What do Perfect Office, Venture X, Premier Workspaces, Intelligent Office, THRIVE Coworking, TKO Suites and Office Evolution have in common?
These seven brands have joined iWorkSpaceMail with iPostal1 to gain, and easily manage, 5,800+ digital mailboxes.
Oh, they also collectively made over $1M in new revenue… without spending a dime on marketing.
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✊ Coworking impact.
🧮 Measuring and reporting impact across 15k members in 20 cities. #
Yotam Alroy shared the Mindspace Impact report for 2023.
In it they share that they’ve decreased their global average carbon intensity by 23%, used their platform to empower members to give back to their community (25% of their content and event programming celebrates and raises awareness for these causes), and saw employee-led volunteering projects (in UK, Romania, US, Poland, Israel and the Netherlands).
More impact reports please and thank you!
👉 Read this.
🇬🇧 Over £50k in hyperlocal impact made #
Vibushan Thirukumar shares Oru Space‘s quarterly impact report. In Q1 they invested £34,137 into social impact, donated £15,075 of workspace, meeting room usage and private office space and more.
I’m a huge fan of these impact reports, and that we’re seeing more and more of them from brands.
👉 Read this.
✅ May IDEA Challenge: Interrupting Unconscious Bias #
Kerry Cavers from Mom’s Against Racism and Acronym Consulting issues this month’s Coworking IDEA Challenge: Interrupting Unconscious Bias.
This challenge takes us back to the basics, and it’s ideal for those near the start of their learning and unlearning journey. Take the challenge online, then register to join Kerry for the workshop on May 23rd 2024. All are welcome!
👉 Read this.
📰 Coworking news & views.
📃 Cheat-sheet for brokers filling flex space #
Michael Dubicki from Flex Engine shares an interesting one-pager to help brokers who are helping clients with flex space requests to qualify the scope and help pin-point the right buildings and operators for each lead.
Always good to see what office brokers may/should be asking, and seeing where you and your brand fit within the matrix.
👉 Read this.
🔨 Rural coworking & community hub gains traction #
The Bakersfield Californian has an excellent write up this week on Sierra Shared Spaces‘ first Community Hub. The co-creation process is underway, led by Justin Powers and Ashley Proctor and it’s exciting to see the community be a part of developing and planning the space from the earliest stages!
This Community Hub is going to cater to the unique needs of this underserved rural community, including being a valuable resource during natural disasters, and supporting the local business and nonprofit communities.
👉 Read this.
🪴 Free office plants anyone? #
The team at Upflex shared their new partnership with Zauben to give workspace providers free plants (and free delivery) to help cut costs on plant maintenance and care.
This sounds like a great way for operators to order in some office greenery, so I asked the team some follow up Qs. Anyone can claim this offer, but they’re opening it up to Upflex’s network of partner spaces first. While the plants and delivery are free, a plant maintenance plan from Zauben is not – but they are confident that they can reduce your plant care costs by atleast 20%.
👉 Read this.
📐 Is profitability being held back by square footage? #
Forbes shares a piece by PilotoMail‘s Sofia Stolberg that looks at how, even with coworking demand growing 240% on some platforms, the combination of high ops costs, revenue instability, competition and the pandemic make reaching profitability harder.
A sure-fire way to get to higher profits? Breaking away from revenue tied to square footage.
👉 Read this.
☀️ Female-focussed coworking firm pop-up at former Wing site #
TheRealDeal reports on how Her Workplace is exploring an expansion into The Wing’s former San Fransisco site by first hosting a pop-up coworking and networking day.
ICYMI: Marilynn De Santis, prev with CBRE, launched their NYC location following the same playbook, first hosting a pop-up in an ex-Wing location before signing a month-to-month lease.
👉 Read this.
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💻 Coworking technology.
🧑💻 Did WeWork actually have decent tech? #
In responses to jokes about WeWork finally becoming a tech company thanks to the Yardi investment, Phil Kirschner shares that their data capabilities was blowing socks off CRE industry leaders in 2017.
Being able to show off that in a click of a button the could show data open buildings, live transactions, construction projects, room usage, event attendance, member demographics, actual feedback and having VR/check-in and other IRL tech explains how WeWork were able to amasse so much talent in one company at one time.
(I’m excited to learn more stories like this about the good things, and the people, behind more coworking brands. Got a story? Share it with us.
👉 Read this.
📈 Coworking data.
🌏 APAC demand for flex up 13% over last five years #
Bobby Sodeiri shares some key stats from The Instant Group‘s 2024 Q1 APAC Market Review.
