Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
To be featured in the Noumena community and give your members access to a whole library of entrepreneurial resources and financial education programming, all at no cost to you by the way, visit noumena.pro/coworking to fill out an interest form
Learn more about SUCCESS Space, a coworking franchise model with three revenue streams; recurring and on-demand revenue from coworking memberships, a full-service cafe, and Success Certified business coaching.
The Wing abruptly closed its doors a few weeks ago.
The lack of transition time for its members is one topic.
The other aspect to examine is how a brand now owned by the largest public flexible workspace brand, IWG (parent of Regus, SPACES and others), failed.
If you’ve only followed The Wing on social media and in the press, you might be surprised by their failure. They quickly built a compelling brand and a network of high-end, boutque, bespoke-designed spaces in major markets, and garnered a lot of press for their efforts and focus on girl power.
If you’ve run a coworking business and visited a Wing, you probably saw past the social media stories.
I visited two of their locations—one in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and one in San Francisco.
I was a card-carrying member of the San Francisco location as of the San Francisco location for about a month. I joined in March 2020.
Our company accelerates the launch and growth of coworking spaces. We help operators decide how big their space should've and what their product mix should be based on their profit goals and access to startup capital. Unless someone joins our Coworking Startup School after they've signed a lease, we would strongly warn against 10,000 square feet of purely open plan seating, open on the weekends, staffed to the max, in high-rent districts.
Could the Wing succeed without COVID dragging down its balance sheet, and in about 2,000 square feet in first and second-tier markets? We think so.
We break down their breakdown on this episode.
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
To be featured in the Noumena community and give your members access to a whole library of entrepreneurial resources and financial education programming, all at no cost to you by the way, visit noumena.pro/coworking to fill out an interest form
Learn more about SUCCESS Space, a coworking franchise model with three revenue streams; recurring and on-demand revenue from coworking memberships, a full-service cafe, and Success Certified business coaching.
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
Learn more about SUCCESS Space
To be featured in the Noumena community and give your members access to a whole library of entrepreneurial resources and financial education programming, all at no cost to you by the way, visit noumena.pro/coworking to fill out an interest form
Learn more about SUCCESS Space, a coworking franchise model with three revenue streams; recurring and on-demand revenue from coworking memberships, a full-service cafe, and Success Certified business coaching.
Coworking has long been seen as a solution for the mobile worker, and that demand has only increased in recent years. coworking spaces offer a variety of membership plans that allow users to cowork when it's convenient for them, and businesses have coworking spaces to thank for an increase in productivity and creativity. However, the coworking landscape has shifted in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and it's important for coworking businesses to adapt their models to fit the new market. SUCCESS Space is one such example, and their President Ted Laatz shares why they've gone with a unique approach that he believes will serve their customers well in the post-Covid world
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
To be featured in the Noumena community and give your members access to a whole library of entrepreneurial resources and financial education programming, all at no cost to you by the way, visit noumena.pro/coworking to fill out an interest form
Learn more about Success Space, a coworking franchise model with three revenue streams; recurring and on-demand revenue from coworking memberships, a full-service cafe, and Success Certified business coaching.
Find Amy Toman on:
Amy Toman, works as a Local SEO Specialist for Digital Law Marketing, and she has her own business, Pet Sitter SEO (but she specializes in working with all small businesses).
She is also a Google Product Expert for Google Business Profiles. She spends her spare time volunteering to help business owners by answering their questions on the Google Business Profile forum.
In this conversation, Amy demystifies some of the top questions that coworking space owners have about protecting their Google Business Profiles if they allow their members to use their addresses for their own GBP listings.
Here are some questions that I posed to Amy:
What if...
- What do I do if I have a virtual member that signs up through a third party lead generator and I get a Google Business verification card in the mail from them...they have no signage, they haven't paid
- What if a member uses my address and then discontinues membership but their Google Business address is still active and they're still using my address?
- What if somehow someone using my address gets control of my Google Business listing and it becomes theirs? (I saw this happen to a very established operator)
What else should we know about protecting my Google Business Profile?
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
To be featured in the Noumena community and give your members access to a whole library of entrepreneurial resources and financial education programming, all at no cost to you by the way, visit noumena.pro/coworking to fill out an interest form
Learn more about Success Space, a coworking franchise model with three revenue streams; recurring and on-demand revenue from coworking memberships, a full-service cafe, and Success Certified business coaching.
