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Turning problems into opportunities: LifeAt is the workspace of tomorrow

7 Jul 2022

When the pandemic hit, the entire world was zapped into a new reality. Suddenly, life existed almost entirely behind a screen; Zoom birthday parties, virtual conferences, and even online concerts began popping up every now and then to try and maintain some sense of normality. However, something wasn't right - nothing was normal. It was as if humans were expected to operate the same as they did in person without any of the right tools or support mechanisms in place.

Marisa Chentakul

A small group of product designers and software engineers quickly decided that they had had enough. If life was going to force them to sit behind a screen for hours on end, they were going to make that screen work for them. LifeAt is a productivity tool that transports virtual workspaces to different destinations around the world while simultaneously providing productivity tracking and other features that make living life online a bit more enjoyable.

Centered around user design

Marisa Chentakul, a co-founder and thought leader at LifeAt, filled her professional life with opportunities that led to this moment. As a young grad, she decided to start a product-design focused TikTok account while still maintaining a full-time job in the tech industry. Her TikTok grew to over 150,000 followers; as it turns out, Marisa was an innovative problem solver in the creative space. She soon became a role model for the next wave of aspiring product designers.

As her TikTok grew, so did her reputation in product design. She began judging hackathons, speaking at large technology conferences, and even started a design podcast in Southeast Asia called “Design Picnic.” Her life revolved around harnessing the knowledge of human-centered design to make life easier, and Marisa didn’t plan on gatekeeping anything she learned along the way. It is this same spark and mentality that helped LifeAt come to life.

The founding team at LifeAt saw an opportunity to draw a line between work and life, and change up the workspace in an era of remote/hybrid work, coupled with productivity and mindfulness tools. They knew that our in-person reality would continue to converge with a digital reality, even in post-pandemic times. The problem they wanted to solve was never going to go away without a product like theirs, so they took the leap.

Growth of LIfeAt

Marisa and her co-founders began working through every single downfall of remote work. Productivity challenges, workspace fatigue, and collaboration issues were all something they wanted to address. Now, LifeAt allows people to personalize their digital workspace while providing seamless collaboration, video conferencing, and productivity tools.

In 2022, LifeAt was accepted into the YC Combinator, a startup incubator that received over 17,000 applications for that cycle. At the end of the YC Combinator, the LifeAt team walked away with $500,000 in funding and got to work.

Today, over one million people use LifeAt to maximize their productivity and virtually “escape” to pristine beaches during their lunch break. Making a splash on social media, LifeAt has grew a community of over 400,000 people across various platforms. LifeAt has successfully reached 102 countries and impacted countless lives, and this is just the beginning.

Charting a unique path

LifeAt’s quick growth and success pays tribute to Marisa’s abilities to solve everyday problems, communicate effectively with an intended audience, and expand the startup’s reach organically. When it became clear that life online wasn’t going away, Marisa and her team put together a product that had all the components needed to increase happiness and productivity while reducing online fatigue. LifeAt is simple to use, champions collaboration, and helps transport users to a new place using thoughtful design techniques. Ideas can be more than just ideas when you take a leap to turn them into reality – just ask Marisa.