Please provide our readers with a brief overview of Canvas Offices: What does the Canvas brand stand for and how do you differ to competing office space providers?

Canvas Offices is a flexible office space provider, which supports businesses in their growth journey through the development of creative and inspiring spaces.

Committed to ensuring our clients ‘feel at Home at Work’, Canvas is underpinned by a clear mission to create a personalised global ecosystem, designed for the future of work – supported by our four brand pillars:

• Our neighbourhoods
• Value for money
• Design led spaces
• Personalised space

Our approach differs from other office space providers in the market, as we have honed a consultative, design-led approach that steers clear of the cookie cutter ‘glass boxes’ and involves clients in the design process – resulting in a tailored space that enables their team to collaborate and thrive.

Furthermore, we work hard to establish each building as part of the ‘neighbourhood’ where it resides through a clear algorithm, which ensures all buildings under the Canvas portfolio are: Well connected, authentic in build, close to the neighbourhood for access to local amenities and local business collaboration, together with commercial viability.

How did you develop the Canvas business model?

Prior to launching the Canvas brand, I had my own music production studio in central London. With the help of my brother and now business partner, Oren, we decided to sublet and refurbish the space and during this process realised the sheer complexity in sourcing, running, and creating the right space for your business.

In realising the power of our combined knowledge and network, we decided to test the water and create our own flexible office operation and quite quickly understood that we were on to something, hence Canvas was born.

What inspired you to launch the brand?

Being an entrepreneur and a business owner for many years in different sectors made me realise how important – or even crucial – the facilities you operate your business from are. This is where we understood the importance of a design-led approach and what inspired us to establish the four pillars of Canvas: Location, value, design, bespoke.

Ultimately, where your business is, how much you pay for your facilities, whether the design suits your needs and if it makes you and your team feel at home is imperative to business culture, collaboration, and growth. If ‘yes’ to all of those questions, you are in a good place, but if not, you face a high risk for your business.

We also understood how difficult and time-consuming is to run your own space. For example, when running previous businesses, tasks like putting artwork in reception took us a few years because running your business is already more than a full-time job so adding the burden of running your space is just too much. Therefore, creating a product that solves all that for other business facing the same issues was really appealing to us.

You co-founded Canvas with your brother. What is it like working so closely with a family member? Has this made it more challenging to build a successful business?

Starting Canvas with my brother was probably the best decision I made in business. I'm not suggesting that any family partnership could work or that it was an easy process, but if scale is what you are looking for and a real shared sense of success and happiness it’s a good decision to make!

Oren and I are the complete opposite – with me being a musician and him being a lawyer – so the possibility for us to working together if we weren't family would have been very slim. However, combining our skill sets and completely different perspectives on business has been incredibly useful and a real asset to our success.

Shared values and trust are probably one of the most important in the business arena, so if you are able to establish them with your co-founders, it will make the process of scale both possible and more enjoyable.

How has the business grown since inception?

We have had two phases of growth at Canvas: the first was product learning and market feasibility. We started the business with £17k in the bank, and essentially, we did everything ourselves. Oren and I managed to grow the business to 6 buildings and approx. £1.5m of annual revenue by ourselves, reaching the point where we needed to decide if we want to build a lifestyle business or a scalable organisation – we chose the latter.

The second phase was hiring top talents specialists in every position in the business and acquiring external industry knowledge while building the ‘platform’ for growth. Currently, we are a team of 20 and approx. £6m of revenue and growing fast! We are now ready for the next step of growth by maximising the ‘platform’ and rapidly disrupting our industry.

You recently secured an impressive multi-million-pound investment from alternative funding provider, ThinCats. How will you utilise this investment and what are you plans for long-term growth?

Our initial funding round with ThinCats has been secured to predominantly acquire new buildings and scale the revenue of the business to increase our valuation and position ourselves better for our next round of funding.  

Our long-term growth is very ambitious. We believe that our industry and consumers need our unique product and propositions, so we are looking to blitz scale in the next three years and grow 10X to become a leading brand in the London market. 

Within the next 24 months, we also plan to expand Canvas on an international scale.

What advice would you give to other startup or scaleup businesses looking to secure investment?

I would advise any startup or scaleup looking to secure investment to obtain guidance around your business finance/funding, because running a business successfully does not necessarily give you the knowledge you need to then secure external investment.

The work required for any funding round is often long and painful, so it’s important to treat your business and accounts in preparation for investment from day one. Not only will this put you in a stronger position for securing funding, it will also save you a lot of time and unnecessary stress.

Name three key lessons that you have learnt during your business journey to date:

The most important lessons I have learnt during my business journey so far, are as follows:

1. Make sure you love what you do because tough times are always coming in one way or another, and if you genuinely have a passion for what you do, it makes it so much easier to deal with.
2. It’s good to be focused on what you are good at and scale on it, it’s also very important to be aware of what you are not so good at and to delegate. BUT never forget that there are things that you don’t know that you don’t know, because the real scale is hiding there.
3. Sometimes I like to compare our business with a football team as there is so much in common: 

• Have top talent in every position
• Work together
• Being number one is not easy but possible if collectively we always strive towards it.
• Always celebrate success but when you fail learn to get back on the horse quickly
• Make your clients and target audience happy
• Make sure your vision and values are clear and well communicated internally and externally

What steps have you taken to ensure the successful scalability of the Canvas model?

There are lots of steps that we have taken to ensure the successful scalability of the Canvas business model, which would be applicable to any startup hungry for growth. These include:

• Hire top people in every position
• Always analyse the present and remain a few steps ahead
• Build a sustainable organisation
• Always listen to our client’s needs
• Be agile
• Be fair to everyone
• Focus on our USPs
• Lead by our values
• Communicate and crystalise our vision and mission – both internally and externally – as clearly as possible

What advice would you give to business owners concerned about the current economic downturn and growing cost of living crisis?

It’s vital to remember that the economy is a cycle and that being prepared for the downturn is as important as preparing for growth. So, if anyone has a concern about part of their business in downturn its important to analyse the business model and make the right steps towards a more sustainable organisation that can survive through tough times. And always remember in every crisis there is an opportunity so keep positive and look around - I know it sounds like a cliché but it’s true.

What’s next for Canvas in 2023?

Canvas is on an exciting trajectory for growth and during 2023, we are working hard to achieve the following:

• Working towards our next funding round
• Tripling the size of the business
• Looking to hire new talent into key positions within the business
• Working closely with our leadership team to build and prove our scalable model.
• And of course, to have lots of fun while doing all of this!