169. Cheryl Farr Shares How the Moose Lodge Went All in on Re-Inventing How They Support Local Communities
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
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
TRANSCRIPTION
169. Cheryl Farr Shares How the Moose Lodge Went All in on Re-Inventing How They Support Local Communities.
00:00:01 Welcome to the everything coworking podcast, where you learn what you need to know about how the world wants to work. And now your host coworking space owner and trend expert, Jamie Russo, Welcome to the everything coworking podcast. This is your host. Jamie Russo. I have a very interesting story to share with you today. Or I should say my guest,
00:00:39 Cheryl Farr is sharing the story of logic. Everyday community logic consists of several brands that create an ecosystem and a unique experience for folks in markets like champagne, Illinois, Madison, Wisconsin, and Louisville, Kentucky so far. So the brand consists of logic, workspace, logic, kids, camp, everyday kitchen, clever moose cafe and logic events. They are all housed under the brand logic everyday community and create a really unique experience for folks that are looking for one of those experiences or many of those experiences all in the same place.
00:01:25 I think this episode is really interesting because the coworking model is evolving at a pace more rapid than anyone predicted the variations on the approach to serving today's workforce. As well as local communities are becoming more diverse and logic. Everyday community is a story worth sharing as your thinking about how you will serve your members and your community. And it has a really interesting origin story.
00:01:53 I can't wait for you to hear the full conversation before we dive in this episode is brought to you by my masterclass three behind the scenes secrets to opening a coworking space. If you're working on starting a coworking space, I want to share three decisions that I see successful operators make when they're creating their coworking business. This masterclass is totally free. It's about an hour,
00:02:18 which includes Q and a time. If you'd like to join me, register at www dot everything, coworking.com forward slash masterclass. I love doing these sessions by the way. It's great to interact with you. I do them live. I've been thinking about creating an automated version of the masterclass so that folks can get it whenever they want, because I do the live version once a month.
00:02:41 But for now I have been, you'll see the live version available when you go to this link for now, and I love interacting with you and answering questions. So I look forward to having you join us. I also want to mention that if you already have a coworking space, I just opened for registration. It's closed now enrollment to community manager university,
00:03:04 which is a one stop source for training on operations, community, building, marketing, and sales, finance, and leadership. It's such an important time to support you and your team. So we had a great crew of folks join us. And roughly half of them are community managers and some of them are owner operators. So they own space and they manage the space.
00:03:25 So if you fit one of those hats, we would love to have you join us. You can get more information and get on the notify me list for the next time we opened the program@everythingcoworking.com forward slash community managers. And now here is my conversation with Cheryl Farr. Welcome today. I have a special guest with me today, Cheryl Farr, CEO at logic every day and she is we're on video.
00:03:57 So I'm going to post the video version of this too, so that you can see she's sitting in there, champagne, Illinois location. So Cheryl, thank you for joining me today. I was just telling her that one of their, I don't know if Andrew's title is community manager, she's in their Madison, Wisconsin location. She popped, yeah. She popped up in the Facebook group talking about some of the amenities that they have combined with workspace.
00:04:22 And I know my audience is always very curious about that. And that's one of the evolutions that we're seeing over time with shared workspace, coworking, flexible workspace. So I reached out to Andrea and she connected me to Cheryl and I started researching their model over the weekend. And I am really looking forward to this conversation. So Cheryl, thank you for taking the time to join me,
00:04:45 Jamie. I'm really happy to be here. Thanks for having me. So you are in champagne. Is this where you are based or no, I'm actually right now in, based in Madison, Wisconsin, we have three locations, champagne, champagne, Illinois, where I'm sitting today was our first location for lots of everyday community Madison second. And we're opening a new location in Louisville,
00:05:10 Kentucky. Okay. Yeah. I saw that on the website. Very exciting. So I spent 15 years in Chicago, so I saw that the Madison, you know, I always relate to the Midwest locations. So before I want to hear about your background and how you joined logic, but the model is so interesting. I would love to hear you kind of give us the,
00:05:36 the logic story and the background and you know, the why, like I said, when I went and started going through the story on the website, I was like, this is so interesting. I was hiking with one of my friends. Who's a workplace strategist this weekend and I was telling her about it. I was like, I discovered, you know this.
