This is my story. It all started the day I decided to trade office politics, large overheads and big boardrooms for fresh air, sunshine, slip-slops, on-demand teams and co-working adventures around the world. Welcome to Flexyforce.

I used to think I was so free and independent, that I could really choose what I wanted to do. Being an entrepreneur gives you that kind of freedom, leading and managing a company the way you imagined. Freedom is defined as the ability to choose and I certainly had options.

But was I really stuck in an old way of working?

Despite being the Founder of an innovation management firm and already being perceived as operating at the edge where all new things were happening, I felt like that edge was stuck in an old world; a world made up of pretty, coloured post-its and fancy buzz words like “design thinking”, “lean innovation management”, “disruption” and “agile” everything. It was and still is, a very strange way of spending your days.

Offices, meetings, smoke breaks, corporate politics, performance reviews, job descriptions, emails, presentations and payslips.

It occurred to me that I spent most of my time sitting down in a chair in front of my computer or standing up between concrete walls trying to convince someone to do something, they don’t seem to really care about. Even with my fabulous view of Table Mountain and awesome teams around me, it was not enough. It wasn’t enough to spend a lifetime behind closed doors. I craved adventure, open spaces, transparent environments and quality time with the people I love.

Relentlessly trying to stay inspired, while helping large corporations to innovate, made me wonder: How am I spending my time? Is creating colourful customer journey walls, improving UX, putting together fancy McKinsey-style profit closing diagrams and breaking down walls in offices really, working differently? Or are you simply ‘dressing up’ our old ways of working, leading and thinking? Perhaps simply viewing and framing the same old things from different angles? I thought I was a free ranger, a future thinker, until I took a step out of my comfort zone and started experimenting with real change.

Flexyforce arrived, and all the incredible people passionate about shaping a better future of work for everyone all over the world arrived with it.

The birth of Flexyforce

It was the summer of 2017, when I unknowingly traded my office chair, high heels, consulting outfits and full-time team for a life of true freedom.

I decided to build a company with no office, no working hours, no leave days and no employees. A company of the future. A culture of adventure and flexibility. A team with shared values, big hearts and open minds. A dream for every day to be a productive adventure.

This blog is dedicated to sharing some of the Flexyforce story, behind-the-scenes style. Stories of remote-working adventures and building on-demand teams. Going from employees to suppliers. And getting rid of payroll for flexibility. Stories to tell the story of how we embraced a new way of working and never looked back.

It is not all sunshine and slip-slops, but it is definitely opening up doors of opportunity and discovering new ways of working, together everywhere. And what an adventure that is. #flexyworking #flexyforce

So stay tuned, we know the way into the Future of Work 🙂

Annette Muller
Founder and Ceo of Flexyforce