Higher Spaces is a boutique co-working space and business coaching service. We talked to creator and business enthusiast Shu.

When considering what kind of businses to start, Shu followed advice from a successful entrepreneur and investor friend -  "A great business opportunity or idea is one that combines your passion, leverages what you are good at and serves what the market wants now and into the future."

They started with a clear idea of the type of space they were looking for, which made finding the right property a huge challenge. Shu shares, "One of the critical success factor about co-working is the space itself.  We had to stay hopeful and be resilient throughout the property search process."

When they finally found the right place, things weren't immediately smooth sailing, she continues, "Negotiations with the landlord proved most difficult and took several months with no hope of making this work for us.  As a last attempt, we requested to meet with the landlord directly.  It wasn't a meeting to negotiate terms but rather we made it an opportunity to share our story and vision about Higher Spaces and what we intend to do with the space."

"She was immediately taken by our passion for it, the next day we got the green light from her to go ahead with the lease.  This experience proved to us that when we share our vision with passion, people listen with excitement and want to be supportive."

To match the perfect property, The design of their space was carefully considered, and inspired by their surroundings. She says, "There is no doubt that the surrounding nature along Yarra River Walking Trail is the core inspiration of our design principle for the interior space.  It has inspired us to blend nature, space and people when it comes to creating "the flow" we need to experience work in harmony with nature.  There is a sense of “being” when you come into this space; we certainly felt it when we first inspected the property."