Taylor’s website - subscribe to his newsletter
Taylor’s offer for a free website audit: www.talemaker.ca/audit
Related Podcast Episodes:
Kevin Whelan’s podcast episode on Google Ads
Reuben Lau on the podcast talking about SEO and SEM
Taylor Mason is a marketing expert for the coworking industry. On this podcast episode, he shares his framework for auditing coworking websites to identify ways to improve them. He begins by explaining why an effective website is so critical for a coworking business. He then dives into his website audit framework, which includes aspects such as design, user experience, content, and SEO. He provides detailed explanations of each of these elements and offers tips on how coworking websites can improve in each area. Finally, he shares some general tips for optimizing coworking websites. This episode is packed with valuable information for anyone who wants to improve their coworking website.
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
To be featured in the Noumena community and give your members access to a whole library of entrepreneurial resources and financial education programming, all at no cost to you by the way, visit noumena.pro/coworking to fill out an interest form
Learn more about Success Space, a coworking franchise model with three revenue streams; recurring and on-demand revenue from coworking memberships, a full-service cafe, and Success Certified business coaching.
Taylor Mason (Content Marketing)
Libsyn Description/Show Notes:
Dan Wesson and Chelle Peterson are the co-founders The Post Workspaces in northwest Tucson.
The Post just celebrated its 2nd year anniversary. The Post has had a major comback after losing most of it’s pre-sold offices upon opening in March of 2020.
Dan and Chelle went through our Coworking Startup School™, are members of our Flight Group Academy, our Community Manager University and went through our Creative Coworking Partnerships course. You can get more info on these programs here.
When asked what they’d do differently on their next space, they responded “honestly, not much.” Not many first-time operators will say that…but Dan and Chelle were really intentional from the beginning about everything from their business model to their product mix, to their member wall.
In this episode, we talk about:
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
To be featured in the Noumena community and give your members access to a whole library of entrepreneurial resources and financial education programming, all at no cost to you by the way, visit noumena.pro/coworking to fill out an interest form
Learn more about Success Space, a coworking franchise model with three revenue streams; recurring and on-demand revenue from coworking memberships, a full-service cafe, and Success Certified business coaching.
Did you know….
A newsletter can be a simple and effective part of your marketing mix.
One simple, consistent format can serve both your existing members and your potential members (anyone on your email list that is not already a member).
On this episode, we cover:
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
To be featured in the Noumena community and give your members access to a whole library of entrepreneurial resources and financial education programming, all at no cost to you by the way, visit noumena.pro/coworking to fill out an interest form
Learn more about Success Space, a coworking franchise model with three revenue streams; recurring and on-demand revenue from coworking memberships, a full-service cafe, and Success Certified business coaching.
In this episode, we’re diving into the ROI of organic social media for coworking spaces.
Social media may not be the best marketing tactic for coworking spaces.
Coworking spaces generate more revenue by:
Social media isn't the best marketing tactic to get these results.
Instead, focus on strategies that will directly boost your bottom line. For example, invest in online ads that target your ideal customer or offer discounts to members who refer new people to your space.
Write 1-2 monthly blog posts optimized for SEO to make sure you are found by active searchers.
Send consistent newsletters to your members and to your marketing list.
By spending your time and resources on more effective marketing tactics, you'll be more likely to see a positive return on investment for your coworking space.
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
David Brown moved his family of 5 to London from North Carolina in 2019 and attempted to open his first coworking space in a London neighborhood in 2020. That didn’t go well until mid-2020 when neighborhood members needed Good Space and good community.
Here are my key takeaways from my conversation with David:
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
If you are working on a first location or an expansion, there are a few things you need to get right to position your coworking business for success.
Four of the most common mistakes that lead to space failure are decisions that are made before you even open a space. You can’t out-market or out-operate these mistakes.
Listen to the full episode for a deep dive into each mistake.
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
Fiona Mayor is the Founder at The Thrive Network. Director of Pop Media - Web Design & Social Media Agency.
She is also the Co-Chairperson of Flexible Workspace Australia.
We talk about:
- Her best lead source
- What’s selling today
- Her focus on meeting room revenue
- Why she doesn’t spend a lot of time on social media even though she’s a social media strategist
- Government support for Melbourne’s 15 minute city
- The next phase of Australia’s Flexible Workspace association
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
In this episode, we talk through a common question - how many flex desks should I have...and.. how many times can I oversell them?
We talk about the importance of validating your market demand for flex desks, what assumptions to include in your pro forma (if you're just starting) and what you might do if you have an existing space with too many flex desks.
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
Mark Gilbreath is the CEO of Liquidspace, a Hybrid Workplace Management Platform.