00:05:52 So your story is really interesting. I would love for you to kind of dive into that. And then we'll of Back up And talk about you and get into the details. Awesome. So I'll start with what logic is. So I think that's a great place to start. So logic everyday community is an intersection of hospitality forward amenity, rich coworking, shared office,
00:06:16 flexible extended hour childcare, food, and all day food and beverage and events all in one integrated business model, under one roof in one location, the intent of logic, it is obviously our coworking model as a membership model. But the intent is that all of the lines of business are intended to compete individually in their local market and can serve audiences. However they see fit.
00:06:47 So in other words, our restaurants are, are optimized to perform in the local marketplace. Our child care serves people who just need childcare are coworking, serves people who just need childcare. So you can use them. I'm sorry. Coworking serves people who just need coworking. You can use any line of business individually, or you can use them in any combination and then change it up tomorrow.
00:07:13 That that's exactly how the model works. So our coworking members are the members, but you don't have to be a member to use the childcare, to book an event with us, to eat at our restaurants and so on and so forth. What we found though was by bringing these things together in one under one roof is that we created an integrated business model where magic can happen.
00:07:37 We call it the magic, the adjacencies, we are able to create a hospitality experience. That's really rich because we have all full food, food, food, and beverage food service operation inside the building because we're able to bring childcare and coworking under one roof because we can host full events without bringing in outside partners, whatever that looks like. And we found that people use us in ways that we hadn't even imagined.
00:08:06 And it feels almost unlimited because we're able to, people are able to come in and really understand what logic is about. And then really tell us how do they want to use us? And we come alongside them and build those relationships and then serve those needs. So for instance, some of our best community partners here I'm sitting in champagne are some of the schools at the university of Illinois,
00:08:32 which is right down the street, who may not have a coworking membership, but they host meetings with us on a regular basis and where their favorite meeting partner and where they like to host say recruiting events for their clients who come in from all over the world to recruit the best and the brightest and so on and so forth. So we love that. It looks a little in every location we're in,
00:08:57 but it's a really, I think a really, really exciting model. I know you used the word magic and I thought, well, you are talking to the right crowd because we agree. And so it's an ecosystem, but it's not exclusive. And I think sometimes that's where people run into challenges with the model is that they try to keep it all sort of in house and you have to be a member.
00:09:19 Do you use anything? And then there's, that's what I was explaining to my friend who we were hiking. I don't understand why there's not more coworking and childcare. And you know, she used to live in Brooklyn and she's like, you know, my husband and I always thought, okay, Maybe we should start. So I was like, well,
00:09:32 let me tell you, it's hard. It's really hard. But what you're doing does frankly sound magical. And I was thinking this morning, when I was thinking about our call, it's like, sort of right time, right? The, the, the draw to the suburban markets given what's happening in the world and everything I read is still, you know,
00:09:53 kind of decentralized. So you're bringing this magic to markets that don't always have, you know, other magical, lots of, of magical amenities in terms of, like you said, the meeting space and event space, and I'll link to the website in the show notes so that others can check it out. The photos just kind of tell a great story of this.
00:10:16 Like one place you can go to access all of these amenities or to your point only one, you know, or, or mix and mix and match. Well, thank you. You know, one thing that's really people ask. I, I was at a juicy conference a couple of years ago and people were like flagging me down and they were like,
00:10:38 we're here. We hear that you've figured out the childcare thing You had, you had a sign on somewhere that, yeah, But the interesting thing, we're really fortunate in how we were able to launch logic and how we were able to launch it is it didn't start with just one central business and some ad-ons. We really envisioned it with all of these components together.
00:11:07 I think if one thing that's really grown, that's been bigger than we anticipated was the events side of our business. But we really imagined a world where coworking childcare and food and beverage could come together because we saw this need for, you know, coworking that actually fit where families were today, young families, right? We have those raising children right now are millennials.
