This week, we’re getting a bit of a deeper dive in the life of Tyler Ford, aka the guy who single-handedly started the coworking trend here in Charlotte with Industry Coworking in 2009. Tyler’s history is a really cool one: after school he started out working for Tommy Hilfiger in various positions for 15 years (yes, he knows Tommy, he’s kinda awkward; and no, he did not pay for clothes, which was a culture shock after he left). During that time Tyler and his wife moved to Charlotte, where, after leaving retail, Tyler started working from home on graphic and web design. You see where this is going, right? He did the work from home thing for about 6 months before he started going a little stir crazy. He and some other friends bounced around the idea of splitting an office space together… and from there, the idea for Industry Coworking grew. Then in 2018 he decided to join the #hyggefam.

“Most of us meet our friends at our workplace, our spouse at our workplace. When you don’t have that at all, it makes it easier to be out there on an island.”

You can hear more about Tyler’s super interesting journey, along with some other tidbits (like he and his daughter’s personal challenge to see 25 concerts together in 5 years and how he steals the bacon off of sandwiches) by listening below.