A year ago, ConvertSense took a desk at Department at Leeds Dock. Now they have their own office, a team of ten, and a co-founder who walks to work. Nick Washbourne on the space that grew with them.
Nick Washbourne lives on the dock. Close enough to Department at Leeds Dock that the commute barely qualifies as one. Close enough that, long before he became a member, he had already wandered through the communal spaces, sat with the atmosphere, and formed a view.
He liked what he found.
“I’d been into the common areas and got a sense for the vibe,” he says. “And then Amy showed me around, and I was just sort of blown away coming upstairs and seeing all the office space.”
That was just over a year ago. ConvertSense arrived as a small team, settling into the resident desks and getting to work. What followed was fast. The team grew to ten. They took on their own private office. The business had momentum, and Department moved with it without friction or fuss, just the right space at the right time.
“We’ve grown pretty quickly,” Nick says. “And Department’s accommodating us. So we liked it.”
It is a simple thing to say. But for a founder who had been through the full weight of traditional office infrastructure before, it meant everything.
Before ConvertSense, Nick had done all of this the traditional way. Co-founder of a software company that scaled to 80 people, he knew exactly what building a team inside a conventional office commitment looked like. The leases. The overhead. Space that was yours whether or not it was serving you.
Starting fresh with ConvertSense, he wanted something different. Somewhere that could flex as the business found its shape, without asking for certainty he did not yet have.
Department gave him that. And then some.
ConvertSense is not a quiet business. The agency runs cross-channel demand generation for B2B and B2C clients, with paid social forming a significant part of the offer. But the thing Nick talks about with genuine pride is the generative AI the team has built for nurturing client opportunities, something he calls, without any hesitation, “the real jewel in our crown.”
It is the kind of work that requires sharp minds in close contact with each other. Ideas bouncing, problems being solved in real time, the particular energy of a team that is genuinely invested in what it is building.
That energy needs the right container. And Department, it turns out, is exactly that.
A typical day for Nick starts with coffee, sometimes breakfast if the fruit pots are stocked at the in-house café and restaurant, Fearns, then into the rhythm of team meetings and client calls. People come to visit ConvertSense here too, and the communal areas and meeting spaces make that easy, the kind of effortless, professional welcome that matters more than people say it does. He moves around the building, lets the day breathe a little, comes back to the digital calls that keep everything moving.
“There’s loads of communal areas and great spaces for entertaining,” he says. “So I’ll sort of mooch around a little bit throughout the day.”
In a few months, the entire ConvertSense team will take on the Trailwalker, a serious fundraising challenge in support of the Gurkhas. It is not a small ask. It is 100 kilometres, typically completed in under 30 hours, as a team. Everyone is doing it. Nobody needed persuading.
Nick mentions it with quiet pride, the kind that belongs to a founder who has watched a group of people become something more than a workforce.
“That’s something I’m proud of. That everyone wants to do that.”
It sits alongside the other thing he notices, the way the team celebrates client wins together, the energy that moves through the office when results come in.
“Whenever we see good results for our clients, there’s celebrations across the teams. It’s just lovely to see that everyone is so dedicated to our clients’ success.”
A team that signs up voluntarily for a 100-kilometre challenge. That celebrates each other’s work. That genuinely wants to be in the same room.
You could chalk it up to good hiring. But Nick lived on the dock long before he ever signed up. He walked past Department, felt what it was, and recognised it for what it could become.
Some things you cannot manufacture. You just have to find them.
Your team deserves somewhere they actually want to be. Explore membership at Department at Leeds Dock.