We talk about the core premise that whether you're a one-person startup company in Berlin, or whether you're Stripe or Spotify or the U S government, companies are challenging their workplace and real estate and HR organizations to be radically more agile.
We also talk about:
- How companies need to be agile and be able to deliver “a great workplace, great collaboration, great culture opportunities to our employees, not in five or 10 more regions where we might put regional offices as was our pace pre-pandemic, but in hundreds or thousands of locations.”
- How HR and Real Estate teams realize “they need to be more personalized in how you deliver workplace experiences,” but also “radically efficient.”
- How HR and real estate teams are having a light bulb moment around the fact that coworking exists and it is flexible, experienced-focused and exists ion most places that their employees want to work.
- That Liquidspace recognized the need to “equip companies with the mechanisms to be able to make the discovery, the evaluation, and the transaction of coworking spaces by their employees more structured more regimented.”
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
The Everything Coworking Academy
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
Laura’s Podcast - Small Business Insights
Meet Laura and Dave Fisher - the quintessential EOS visionary and integrator.
They opened their first 15,000 square foot coworking space in 2020 on top of a self-storage facility in Sugar Land, TX in a building they built from the ground up.
They are now working on a 50,000 square foot co-warehousing facility in Houston, TX.
They are in the space as a service business.
They share:
- The story of how they ended up in the coworking business.
- Why they like to “own the dirt.”
- Some lessons learned and happy surprises in their first two years of business.
- What drives their 31 5-star Google reviews.
- Why Laura started her own podcast and whether or not their podcast studio generates revenue.
- Favorite part of running a shared office business.
- What they’re most excited about in the next 5 years.
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
The Everything Coworking Academy
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
Launch Coworking - high end virtual tour
Reuben Lau is an online marketing strategist who does a lot of SEM and SEO work for coworking businesses. Reuben was first on episode #195 of the podcast on which he shared SEO and SEM tips for coworking spaces. I asked him to come back and talk about what’s working today for coworking spaces running Google Ads.
Some highlights include:
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
The Everything Coworking Academy
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Pricing is both art and science.
On this episode, we talk about rules of thumb for pricing your coworking office spaces.
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
The Everything Coworking Academy
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Pre-pandemic, we tried to avoid 10-day passes and custom plans. We wanted full time memberships and operational simplicity. Well…today’s coworking space user has changed our tune.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Looking at the 10 day pass as a “healthy” option for end users that needs to be sold in volume
- Designing access packages for teams - how to give them the access they need and getting the recurring revenue and predictability that your business needs.
- Testing meeting room access plans that build loyalty and recurring revenue
- Leveraging meeting room demand
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Jason Anderson is the President of the World’s Largest Coworking Franchise, which today includes the brands Venture X and Office Evolution.
Check out the NEW Flex Uncensored Podcast with my co-host Giovanni Palavacini!
If that link doesn’t work, just search for it in your podcast player and hit that subscribe button!
Jason Anderson started his career in the Air Force when he was 17. His first deployment was to the UK where he was stationed over 9/11. Before that assignment, Jason had never left the country. Jason didn’t know at the time that some years later, he’d return to London to celebrate the expansion of a Venture X franchisee….one location that is part of a global footprint of the third largest coworking company in the world.
Jason had a vision (literally on a board) of creating the “Bonvoy” of coworking brands. He’s just getting started.
In this episode, he shares the “why” behind the Venture X acquisition of Office Evolution.
He talks through the way he looks at the flex industry through a hospitality lens.
We learn why it’s natural for VentureX to operate globally early in its life as a brand.
We also get some behind-the-scenes details on how the Venture X model has evolved over time and what Jason’s predictions are for the next 5 years.
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
Lindsay Hedenskog joined the Coworking Startup School in June of 2020 and officially opened on May 3, 2021. Lindsay is the CEO and co-founder of Lamb, a coworking space (but more) in Stockholm, Sweden.
Lamb’s big hairy goal is to help people make it normal to work and manage people with intention, empathy. Lamb is developing and providing the tools to create sustainable work cultures…inside of coworking spaces and out.
Lindsay and I talk about
- How she’s found a successful model that offers no dedicated workspaces
- How she is approaching marketing for a space that is kind of coworking but also much more
- Her team - which includes an event manager and a B2B sales manager and a head of marketing
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
Ann Long, founder of Burbity Workspaces, opened her coworking space in 2020. Since then, not only did she survive COVID, but she has expanded into two new locations through a management agreement and a marketing agreement with her landlord and is working on another partnership for a coworking + cowarehousing location.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Ann shares her evolution from a 4,000 square foot leased space to the deal she’s currently working on which is 28,000 square feet of coworking + 12,000 feet of co-warehousing.
