“COVID added a completely new dynamic that we didn't plan for in our business plan we didn’t have a pandemic maintenance section,” Olds says. So we thought-back in 2019-why don’t we just start our own business?”Īs we now know, the restaurants and cafes were merely trying to survive-let alone unveil grand openings-in 2020. She's managed a coffee shop, as well as opened up a coffee business before for another franchise. “We thought this was a perfect opportunity for us open up in the neighborhood. “We were finding ourselves driving over state line to Mississippi to purchase coffee,” Ken says. Memphis natives Ken and Mary Olds long thought the city was starved for a quality coffee purveyor. Opening a coffee shop was hardly a radical idea before the pandemic. We’re going to be considering those elements as more organizations think about alternative workspaces like an ootBox for their employees, as well as our own strategy towards building our team.” It's going to be the place where people go to collaborate, to experience that culture and connectivity to their employer. “I don’t think it's going to be the place where people go to get their work done anymore. “The job of the workplace is going to change,” she says. Zofan, who worked at research firm Gartner before launching ootBox, has given much thought to the future of work. If and when the pandemic does end, ootBox’s future is particularly intriguing still, as many companies are re-thinking their work models and needs for large offices. The company’s concept of using old shipping containers as workspaces shifted to use cases that Friedman and Zofan never could have imagined in 2019. Turns out the vision for ootBox was prophetic, if not in the exact way we’ve all wanted an escape pod during lockdown. He thought, ‘well, everybody needs a place like that sometimes.’”
He would use it, and let his neighbors use it, too. With all that nervous energy, he built what he came to call his escape pod in his backyard.
He and his wife were also taking care of their first baby, so couldn't have important conversations with a newborn crying in the background. “He was in the process of selling his last startup and had an open floor plan office, so he couldn't have the conversations about the sale at work. “The idea for ootBox was created by Robbie Friedman, my co-founder,” Zofan says. Zofan’s ootBox, Olds’ Muggin Coffeehouse, and Egger’s BIOMILQ couldn’t be more different as companies, but all three founders faced the herculean challenge of starting a new business during a pandemic. But don’t tell that to Allison Zofan, Ken Olds, or Michelle Egger.
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