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🎉 Celebrations.
🎂 Trellis Coworking turned 3! #
Congrats to the team at Trellis Coworking! I love seeing new stronger communities raising ‘from the ashes’ of previous coworking space businesses.
👉 Read this.
🎂 Locus turns 14! #
Congrats to Mathias Vanluchene and the Locus Workspace team and community!
👉 Read this.
✊ Coworking impact.
👏 Celebrate what makes you… you #
Patrick Hemus shares a lovely post highlighting what makes Maggie O’Neill special, by defining what they’re not.
Love it Patrick, and from what I see, so does your community. Indie operators, take note.
👉 Read this.
📰 Coworking news & views.
🏢 Are real estate landlords getting shook? #
Zac Goodman from TSP shares why real estate landlords are about to have their 1000+ "easy streak" shook up.
In short: "Real Estate bosses must embrace flexibility in their mindset AND their offering." Yes Zach, yes!
👉 Read this.
💸 If student accommodation is investable, shouldn’t flex space be? #
Tom Sleigh from Colliers shares a post about how pension funds turned student accommodation into a cash cow, posing the question whether the flex office sector will ever be accepted by investors like student housing is. Tom makes a great point and highlights the many parallels between the two short-term real-estate sectors.
The comment thread includes posts from industry heavyweights like David Kosky (Work.Life), Zac Goodman (TSP), Will Kinnear (HEWN) and Lisa Cations (IWG) and all seem to say a similar thing, "it’s coming".
From what I’m seeing across the industry, it is coming, but many are waiting for certain PE firms to sell their flex space portfolios, defining "officially" how much above zero dollars per sqft an activated flex space is worth to investors.
👉 Read this.
🖐️ Some tips on reducing coworking staff burnout #
In an interview with William Edmundson from the iWorkSpaceMail team, Jade Mauldin, Director of Community at Common Desk, shares some tips on how coworking brands can reduce staff turnover and burnout.
From building a great culture, to what to look for in an interview, to empowering employees its a quick and interesting summary worth looking over.
👉 Read this.
🏬 The office landlords leaning into flex, and the tech they use #
Holly Dutton shares that many large landlords are leaning into their very own flex brands, and how many of them lean on technology to merge their digital and physical offerings.
Landlords leaning into flex offerings of their own that are mentioned in the piece are Hines, Boston Properties, Irvine Company, Tishman Speyer, SL Green alongside tech cos like essensys, Lane, and VTS.
👉 Read this.
🤔 How do remote teams think about IRL workspaces? #
Tushar Agarwal from Hubble shares an interesting video in which he breaks down 3 ways remote teams are using flexible workspaces to get together IRL regularly or on an ad-hoc basis.
Spoiler: they are meeting rooms, on-demand offices and part-time (fractional) offices.
👉 Read this.
🚨 Should we be concerned about ‘rooms’? #
Adam Blaskey shares a concern stemming from IWG‘s Q1 trading statement.
The figures were in line with what many of us were expecting, but what caught Adam’s eye is that IWG have started reporting "revenue per available room", similar to how hotel chains and brands do. Possibly a way to align closer with the valuations of hotel brands?
_But Adam does also highlight the stark difference between hotel rooms and offices – a hotel room is at defined-size room that is either available or not, whereas an office can change shape, size and utlization throughout the day, week or month. _
👉 Read this.
🦅 Are drone-like videos the next big coworking promo? #
I find this video by Avila Spaces a pretty fun way to see how the space is set up, what the amenities are, and what working there could "feel" like for an individual or team.
Have you put together a ‘fly through’ video for your space? If so, where is it? And if not, why not?
👉 Read this.
🇳🇱 A 64.5k reminder not to count brokers out of flex #
Lucas Haiber shares that Flexas have now filled 6k sqm (~64.5k sqft) of office space at HOFF Offices in Amsterdam. Interestingly deals ranged from a few desks to whole floors, with durations ranging between 1 and 5 years.
Are you still responding to requests from your local brokers? Seems like they’ve got customers to place into flex.
👉 Read this.
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💻 Coworking technology.
🧠 Integration co shifts further into improving teams’ productivity #
Syncaroo‘s new home page soft-launched this week, showing that the firm is shifting even further into helping flex space teams become more productive (and toggle far fewer tabs) through integrations, automation and their Assistant browser extension.
Full disclosure, I’m a cofounder of Syncaroo.
👉 Read this.
↘️ Are we seeing a race to the bottom in software pricing? #
Carlos Almansa Ballesteros, CEO at Nexudus, shares an interesting piece on why their firm doesn’t offer new customer discounts.
Seems like shots are being fired at the other software vendors who may be doing so. If so, is there a race to the bottom happening, in which software becomes a commodity, is unsustainable to support and develop and eventually gets gobbled up by the next monolithic software company?
It’s interesting to hear this, given that I speak to A LOT of operators around their software choices. Even though price is a big piece of the decision making process, it’s not always THE deciding factor. Want to know what is? Watch this space or reply to the email version.
👉 Read this.
🎮 A new meeting room booking platform enters the game #
Tjeerd Bongers shares that Wezoo (a meeting room booking platform) has launched in the Netherlands with a number of local workspace providers and early-adopters from StartDock, HNK Workspaces, ScaleHub Offices, Office Improvers and Tribes.
👉 Read this.
💡 Platform launches to sell “work & play” day passes. #
Mita Carriman announced the soft-launch of the new Adventurely, "a marketplace for remote work day passes that blend work & play in hospitality spaces all around the world".
