A talent play. A culture play. A sustainability play. A we’re-growing-so-fast-we-flat-out-need-more-space play.
All of which is why, on Oct. 1 of this year, TextNow moved into Canada’s greenest building, known as evolv1.
Evolv1, set to officially open Nov. 29, is a new, 100,000-square-foot facility in Waterloo’s David Johnston Research and Technology Park. It’s a state-of-the-art building in terms of design and efficiency, giving back more energy than it uses – a net-positive carbon footprint.
For TextNow, a company that sells low-cost mobile phones and cloud-based wireless and data service, the move into the new facility marked the day “we grew up as a company,” to use the words of COO Lindsay Gibson.
On that day, a Monday, employees arrived at work and found a new logo, new corporate colours, and a workplace that flowed and functioned unlike any other it has inhabited since it got its start in 2009, back when it was known as Enflick.
“I think the biggest compliment I’ve received is that the designers got it right, that this building does represent us,” said Gibson.
TextNow’s new home, evolv1. The building’s green features include a geothermal
heating and cooling system, a 40,000-litre cistern for rainwater harvesting, more than
1,000 solar panels and a 40-foot living plant wall. (Photo: Vigor Clean Tech)
Among the building’s features:
- A 300-ton geothermal heating and cooling system; the geothermal well is 160 meters deep and pumps up to 800 gallons of water per minute, absorbing heat from the ground in the winter and using the earth to provide cooling in the summer.
- A 40,000-litre cistern for rainwater harvesting.
- A system to harvest daylight, which dims lights when enough natural light is present in the space.
- A living plant wall, 40 feet tall and made up of approximately 4,500 individual plants.
- A solar array in the parking lot that has 1,440 panels and another array on the roof with 754 panels. The solar arrays will displace 110 tons of C02 annually, the equivalent produced by 130 cars a year. All the panels are Canadian made.
- 28 electric vehicle charging spots.
- Solar wall technology that uses solar radiation to preheat incoming fresh air to warm tenant spaces.
TextNow occupies 40,000 square feet of the available footprint. The layout the company chose came about with plenty of employee consultation; it’s spacious, bright, open, and incorporates rooms and space suitable for a variety of needs: daily work, lunch, meetings, and even a “pub” complete with beer tap and fireplace. The paint schemes were chosen with employee input.
“We tried to articulate who we are,” said Gibson.
There’s also an LRT stop nearby, another feature that was high on employee wish lists.
TextNow has 107 employees and offices in San Francisco and Seattle. It’s tracking 20 per cent revenue growth, year over year. Daily active users of its free app has seen a 30 per cent increase year over year to 2.6 million.
Sustaining growth means hiring more people, and the hope is that the new building helps in that regard. The company is aiming for 140 to 160 people by the end of next year.
“We still have ambitious goals, we still have things we want to do. But to do them, we definitely want to hire people and let them know we’re here,” said Gibson.
The company hasn’t been afraid to try innovative methods to attract and retain people. In the summer of 2017 it ran a program that awarded a $13,000 bonus to any of its employees who successfully recommended a new hire. The new hire received a $13,000 bonus, too.
The company has also taken advantage of the federal government’s Global Talent Stream fast-track visa program for five hires and last October it received $1 million in funding from the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program which it plans to use, in part, to hire more engineers.
TextNow received the federal funding even though it’s unable to offer full functionality of its services in Canada, lacking a wireless partner like it has in the U.S. TextNow is available in Canada as a free wifi mobile phone app.
“We know Canadians are looking for alternatives to the big telcos, because they are telling us,” said Gibson. “Over 3.5 million Canadians have downloaded our wireless app and over 100,000 have signed up to be notified when our [full] service will be available in Canada.
“In the U.S., we are showing customers that they don’t have to suffer under the big carrier model. Instead, customers are getting much more comfortable using apps, trusting disruptive players and they can see the great value they’re getting for their money.”
Even largely without Canadian customers, the company remains committed to Waterloo Region.
“Eighty-five per cent [of TextNow’s employees] are still here,” said Gibson. “Not everybody wants to live in San Francisco. There are a lot of people who like this kind of lifestyle. So it is working.”