- She shares the creative business models she’s using to expand.
- She also shares what roles are on her team and how she’s expanding her team to support her growth.
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
Carl Sullivan’s coworking brand, Your Desk, is about to turn 11 years old (at the time of this recording). Carl was 24 when he started Your Desk. He was a builder and a house flipper who picked up on an office sharing trend that he saw happening at creative agencies and architecture firms. WeWork had just started its first location in Brooklyn when Carl opened Your Desk outside of Sydney, Australia.
Carl’s first location was 26 flex desks….today his model is 70% private space, 30% common space and he’s about to convert some team suites to one person offices.
After surviving COVID in an urban CBD, Carl and his team (which happens to consist of his talented interior designer mom and former house flipper dad), are ready to take more space in their building, continue to tweak their model, and work on optimizing their sales funnel.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Carl’s coworking story - how he got into it.
- Who Your Desk serves and how that has evolved over time, esp. Post-COVID? (i.e., freelancers, small businesses, corporate employees)
- The Your Desk portfolio and how that has changed over the 11 years
- What his family-run team looks like
- How Your Desk funded expansions
- Your Desk’s biggest source of membership leads
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
The Everything Coworking Newsletter - Subscribe here.
I've heard a number of coworking operators recently say that they simply don’t rely on open plan memberships (hot desks) to run a profitable business. They don’t worry about members that leave without notice. They don’t mind offering part-time memberships. They don’t sweat the small stuff. If you aren’t open yet, and you’re working on designing your coworking business, consider that approach. You’ll sleep better at night :)
For those of you that can’t turn a (healthy) profit in your coworking business without selling your hot desks and dedicated desks, hosting meeting rooms and selling event space, here’s what I think is going on in the market.
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
Paul Stanton Head of Strategy for Equiem, Managing Principal for Workplace Hospitality Management, Co-founder of Building Social, and an Asset Manager for Alliance Partners HSP, LLC (“Alliance”), a private real estate investment and operating company.
Paul Stanton’s very first job was in real estate brokerage. That was not for him. So he got a law degree, went into asset management, started a tenant engagement platform for landlords called Building Social, then was a founding partner at WHM (Workplace Hospitality Management) which set out to help coworking brands achieve accelerated, capital-light scale and building owners create premium real estate asset value through creative partnerships…and now he’s head of strategy for Equiem.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Flex and proptech themes that Paul sees in the marketplace today
- What he’s most excited about today.
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Examples mentioned in the podcast:
Management agreements are really attractive to coworking spaces, and with good reason. Mike Kriel, CEO of Launch Workplaces with locations in DC, Maryland, and Cleveland, shares his perspective on what’s new in management agreements in 2022.
Mike was last on the podcast in October 2019. Some things have not changed since then…and a lot of things have.
Mike does only management agreements and has done a lot of the. He comes from a deep commercial real estate background. He’s taken over some locations that were going to close in 2020 and has recently expanded from the Maryland/DC area to Ohio.
In this episode, Mike and I talk about
What’s not new in management agreements:
- Don’t do a deal just to do a deal – there are still consequences
- Partners matter
- Who does what (and who doesn’t do what)
- Who makes what / when
- How do we break up?
What is new?
1 – Buzzword
2 - Acceptance
3 – How to be a good partner (this is not a lease)
4 – You always remember your first (doing your first management agreement)
5 – New noise in between (consultants/brokers/etc.)
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Examples mentioned in the podcast:
Proximity Coworking Space Management Software
Jen Thoemke Chief Connector and Creator opened Connects Workspace 7 years ago with a strong hunch that the small town of Golden, CO (population 20,000), needed a flexible, professional workspace focused on connecting business owners and remote workers and giving them a great place to be productive.
Her hunch was right…she has expanded her location twice since opening, bought the cafe adjacent to the coworking space, and is now building a combo coworking space and food hall about 20 minutes away from her first location.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Jen’s coworking story - how she got started and where she is today.
- Jen’s real estate story - from rent to own.
- Her advice on running a full cafe AND a coworking business
- Her marketing approach in a town of 20,000
- What she has learned from her first 7 years of business that you’re transferring to your new location?
- What the Connects Workspace team looks like
- What space management platform Connects Workspace uses
- Jen’s favorite tech/tool that you use for your coworking business?