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It’s National Small Business Week!

 - May 3, 2018
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Did you know that small businesses are actually the backbone of our country’s economy? More than half of the American workforce (that’s a lot of people) work for a small business of sorts, and entrepreneurs are helping create two out of every three jobs in the U.S. day-in and day-out (via business.com). With that kind of reputation, it makes perfect sense that American small businesses have an entire week of the year dedicated solely to them, because they deserve all the celebration they can get.

The Common Desk community is comprised of almost every type of business, with one of our biggest member demographics being small businesses. We get the honor of watching these hard-working business leaders innovate, collaborate, and push the needle forward every single day at the office, and we are constantly inspired by the achievements of our small business members. Because of all of the above, Common Desk has a special place in its collective heart for small businesses.

In honor of National Small Business Week, we’re using this blog post as an excuse to highlight a handful of our amazing small business members in each Common Desk space. The below members are truly the real deal when it comes to small business innovation, and we hope their stories inspire you as much as they inspire us!

Team Better Block

Meet Team Better Block, the urban planning experts who spend their days unlocking the interest and creativity of the public with a process that designs for community, connection, and commerce from the ground up. The “Better Block approach” has been used in over two hundred cities around the world (legit) to illustrate rapid street changes and community revitalization. Long story short, they make urban communities more enjoyable and functional, and Dallas is easily a better place because of the work that they do.

Layne, Jonathan, Andrew, and Winston (Andrew’s adorable dog) are the crew that makes up Team Better Block in Dallas! The original concept for Better Block came together organically from many people that had never met each other. Most didn’t know what was actually being organized until the day of the first unofficial Better Block event, which basically involved taking a car-centric four lane street in Oak Cliff, Dallas and turning it into a “people-friendly neighborhood block.” For two days, they converted the development at Tyler and Davis Street into the area we all know and love today, installing three pop-up shops, historic lighting, outdoor cafe seating, and so much more. The explosive energy that affected so many individuals during that process was electric.

The viral, transformative, and immediate success of that original grassroots project led Andrew to help create Team Better Block, LLC, a consulting firm that has been apart of over 150 Better Block projects to-date around the world. Since then, Team Better Block has been growing and impacting neighborhoods both in and outside of Dallas. Their tagline is “Reclaiming cities for the public good, one block at a time,” and they are truly accomplishing just that. You can learn more about their game-changing ways here!

PixelCutLabs

PixelCutLabs is coined “Dallas’s Next-Generation Social Marketing Agency” for a reason. This team of fringe creatives is comprised of individuals with backgrounds in everything from marketing, user experience, business, and strategy, and when it comes down to it, they’re as robust as a small agency comes. Their approach can be summed up in two words: personal and forward-thinking. They know how to convert their clients’ need for change into a cutting-edge product, whether in the realm of SEO, digital/social marketing, or web design and development.

PixelCutLabs has been recognized as a leading marketing agency on both a local and national level, and that’s pretty dang impressive for a small business in Oak Cliff (if we do say so ourselves). For most people, social media marketing and SEO might as well be a foreign language, but nothing makes the PCL team’s eyes wider or hearts happier than helping their clients soar to new heights in the world of social marketing and search engine optimization.

The PixelCutLabs crew has been a beloved part of the Common Desk community for nearly two and a half years now, and since they first joined, they’ve grown from a one-man show to a small team stacked with talent, tenacity, and tact. If you want to gain thorough customer insights, increase your brand exposure and loyalty, or provide a rich customer experience through social media or web design (all while supporting a local small business) then click here to engage a noteworthy company to do just that!

TimelyMD

When you hear the word “healthcare,” what’s the first word that comes to mind? For plenty, the first connotation might be “inconvenient” or “outdated” or “difficult,” and that connotation is very real for so many Americans. TimelyMD, a Fort Worth-based small business, is working to transform healthcare by speeding up the patient access, improving health outcomes, and unlocking business value with their thoughtful telemedicine, which they use to benefit everything from higher education to health systems and other member-driven organizations.

TimelyMD specializes in providing “telehealth,” a patient-centric approach which reduces healthcare costs, gives 24/7 access to a healthcare professional, and allows people the opportunity for better time management all around. When it comes down to it, convenience and ease-of-use empowers patients to address issues sooner, make more confident decisions, and ultimately heal faster (sounds like a dream, right?).

Not only are the TimelyMD team awesome human beings, they also started their small business from the ground up, and this small but mighty group spends its days working to push the limits by flat-out changing the game for how we interact with healthcare. You can learn more about the TimelyMD mission here!

Spacetime

Spacetime is an experience-design agency that helps non-technical founders take their product to market. They provide a true bang-for-your-buck by focusing on smart efforts that act as value multipliers, instead of building aimlessly to constantly milk cash out of their clients. The guys running the Spacetime operation are individuals who know how to make hard work be fun. The team covers a lot of ground through Spacetime– whether building sites, developing strategies for startups, doing a deep-dive on a company’s design direction or product prototype, and even helping founders determine their target audiences.

Spacetime sets the stage as a design and development-focused partner, and their focus is always on crafting user experiences that wow and drive business goals. They hone in on the problems clients face, then seek solutions through project strategy, user experience planning, visual design, and technology development.

When they’re not changing the way the world views and experiences design, they’re probably picking on our Plano team or making us laugh at their dry wit and humor. Spacetime has built a strong reputation for working with really awesome brands in DFW and beyond. You can learn more about their knack for design and out of this world approach here!

Without small businesses, both the U.S. economy and the Common Desk community would be incomplete in massive ways.

We only highlighted four companies today, but there are so many noteworthy small businesses in both the Common Desk community and across Dallas-Fort Worth as a whole. As a way to say a tiny thanks for all that small businesses do for our world, let’s make a point to support a small business near and dear to our hearts this week.

Small biz owners, thanks for being the real MVPs. You deserve all the celebration in the world. Happy #smallbusinessweek, everyone!

Common Desk

Common Desk isn’t just a coworking space; it’s a tight-knit community of game-changers, difference-makers, and global influencers.

Common Desk isn’t just a coworking space; it’s a tight-knit community of game-changers, difference-makers, and global influencers.
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