00:11:35 There'll be millennial parents for the next 20 years behind us. Right. And so how could we not only fit, help people we're working today, the transition to obviously on demand employment that we all understand so thoroughly, but how could we actually help them serve the other points, their life as well, and really sort of take friction out, take friction out,
00:11:57 create a little bit of seamless liveness, where it was helpful and also create flexibility as much flexibility as possible, right? That's what we're about. Simplicity, flexibility, frictionless, and seamlessness, so that you could get the noise out of life as much as humanly possible that we could help to do that and how we were able to do it. Moose international,
00:12:24 which is our parent, our organization, their prime cause is a place called heart child city in school. That's been in existence for about 117 years now. And they really they're dedicated to caring for children who have every ability to succeed in the world, but don't have the family structure to do so. So children in crisis and need come to moose, heart they're educated.
00:12:54 They live in family style structures. They grow up and they, 80% of them go on to college and Excel in the world, the kids who were coming from infancy sometimes from broken environments. And then they go on to Excel in the world. And that's the cause that we, that we, one of the causes that we support, but it's also moose,
00:13:18 his reason for being. And so caring for kids was really at the DNA of our core of our parent organization. Childcare is a tough business. It's, you know, and I know a lot of people have tried to marry it with coworking, but it's so tough because it's highly regulated. It's highly, the physical plant is really tough. The people side of the business is really intense.
00:13:45 So you kind of, it kind of has to be missional to frankly, be in it. It's a really tough business. Yeah. Yeah. That's a wonderful way to put it. And I think a good reality check for those that are, and we have a lot of passionate folks that are different as you probably saw when you encountered them, you know,
00:14:04 chasing you down at the conference, trying to understand how are you making this work. But As somebody who is a childcare who has taken on the childcare business and is not by nature, a childcare expert, but has obviously overseeing the growth of a childcare business, the establishment and growth, the people who run that business are extraordinary. It's such, I sometimes say that I'd rather dig ditches for a living and then be a childcare director,
00:14:35 but they are amazing. They are called to that business. And I am so grateful for the great childcare leaders. We have our national childcare director, but you gotta be, you have to be willing to be in that business, primarily not as an ancillary, it's just too tough. So yeah, I love that. And so the, the workspace,
00:15:00 your workspace team is probably different in profile from, from your childcare team, which makes complete sense. So can you talk a little bit more about the moose relationship? That was one of the first things I noticed. Of course, I'm always digging through business models and I, you know, arrived@yourwebsiteandisubbed.org. And I thought, And I'm looking at your space and it's your spaces.
00:15:22 They're beautiful, you know, And nicely designed and built out. And then I saw the moose relationship and I just got very curious, I would love to hear more about that. So we are a wholly owned subsidiary of moose international. Have you ever heard of the Luce? So I grew up in a small town. I saw that and I thought,
00:15:42 I think they funded like some yes, something, you know, some TRIBE Yeah. Educational When I was a kid. So they were active in my town For those listeners who don't know who moose international is. The loyal order of them. Bruce is one of the largest and oldest fraternal orders and service organizations in North America. So just alongside the Elks,
00:16:06 the VFW, that kind of thing. And in fact, the moose is named in the most because they were, it was the largest, largest animal that was larger than the Elks. So they wanted a name that they, what could be bigger than the already established Elks. Okay. So moose international Deloitte alerted the moose was established as an elite men's working club back in the 18 hundreds in the 1890s,
00:16:41 a gentlemen named James J. Davis had came in to become the director general. Now what we now call the CEO of, of the loyal order, the moose, and it was a flailing elite men, social clubs, six clubs, ready to close in Indiana. And he came in and he reinvented it for the working class. Fundamentally. He was a Welsh steel worker made good based in Pennsylvania.
00:17:12 He had later on in life, went on to be the secretary of labor under a president Hoover. He was a Senator, but at this point in life, this is what he was doing and what he had had this vision for actually creating what he thought of as a social safety net for working families who are, who had moved sort of unmasked from,
00:17:38 you know, agricultural and small town, labor into industrialism and manufacturing and so on and so forth. So you would pay your fee, which was not insubstantial to a working family. You would come together in these small towns, break bread together, do service projects for your community and come alongside each other and help each other when things got tough. And so this was so resonant that in six years he had more than 500,000 members around,
00:18:10 around the North America. It was, it was a crazy explosion because the concept was so resonant at the sea change of how people were working. So fast forward a hundred plus years. And in 2015, the CEO of moose international came to me through a colleague and a couple of us met with him and he said, fraternal orders and service organizations are just,
00:18:43 they're dying slowly. They're still resonant. The loyal, the ruse still has a million members and clubs around North America. He said, but ever since the nineties, they're all, they've been all been sort of slowly dialing, dying. Their membership basis are getting older and they're, it's just some concept that's resonant anymore. And they all get together once a year.
