Multi-workspace setup for operators running multiple ventures

Multi-workspace setup is the question I get asked most as the operator who actually runs Briefi across five workspaces every day. Most users skip the setup post and end up with one big workspace where everything mixes together. That's the multi-account trap in a single Briefi account. This post is the order to do things in so you don't end up there.

Assumed starting state: you've signed up, you're on Pro or Business (Free supports one workspace, Solo three, Pro five, Business ten). You have multiple working contexts — consulting clients, side projects, board roles, brands — and you want each to be its own surface.

Step 1: decide on workspaces before you create them

The single biggest setup mistake is creating workspaces ad-hoc as new clients land. By month three you have nine workspaces, four of them duplicates or near-duplicates, and you spend more time picking the active workspace than working in it.

Sit down for ten minutes and list the working contexts you actually have. Not the companies you do work with — the contexts where the meetings, contacts, and pipeline genuinely shouldn't mix. A typical operator list might be: consultancy (your own), the SaaS you're building, a marketing arm you're a director of, a board seat at a non-profit, a personal venture. Five workspaces, each with a distinct rhythm, distinct contacts, distinct outcomes.

The mental model is: a workspace is a role, not a company. Detailed in multi-workspace is not multi-tenancy.

Step 2: create and name your workspaces

Settings, then Workspace, click 'Create new workspace' for each one. Name them so the active-workspace pill in the sidebar is unambiguous — 'consultancy', 'briefi', 'marketing brand', 'board · charity', 'personal' — not 'workspace 1' or your initials.

Set the email domain per workspace where it makes sense. The consultancy workspace's email domain helps Briefi classify meetings as internal vs external. The personal-venture workspace might have no email domain. Both fine.

Step 3: connect a Google account per workspace

This is the step that genuinely matters for multi-workspace operators. Each workspace can have its own Google account for calendar + Gmail send. Settings, then Integrations, in each workspace, click 'Connect workspace Google account' and grant scopes for the email address that *actually owns that workspace's calendar*.

Your consultancy probably has its own Google Workspace; connect that one to the consultancy workspace. Your personal venture might run off your personal Gmail; connect that to the personal workspace. Don't share one Google account across multiple Briefi workspaces — the calendar sync and invite-routing breaks down when one account is feeding two different surfaces.

The workspace Google is also the one used for outbound invites — when you book a meeting via the workspace's scheduling page, the invite goes out from this account.

Step 4: pick the CRM per workspace

Each workspace gets its own CRM connection. This is the step that converts multi-workspace from a UX feature into an operational lever.

Consultancy on HubSpot. Marketing brand on GoHighLevel. SaaS on Monday or Pipedrive. Board role might have no CRM (just contact tracking inside Briefi). The variety is the point — Briefi handles the abstraction so you don't need to pretend every workspace runs on the same CRM. Detailed mapping per provider in how the CRM push works — actually no, that's the wrong link. Skip the cross-reference and just: each workspace, its own CRM, picked from the dropdown.

Step 5: customise discovery guides per workspace

Settings, then Discovery guides, in each workspace. Pick one of the system guides closest to your selling motion in that workspace, fork it to the workspace, and edit. Different workspaces sell to different buyers; the guide should reflect that. A board-role workspace probably doesn't need a discovery guide at all (no selling); leave the default. A consulting workspace might fork two or three (one per service line).

Don't try to share guides across workspaces. The cost of one extra guide is approximately zero; the cost of using a misfit guide on a meeting is half a closed deal.

Step 6: turn on Command for cross-workspace search

Command is the bar at the top of the sidebar that searches across every workspace you're a member of. It's on by default. The reason it matters: most multi-workspace operators end up doing parallel mental searches every time they remember a name. 'Was that John from the consulting deal or the marketing one?' Command solves that — one query, results from every workspace I can see.

Test it during setup. Search a contact name you know is in one workspace. Make sure the search returns rows from the right workspace, with the right surface coloured.

The mistakes I see

Three common ones. **Creating too many workspaces** — every consulting client doesn't need its own workspace if they all run on the same CRM and the same discovery rhythm; one 'consulting' workspace with tags-by-client is often better. **Sharing one Google account across all workspaces** — invite routing breaks, calendar sync confuses, and the workspace-aware features stop working. **Forgetting to customise discovery guides** — the system guides are a starting point, not the finish line; ten minutes per workspace is the difference between briefs that hit and briefs that read generic.

If you're stuck on whether two workspaces should be one or two, the test is: when you look at the active-workspace pill in the sidebar, do you immediately know which working context you're in? If yes, two workspaces. If no, merge them.

The product page covers the workspace switcher and Command in screenshots. For the architectural reasoning, see multi-workspace is not multi-tenancy. For the founder's lived experience, see why I built Briefi.