When I met Tessa in 2016, she had a lot of passion and a vision for Kwench that came with a big ticket buildout and a big funding gap.
Since then, she opened a 5,000 square foot beta space, redeveloped 25,000 square feet of an old rail house and moved in five months before COVID hit.
Kwench is a full-service work & culture club for creative, ambitious thinkers & doers who seek more. Tessa added a cafe/general store as an amenity in April....and has big plans for what the next location will include.
Adam and Zach, co-owners of Workspace Collective in Ocala, Florida, opened their first coworking space in October 2019 in a house built in 1890. They opened their second location in June of 2021 in a 7,000 square foot modern, industrial building downtown.
On this episode, we talk about:
- How the business is a family affair - their wives really run the show behind the scenes.
- How Adam and Zach leverage their backgrounds in sales to fill up their locations and to support their members.
- What they learned from opening a second location
- Their plans to own the buildings they operate in going forward
- How they're going "all-in" on their micro offices
- How they market their podcast studio and more!
Ben Wright is Head of Flexible Office Solutions, SquareFoot. He is also the founder of Upsuite, a digital platform that helps people find and book flexible work space. Ben is a former economist and a data nerd. His passion for data surfaces insights that help coworking space operators get access to market dynamics that they can act on.
On this episode, we talk about:
- The findings of Upsuite’s Q2 North American coworking data
- The return of demand in major cities such as NY and LA
- How operators are still working on getting to a cash flow positive occupancy rate
- How shopping is still lagging signing in many markets
- The challenge of digging out of deep COVID discounts for WeWork
- The return of small team demand
- 4-8 seat requirements
- How the drop in supply is making demand feel higher in some markets
- Why he’s worried that the coworking sector isn’t ready for the return of demand.
Jenny Poon is the CEO and founder of CO+HOOTS coworking in Phoenix, AZ. She is a true OG in the coworking industry with a wealth of experience to share.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How Jenny got her first space started by doing a management agreement with her landlord way back in 2010.
- How she eventually moved her community into a building that she bought...after having her SBA loan pulled at the last minute and crowd-funding to save her business.
- How favorite automation hacks to free up her Community Managers to focus on...community!
Justin and Kelly are co-owners of Flocc Studio in Dallas, TX. Kelly is also a sculptor and Justin is also a photographer and the founder of a digital lighting school. On this episode they share:
- Their unwavering decision to serve a creative niche at their space
- How they curate their application-based membership
- Managing a business with a spouse
- Their approach to alancing the coworking space + three more businesses
- How their intern program saves the day and how they run it and more!