00:19:10 And they look at each other and they think a yoga club class will do it and it doesn't do it right. And so he said, we have to do something new, but we don't know what it is. And so fast forward a year, a year's working, we're 30 seconds. We went, came back and we said, well, Scott,
00:19:28 his name is Scott. I said, Scott, what mattered? 125 years ago, helping, helping working people thrive, helping kids grow into healthy, productive people, adults, and being a positive impact in any community you enter, that's still matters. And probably as much as before, and you're at another sea change in how people work. So let's still deliver on that core promise and that core set of values,
00:20:01 but reinvent it. That's when we, that was the concept. That was the idea behind bringing together coworking and all of these, these other life services, not just the workpiece, but coworking childcare, food and beverage, and bring them together in the new model. And they said, we love it. We took it to the board of directors and the board of directors said,
00:20:23 what do you want to do? And then, and then we, they went home and they went, Oh, my son, My grandkids work that way. Oh, I suddenly we see coworking popping up week The smell. And they came back and they said, okay, we want to build it. So you want to go ahead and do that.
00:20:46 And so in 2016, we started to acquire our property and started building in 2017. Our first location opened and here in champagne in 2018, we opened Madison in the middle of the pandemic, this June, and we're on the brink for a third location. It is really built. We're very fortunate. Moose has a long view. Their goal is to be relevant for another hundred years.
00:21:16 And so they're really, they've really invested in the concept of logic. They really believe in it. And we, so we're very fortunate cause we have great backers, but it's our job in turn to be great stewards of those resources and really build this business. The goal is to, is a national sort of a scalable brand. We didn't do do this to build three.
00:21:43 Our goal is to actually continue to grow with the brand over time. Although I will say I've been in development for belts close to six years now, and I am ready to pause for a moment and just have three, just enjoy and take a moment. So that story is so interesting. I mean, when the moose came to you, were you just like,
00:22:12 well, ha I mean, that's what I felt like when I saw this well, huh? Who knew, who knew? And when you explain their origins and sort of that commute that drive for community and bringing people together, it makes complete sense. But I wouldn't have seen that coming. I have been asked so many times, so how do a bunch of old guys sit on stools,
00:22:36 drinken, Pabst blue ribbon. How did that get to here? So it's really, it's really true, but in reality, it's, it's a true reflection of what the organization has been about. Just reinvented, reinvented in a different form, right? I'm not. So by nature, the Loyola of the moose was, and all of the service organizations,
00:23:01 they're sort of member by association exclusive clubs. This turns that model entirely on a test, right where the opposite of that this is an entirely public organization. And in fact, we communicate that way very strongly. We really go out and market our lines of business. Most people come in through one need, they're hungry, they need workplace, they need childcare.
00:23:29 They want to book an event. And then they sort of peel the onion and discover the rest because it's really important for us to people to understand that. Absolutely we wanna, we want to serve people however they need to be served either just in the moment or over the long haul. So, so tell me, Tell me a little bit about your background and how so you give us a little hint as to how you got involved in,
00:23:55 in logic, but I'd love to hear a little bit about, about you. Great. So I actually, in addition to being CEO of logic and Riddick community, I also own a branding firm based in Denver, Colorado. I luckily have a great team. That's running that for, for me right now. But so my job in that firm, it's called signal CSK brand partners.
00:24:25 And we really were skilled at coming alongside and are skilled at coming alongside organizations, usually low midsize and large organizations at the C suite level, when they're ready to leverage brand as a strategic tool, alongside their business strategy to say, okay, we want to do something different to take a great leap forward. We need to acquire a new audience, enter a new category,
00:24:49 and we want to take brand and business strategy and put them together. And really that's how we were brought in. I was brought in to develop the logic concept was to figure out how to help them take that next strategic leap forward. And, but what happened then, as I said, I was asked to once we trade the concept to go build it.
