Dreamplex: A place where happiness is
Dreamplex, one of the first leading co-working spaces in Vietnam, is strategically located in the heart of Ho Chi Minh city. Since it opened in 2015, Dreamplex has been the home to many local startups and foreigners coming to Vietnam for business. With over six years of experience in running workspaces, Dreamplex became the major workplace experience provider to offer more flexible, collaborative, and community-oriented office solutions for companies.
About Daan van Rossum
As the Chief Experience at Dreamplex, Daan thrives to give the best customer and employee experiences with business outcomes in mind. As a strong advocate for employees’ happiness, he believes that healthy workplace culture and great employee experience can bring higher retention and more productivity.
Before joining Dreamplex, Daan worked as a marketing strategist in Ogilvy and has stints across Europe, the US, and Asia for 15 years. Then he founded Bright — a Vietnamese startup focused on helping people to thrive.
Moving to another country is a big decision. What motivated you to move to Vietnam?
I was based in Singapore before I came here and travelled often across Southeast Asia to meet clients. I usually travel every week to Kuala Lumpur, Saigon, Manila, or Bangkok. Out of all these cities, I like Saigon the most. After one year of living in Singapore, I proposed to my boss to transfer me to Saigon. He said yes, and that’s why I am here.
Why did you join Dreamplex?
I learned a lot about how it can be quite challenging for young Vietnamese to pursue their dream careers because their families have high expectations for what they do. I noticed a contrast between what they want and what society would expect from them. That’s why I decided to start my own company, focusing on coaching people towards their potential. Until I met Dreamplex, and noticed we have the same idea about creating a happier life for people. Statistically speaking, a person will spend about 90,000 to 100,000 hours at work in a lifetime, and I had this idea to make work great. If you make it fun for people to come to work every day, you make life great as well. There is a connection between what I am passionate about and what Dreamplex was doing. That’s why I joined two years ago.
I know what you do is all about workplace experience and employee engagement. How did you shape your belief based on your past experiences as a CXO of Dreamplex?
Everything matters when you run your own company, especially the products and services you sell. Previously, I learned a lot about strategic planning and user experience that I can apply in Dreamplex. If you want to sell happiness to people, you need to imagine how it should look like. What is it like for people to come to work every day? I will not know your company goals or how stressful it is to hit those objectives, but I can control how we design the office spaces and the people we can put to be in charge. As for hospitality, we can offer engagement programs of the week or the month, music choice, and refreshment options. From that perspective, we focus on what best serves the people.
How is Dreamplex different from its competitors?
If you add up all the co-working space in Vietnam, they only make up about 2% of the market. But let me tell you something crazy, there is almost no competition in what we do. We only focus on the remaining 98% of the companies that are still putting their employees at boring offices, and we want to show them that we’re the next best option. We are going after the demographics who are still working in traditional offices and show them that they can get a better place with the same amount of money spent in an ordinary office.
How did the pandemic affect Dreamplex?
When it first happened last year, we thought this would be the end. Most of our customers have flexible contracts with us, and they can opt-out anytime to work from home. We definitely had some challenging months to deal with landlords on rent release and failed IPOs that had put the whole industry in a very bad light. However, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Many companies begin to offer flexibility for their employees to work anywhere they want. So, there’s a demand from companies for more flexible solutions for the way we work today. Our office rental solution has become more relevant to what they’re asking for, and that’s the real reason we’re expanding.
Why do SMEs and enterprises benefit the most from the services you’re offering?
When we started in 2015, we only served freelancers to small creative companies. Last year, we went after companies between 20 to 200 people. Interestingly, we end up having conversations with larger companies with 1,200 people. We uncovered a market that goes beyond mid-sized companies. Typically, many companies do not see workplace experience as something important. They do not think about designing spaces or facilities management that delivers a great workplace experience. But we do it for them at Dreamplex. At our core, it is all about hospitality.
What is your perspective about “the future of work”?
To me, now is the future. A year ago, many people asked themselves the question: what will work look like after the pandemic? I think we can now say, the future is already here, especially in Vietnam, where we don’t have the continued lockdown. We barely talk about the future, but more about what we need to do now so people can work together again. What people think is going to happen in the future is already happening. If you want to be competitive, you have to act now. Don’t postpone any longer.
Which is your favourite-themed office?
The space we’re building right now (Fusion of the Garden) is definitely the one because it’s the largest we’ve ever built. It gives us more opportunity to delight the employees with an exciting workspace to come to. I realise people respond well to strategic locations with an open environment surrounded by nature. We have designed more than 1000 square meters of greenery specifically for this project.
What is the most enjoyable moment here with Dreamplex?
Teamwork. From the design team to the hospitality, employee experience, and even the IT team, we bring all functions together. The team collaborated very closely about how the office would look like. Everybody is so young and is from here (in Vietnam), they like to share their ideas because they often see or hear from their friends. It’s an interesting process for me. We brainstorm and come up with something meaningful for people to enjoy. Let me give you an example. If I want to build a new coffee bar at the new location, I may not know the trendiest coffee brands. So, all I have to do is ask around then I can get an answer very quickly. This is definitely the part I enjoy the most.
