Everything Coworking

This episode’s guests are two power-house C-suite women who met in Tucson and decided they wanted to bring community-focused coworking to downtown Tucson's oldest and most coveted neighborhood.

Gina and Katina were students in our Coworking Startup School. They’re also members of our Flight Group program and their Community Manager, Alex, is in our Community Manager University program.

Gina Catalano is a fractional COO for growth minded entrepreneurs and companies - the CEO's "Swiss Army Knife."

Katina Koller is an EOS Implementer and Vistage Group Chair.

Here’s why I think you’ll enjoy their story: They took on the passion project of re-developing a downtown historical landmark that most called “a teardown.”

- They started their business with an MVP - a 1500 square foot space that allowed them to learn how to attract their ideal members, and how to operationalize their business before building out their flagship location across the street.

- They learned along the way that their Ideal Community Avatar isn’t someone that does a type of work or lives in a certain neighborhood, but that the common thread across their members is more about a value system.

- They hired a rockstar community manager that takes ownership of the space so that they can still run their other businesses

- They have worked together to stay positive and focused even while opening a coworking and events space in the heart of a global pandemic.

- They have also remained intentional and goal-focused during this crisis and sold out all of their offices in less than 60 days.

Link to show notes here!

It’s easy to be really busy all day long in a coworking business and not get the right things done.

It’s even easier to pay your team to be in the space all day and not get the right things done.

What are the right areas of focus?

How much time should you and/or your team focus on them in a given day?

In this podcast episode, we approach this question using the 80/20 rule.

The 80/20 rule was originally called The Pareto principle. The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes (the “vital few”). (source: Wikipedia).

Link to show notes here!

2020 was a year of reaction. It's time to re-focus and take control of our coworking business goals for 2021. In this episode, I go through the 9 step framework that we are going to go through in the Designed to Thrive in 2021 workshop.

Link to show notes here!

- Jonathan’s coworking story: how he started his first space and rapidly expanded to become one of the leading brands in Singapore.

- Balancing risks as an operator: offering flexible terms while maintaining predictable revenue.

- A concept he talks about in his book “consolidating a share of spend - focusing on spend per member.” 

- Jonathan’s perspective on the future of the coworking model - how he would approach the real estate model if you were starting today.

Link to show notes here!

Josh Coffy lives in a town of 20,000 near Columbus, OH. He and his wife Kelsey, bought a building downtown and launched a coworking business in it.

Josh shares his experience buying and renovating a building, why he decided that a coworking space was best use for the building, and the “good” and “bad” surprises that he encountered on his journey.

Josh is also a professional marketer and spills the beans on how he’s marketing his coworking space.

Link to show notes here!

As individual operators, you likely don’t have access to data on market recovery. You can only see what you are experiencing in your own market. Coworker.com is a coworking marketplace with over 15,000 member spaces across 172 countries. They have a macro view of the industry trends that can help you get a line of site on what to expect over the coming months.

Madison, the COO, joins me on this episode to share their data and perspective on the recovery trends for coworking spaces.

Link to show notes here!

The coworking model is evolving at a pace more rapid than anyone predicted. The variations on the approach to serving today’s workforce and local communities are becoming more diverse.

The story of Lodgic Everyday Community is one worth following as you’re thinking about how you will serve your members and your community.

Link to show notes here.

Coming out of COVID, leasing a space has become less attractive because the operator bears the most risk. If you are going to lease, you must work with a broker that will help you negotiate terms that will protect you from a business-killing experience like a global pandemic. 

The appeal of a management agreement is that it shifts the risk to the landlord. The upside is significantly limited for the operator, but therein lies the tradeoff. In this episode, we're talking about why management agreements are becoming more accessible and how they're structured.

Link to show notes here.

If you’re starting a coworking space or even looking to expand your existing business, it’s worth considering buying a building.

Roughly half of my Coworking Startup School students are building owners that already had a building and decided that its best use was to house a coworking space, or people that wanted to start a coworking space and wanted the benefits that come along with also owning the building.

When COVID happened, my most resilient students were those that owned their buildings and had to negotiate with their mortgage lender, but didn’t have to deal with the landlord that doesn’t get it or couldn’t afford to give them some rent relief as too many of their members cancelled contracts.

Today’s guest, Matt Maurice, walks us through his experience buying commercial real estate and creating a coworking business to be the only tenant.

Link to show notes here.

Tell me if you ever feel this way: Your business is not where you want it to be, there aren’t enough hours in the day and you either don’t take time off or you just have a really hard time feeling like you deserve taking time off and letting yourself relax.

If you’re an achievement-oriented, driven business owner, you probably feel this way a lot. I’m always working on staying more focused and setting myself up to not feel guilty about taking some down time on the weekends or taking some time off. In this episode, I share some approaches that I’ve learned on my journey.

Link to show notes here.