When we first began talking about Launchpad023, the idea felt simple. A place for our growing European team to meet occasionally. A space where the local tech community could gather. A community-based shared workspace. Something modest that would complement the way Gozynta already worked.
After all, the core of our business remains exactly where it has always been. Through Gozynta Inc. in the United States, our remote team continues to support customers across the globe every day. The distributed model that built the company isn’t going anywhere.
What was changing was our presence here in Europe.
Through Gozynta BV, our development team in the Netherlands was growing and as we spent more time in the Dutch tech community, it became clear that the need was bigger than we originally thought. What began as a workspace idea was turning into a vision for a community hub.
Once we saw that clearly, the next question was obvious.
Where would it live?
I started checking commercial listings every morning as soon as my eyes opened. And every evening. Weeks turned into months. Some spaces were too small. Others were too expensive. Many were technically available but completely wrong for what we were imagining.
We weren’t looking for an office. We were looking for possibility. And there is no filter option for that.
Then one morning, a listing appeared. It made my heart beat faster.
The building was in the Waarderpolder business district on a street called Wateringweg. It was currently being used as a school for clothing design and weaving. Two floors. Lots of open space. Tons of natural light. The kind of layout that lets you imagine multiple futures at once. Maker’s spaces, events, movie nights. So many fun ideas.
The size was 308 square meters, about 3,315 square feet. Enough space for our local Gozynta team, enough for coworking, and enough for events, workshops, and all the ideas we hadn’t fully defined yet.
We scheduled a visit.
Within minutes of walking through the space, the conversation shifted. We stopped asking whether it would work and started talking about what each space could be used for.
We made an offer immediately. It was slightly under asking. The seller countered with a fair number and one condition: she wanted to finish the current school term and remain in the building until spring. That worked for us.
The offer was accepted and the contract was signed. Wateringweg was real.
At least, on paper.
What I didn’t fully appreciate at the time was that finding the building would turn out to be the easy part.