Since 2019 (yea, that was five years ago!) the following has happened: Demand up 13%. 35% of requests were from businesses with 26+ person teams, up from 18%. Supply has grown just 2%. In Hong Kong flex terms are 36% longer. In Singapore demand is spreading beyond the CDB. And New Zealand is going all in on flex, with local demand up 67%.
👉 Read this.
👇 Average price per desk in London are trending down. #
Henry Burn from Hubble shares a chart of the average price per desk (in GBP) paid by tenants, broken down by the size of the office.
In Q1 companies were paying £486 (2-5 pax office), £459 (6-15), £508 (16-30) per desk per month on average. It’s interesting that this isn’t listed prices, but the prices actually paid.
👉 Read this.
🤝 Coworking market moves.
💥 About that WeWork + Yardi emergence financing deal #
Key events: WeWork announced that they’d taken significant steps towards emerging from Chapter 11, including raising $450M in new financing. This followed reporting that they’d gone to Softbank and Yardi to raise the capital and fend off Adam Neumann’s takeover bid. When the details emerged about the secured funding, people lost their marbles that Yardi had swooped in to secure 60% stake of the global coworking brand.
This does makes some sense – as a strong WeWork is good for Yardi and their existing software collaborations, and we all kinda called it back in Week 10 of 2023 (yeap, 2023!).
The question I keep hearing is… "what does this mean for Yardi customers who compete directly/indirectly with WeWork?". I’d suggest another angle, in questioning if this lines Yardi (and their web properties like CoworkingCafe) to better compete with (or even buy out) Instant/Worka?"
(Personally still shocked that IWG didn’t dive in and bring the brand in as a new franchise play.)
👉 Read this.
🇳🇱 Industrious lands in Amsterdam #
Johnathan Ramsamy shares that Industrious are opening a flagship location in Amsterdam.
👉 Read this.
🇬🇧 Local work club opens second London location #
Drop-in launched their second local work club. The location, in Richmond, follows their original club in Capton.
👉 Read this.
🇬🇧 BusinessLodge expand to 3rd location #
Kate Holt shared that BusinessLodge is launching a new location in Widnes in May. This will be the brand’s 3rd UK location.
👉 Read this.
🇪🇺 UK operator to invest €1.5M into two European buildings #
Jack Mason, Group CEO of Inc&Co (who run spaces under the incspaces. brand) shared that following a €1M investment for expansion in Barcelona, and a upcoming Dublin launch with "95% pre-let occupancy" the firm will invest further into these and other European buildings.
👉 Read this.
🌊 Workspace movin’ on up…to the North Shore #
Workspace owner, Justin Moran, recently signed a lease on a 12,700-square-foot space in Beverly, Massachusetts.
This will be Workspace’s 5th location (and first on the North Shore). Workspace Beverly, opening on September 1st, will provide an additional 40+ offices to their current offering of 150 across the four South Shore locations.
👉 Read this.
🔎 Woman-owned franchise explores expansion to Des Moines #
Alex West Steinman shares that The Coven are exploring an expansion to Des Moines, Iowa through the right community owner and location combination.
👉 Read this.
🇦🇺 ASX-listed flex provider opens 26th location #
Jessie Glew shares that WOTSO have launched their 26th location with a new site opening in Liverpool.
👉 Read this.
🎙 Coworking conversations.
Miro Miroslavov from OfficeRnD joins Jerry Alexander to discuss the crucial role software has in tackling the unique challenges of managing flex space on the Commercial Property Investor podcast.
Sarah Travers and Madison Powers introduce "Setting the Bar" a 12-part podcast series from Workbar
Caleb Parker sat down with flex office pioneer Charlie Green for insights into The Office Group‘s distinctive approach and creatively utilizing architecture and locations on the #WorkBold podcast.
Michael Feinstein joined Giovanni Palavicini and Jamie Russo on the Flex Uncensored podcast and shares how international travel influenced the design of Büro locations, the real estate structure of each location and what keeps their team lean.
Christine Wyckoff, Director of Enterprise Sales & Partnerships at Cushman & Wakefield, joins Liz Elam on the GCUC podcast.
📆 Coworking events.
👋 How to give great tours of your coworking space #
May 31 – Giving great tours of your space is essential to attracting perfect-fit members and boosting your conversion rate.
So how do you give a great tour? Let’s chat about it!
Coworking Convos are produced by TWIC-supporting brand Cat Johnson Co
👉 Read this.