Week 50, 2023

The New York Times shares that more and more large office landlords are ‘handing back the keys’ by opting to default on their mortgage obligations and letting the investors or bank repossess the building. We’ve already explore in previous newsletters how some operators are using this trend to buy target buildings at lower valuations.

But what about those who can’t, or won’t, buy? When ownership changes, so do the decision-makers around what is happening in those buildings. Many banks, investors, and PE firms know (or are learning through things like this newsletter) about the benefits of bringing in coworking offerings… but very few know (or want to know) how to do it. Enter you.

Ryan Simonetti shares their 5 top predictions for 2024. In short: employees becoming members; buildings becoming brands; places swapped for networks; dictated office is out and choice is in; and fewer, bigger, "better" in-person events.

P.S. Someone really should log all of these predictions somewhere, say in a digital industry-specific newsletter, so we could, for example compare them to previous year’s predictions. Aaaand… Done.

According to CNN, Soho House founder Nick Jones revealed in an email to members, that he’s “very focused on improving service, as well as making sure our Houses don’t feel too busy.” He said it is “closing the doors to new members” and “will only be accepting members in locations where we have capacity.”

ICYMI: First club opened in 1995 in London. Now operate 40 clubs worldwide. SHCO went public in 2021. Has ~185k members + 98k on waitlist. Also run Soho Works which is their own brand of flex workspaces, which don’t require a Soho House membership to join.

Suzanne Murdock summarizes the Q&A following the panel she moderated at the recent Coworking Europe conference on how to recruit and assemble a great coworking ops team.

Great to see more topics & questions digging into what are your most important team members actually supposed to do all day. (Spoiler: the answer is almost never to be stuck behind their screens all day)

Tobias Kremkau shares that a total of five million euros for the next four years will be used to support coworking spaces and start-ups in rural areas in the districts of Anhalt-Bitterfeld, Mansfeld-Südharz, Saalekreis and Burgenlandkreis. "Companies that carry out an economic activity, regardless of their legal form and the way in which they are financed, are eligible to apply, including, for example, municipalities."

This was translated (badly) so anyone in those regions who is interested in learning more, please check the original post and contact Tobias with any questions.

Hybrid work is here to stay and landlords are feeling the impact. The solution? Forward-thinking property owners are reimagining their assets. In my recent allwork article, I tapped into Giovanni Palavicini who shared three actions landlords can take now to activate their assets in the new era of workspace.

A good reminder of the challenges office landlords are facing, and a glimpse at some of the solutions a few of the largest operators are recommending.

Jason Feifer, Editor in Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, shared how he was kicked out of a coffee shop for using his laptop. An empty coffee shop. On a Sunday. Whether he needed to work for 30mins or half the day, the owner was firm and even refunded their coffee to get them to leave.

Opportunity? I think so. Here’s how I’d do it: Set up an easy-to-use PAYG/drop-in booking form (or sign up to an app that does this for you). Connect this to your doors/wifi/etc. Tell the coffee shops to send laptop users to you. If you can get the overheads low enough, you can even print cash on weekends.

Jesse Middleton highlights that folks previous employed by WeWork have launched and raised over $1 billion for 59+ startups.

I’m pretty sure there’s more than those, and that’s not accounting for community-focussed team members who went off to launch or help grow indie, national and other coworking and industry-related businesses. We also can’t forget about Flow, which isn’t listed but raised over $350M on it’s own.

Allison Vendt, who is Dropbox’s Global Head of Virtual First (their distributed work operating model), shares predictions for the future of work in 2024.

In this data-rich post we learn about the costs of loss of focus for US businesses ($468B annually) and how flexibility is an asset. (psst your coworking businesses play into the solution here). Other learnings include how Dropboxers valued in-person impactful, distributed-mindsets will attract and retain top talent, AI will play a huge part in how HR/People teams operate, and how 70% of the firms new hires cited Virtual First as the main factor for deciding to apply.

In this ~~article~~ advertorial, Katie Couric shares some info about Capital One’s expanding network of "Capital One Cafés". Whilst it is more of an brand partnership/promotion of the concept, there’s a few things worth noting.

Namely, although there are benefits for the bank’s cardholders, access is open to anyone, and most notably – they’re not chasing away laptop users who want to come in and work from their well-lit desks and seating areas (with free WiFi).

They have 50+ locations, so worth pondering what your strategy would be if one is open or opening near you. Space for collaboration? Pure competition? You tell me.