Stay objective Hunter, stay objective. I CAN’T STAY OBJECTIVE ON THIS ONE, I F’IN LOVE MANAGEDBYQ!
Ok, now that I got that out of the ole’ system, it was great to see ManagedByQ launch in SF this past week (previously just CHI, NYC) and announce a strong $15m Series A by Steve Schlafman at RRE. We put a short note on the Homebrew blog.
What is Q?
Q combines people, process and technology to deliver the operating system for physical office space. Via an iPad installed in your office, Q centralizes stellar office cleaning and other smart services to help office operations run smoothly. Hundreds of offices in New York, Chicago, and as of today, San Francisco, are using Q to clean and manage their offices efficiently and cost effectively.
There are a whole bunch of reasons for me to love Q from a business standpoint. Their growth numbers are great great great. It was a nice writeup of our seed investment. Yadda yadda.
But what gets me so excited about Q is the way they’re building this business to be amazing for both customers and employees, especially their Field Operators, the office cleaners and maintenance workers who are used to being nameless, faceless. Not at Q. At Q they’re diverse, celebrated, employed (W-2s w benefits) and valued. That’s why there’s been less than 1% turnover among the hundreds of people they employee.
“We realized fairly early on that in order to deliver the best quality of service, we needed to be the best employer,” said Q co-founder Dan Teran, 26.
It’s also one reason I can’t wait for the fast follower, VC-incubated Q competition I keep hearing about to debut. You can copy a spreadsheet, you can’t copy culture.
“The mainstream [model] is to use contract workers, but it’s hard in an environment like Managed by Q,” said Zeynep Ton, a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management.
Ton researches how organizations can best run their businesses to suit needs of employees, customers, and investors, which she refers to as “operational excellence.” She was so intrigued by Q that she is now an adviser to the company.
Saman, Dan, the Office Operators at Q HQ and the Field Operators working across SF, NYC and CHI, we couldn’t be more thrilled by this milestone.