This is an interesting concept that steps aside from the usual listings of coworking desks or cafés with plug sockets on similar platforms. Could there be an opportunity here for clever partnerships between a yoga studio and coworking space (or a space with yoga/classes/etc) to attract new remote workers through platforms like these?
👉 Read this.
📈 Coworking data.
📲 Newmark’s flex space app shares 2023 results #
Optality, Newmark’s flex space booking platform that’s powered by Upflex, shared their first annual results.
In summary the app led to $1M+ in total contract value across 27 signed contracts, over $600k we committed to on-demand bookings throughout the year, and a user-base of 1.5k individuals.
👉 Read this.
💂♀️ Q2’s average full-time and fractional office prices in London #
Henry Burn graciously shared an un-gated version of Hubble‘s Q2 London Market Rent Guide.
The document runs over the average rates for both full-time offices and part-time (aka fractional) offices across the UK’s capital, based on 5k offices on the Hubble platform.
👉 Read this.
🤝 Coworking market moves.
🔨 Could we still see WeWork go private and resold? #
Keith Larsen from TheRealDeal shares an increasingly popular theory around why Yardi took a majority stake of WeWork, in that the former is looking to "fix and then flip" the latter for a "small profit". It’s possible, but given the other properties Yardi owns in coworking, there still could be a pure
Even though I did call it that Yardi would become a WeWork investor back in 2013, I did then call that IWG would land up acquiring WeWork for the franchise play, I may still be ‘in the money’ as they say.
However, since then, a new player has started making waves with acquisitions within the franchise space. Could we see Vast Coworking Group move in here? What if Yardi takes WeWork private first?
👉 Read this.
🇨🇦 Fractional Offices picking up steam in Canada, and elsewhere. #
Justin Raymond from Flexday shares that (finally) more and more landlords and operators are leaning into fractional offices, having been one of the early pioneers of the category with Flexday Suites back in June 2022.
"Examples include Oxford Properties and their OxWorx initiative, MRP in DC and their HeyDay product, Tram Developments working with Cushman & Wakefield brokers to market fractional offerings and even iQ Offices and their new Sprint Spaces – now available though Flexday."
👉 Read this.
💭 Another strategy behind Yardi’s WeWork stake: aggregation #
Nick LiVigne from The Instant Group shares that Yardi’s move makes a lot of strategic sense, especially when you look at their quiet moves into workspace marketplaces and aggregation. WeWork gives them a brand, digital assets, and all-access & on-demand products that give them further positioning.
Note: It’s a strategy that’s actually very similar to Instant’s, and something I shared as worth noting last week.
👉 Read this.
🇬🇧 Local operator opens new site, at 100% occupancy. #
x+why share that their new location in Marylebone, London is now open and at 100% occupancy.
👉 Read this.
🎨 Industrious doubles size of popular NYC location #
Jamie Hodari shares that his "favorite Industrious in the world" is expanding. The space on 860 Broadway (in Andy Warhol’s former art studio) was filled up on day 1 of opening, and so is doubling in size.
👉 Read this.
🎍 Bamboo launches in Ann Arbor #
Amanda Lewan shares that Bamboo Ann Arbor has opened. This is their 3rd location, with a 4th in the works. Watch this space.
👉 Read this.
🥩 Charlotte getting two Switchyards clubs #
Kayla Gottschalk shares that Switchyards are opening two neighborhood work clubs soon and that memberships at both (Belmont and Oakhurst) locations are now available.
👉 Read this.
🇦🇺 Instant continues their M&A marathon Down Under #
The Instant Group (or Worka, whenver they finish their rebrand) have announced another acquisition. This time they are bringing in the team and experience of Navigate Property Consulting to "delivery and service capability across the region".
👉 Read this.
🇫🇮 Epicenter expands to transform 100-year-old block #
Epicenter Helsinki shared that they’re expanding from Mikonkatu 9 to Mikonkatu 7 and Aleksanterinkatu 13, turning a historical industrial block into an innovation hub.
_The expansion is in cooperation with pension insurance company Ilmarinen. _
👉 Read this.
🆕 Strive adds a new Ann Arbor location #
Flex Workspace Solutions shared that they have a new managed location in Strive Ann Arbor. This location in Michigan, sits alongside managed locations under the Strive Workspaces network in Texas, Florida and Massachusetts.
👉 Read this.
🎙 Coworking conversations.
Eva Sanz of Locus Workspace in Prague joins Bernie Mitchell on the Coworking Values Podcast to explain how their unique approach to community management transforms a typical coworking day into an opportunity for creating lasting friendships and professional networks.
Ben Wright from The Instant Group chats with Giovanni Palavicini, and guest host Kurt Patrick, on the Flex Uncensored podcast about his journey in the flex space industry and touches on the challenges of acquisitions and consolidating the industry.
*Corrected to list Kurt as the guest host.
James Nash chats with Caleb Parker on the #WorkBold podcast about ActiveScore and how it helps buildings amplify their customer experience and wellbeing value to customers, by improving their sustainable transport offerings.
📆 Coworking events.
💬 FlexWorld 2024 #
May 21: FlexWorld returns for their 2024 series, promising to be the most innovative and groundbreaking coworking conference of the year. Designed to unleash the latest trends, strategies, and technologies shaping the future of flexible workspaces, FlexWorld is a gathering of some of the most forward-thinking industry leaders, workspace operators, innovators, and professionals from around the globe.
Event produced by newsletter-supporting brand OfficeRnD
👉 Read this.
