, seamless integration with calendar applications, and the ability to customize notifications to match MassChallenge's branding and ensure consistency in communication.

In addition, inspace provided detailed analytics and reports, allowing MassChallenge to make data-driven decisions and optimize its space strategy.

The collaboration between MassChallenge and inspace brought about several positive outcomes:

The administrative workload was significantly reduced as inspace's platform streamlined the booking process for residents and automated guest flow management. This allows operations staff to focus on other critical tasks and deliver more value-added services.

The data collected by inspace's platform enables MassChallenge to make informed decisions about future requirements and better cater to the needs of their guests and residents. This data-driven approach helps to optimize event strategies, identify trends, and allocate resources more effectively.

The inspace platform is easily adaptable to accommodate the growing needs of MassChallenge. As MassChallenge continues to scale its operations and increase the number and variety of events, the platform can meet these evolving demands.

MassChallenge reduced the need for additional staff to handle event logistics by streamlining the booking process and automating guest flow management. This allows the organization to allocate resources to other areas that directly support its mission.

inspace's platform provides MassChallenge with insights into resource utilization patterns, enabling the office manager to make more informed decisions about facility usage. This helps reduce scheduling conflicts, improve space allocation, and effectively use resources.

The partnership between MassChallenge and inspace highlights the transformative power of technology in optimizing space and event management, leading to increased efficiency, improved guest experience, and data-driven decision-making. By leveraging inspace's platform, MassChallenge has streamlined daily operations at its Boston headquarters, enhancing the overall experience for event attendees and stakeholders.