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.
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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