00:25:13 Yeah, you're right. You should do it. And then as they were moving into a multiunit environments, I was then asked to step in and run it and build the multiunit infrastructure. And to be honest, it's really become my passion. I really believe in what we're doing at logic. I believe in, you know, where we are a not for profit organization.
00:25:37 And we do have all, all over a hundred percent of our proceeds goes to go to the cause and the national local causes we care about. But I think our purpose and my passion is also what we're doing for people as we, who cross our threshold every day, our brand promises to nourish the aspirations of everyone who crosses our threshold staff member, diner,
00:26:01 child, family, organization, alike. And so I'm really passionate about that and how we do that successfully and really am dedicated to growing an organization that can do that. I'd like to see logics start with three I'd like us to have 30 or 90 or whatever that looks like, or whatever is appropriate for the brand over time. I'm really passionate about the things that we get up and do every day for people when they walk,
00:26:34 when they walk through our doors. Yeah. I mean, the opportunity was really, you know, your origin, but it's such a, most of us in coworking think of our work as being sort of purpose driven, but you've taken that many layers deeper, which is right. I can see why you're, you're falling in love with your work. So I'm curious a little bit more about the model and how you scale,
00:27:01 How many, how many square feet is a typical location, sort of all in a typical location, all in is usually somewhere around 25,000 square feet. So it plus, or minus, we actually have here in champagne, wherever at about 28,000 square feet, we actually have a fitness tenant as well, who was here in the building when we got here.
00:27:25 And we thought that was a good, a great fit. So what plus, or minus 25,000 square feet, usually about half of that is dedicated to coworking to our coworking space. Plus we usually have two significant events spaces somewhere between 75 and a hundred, usually one sort of more expected event hall. And then usually another creative space here. We have a campfire space with a,
00:27:58 that's got a great campfire at the center and bleachers and it's super cool. And something that some, one of those iconic brand driven spaces in each of our locations, then we have our food beverage operation called everyday kitchen, which is a full service restaurant and always has a cafe component attached to it. And then of course the childcare space. So generally about half of it is dedicated to coworking space.
00:28:24 Got it. And then are your locations, do you build them from ground up or your Madison location looked brand new? Yeah. So they're, each of them purposefully is a little bit different. The one we're sitting in now is a repurposed old Kroger store. So, but it was the right property for us, the right location. We always add a playground attached to the building for the childcare component.
00:28:53 Cause it is fully, it is high quality, fully licensed childcare in whatever state we go into. And really best-in-class childcare requires outdoor play for large motor skill development. And so our real estate recurrence or can be pretty arduous. So that's how we ended up here. Then in Madison, we partner with a developer who did a bill, fundamentally a build to suit for us,
00:29:18 had a piece of land and wanted to develop the concept. And then in Louisville where we're going later this year, I'm almost done building out. We're actually the retail tenants in a 72,000 square foot office building with two major tech headquarters upstairs. So we're pretty excited about that. That's an, a much more urban area and I'm really excited to see how that model plays out with that sort of built in audience and what that I know that that's been really appealing to them because even during construction,
00:29:59 they come down and they're like, why aren't you opening? So that's pretty exciting. They're purposely all a little different. The markets have scaled. Obviously we started here in champagne. Madison gets significantly larger than that. And then of course Louisville's 1.3 million. The dynamics are a little bit different. They get a little bit more urban in each location. And then of course the model is little different for us to say,
00:30:27 okay, really? Where is the sweet spot? Right? In terms of, like I said, I'm really excited for the Louisville model where we actually come in and we are that retail level. That's the first time we'll be doing, taking that model on as well. So I love that Louisville has tech tenants that you're referring to. I mean, it's just kind of another indicator of just how,
00:30:51 you know, geography choices are shifting. So I'm in, I didn't even do much of an intro when we first started talking I'm in San Francisco and had a coworking space in Palo Alto. So total Silicon Valley. And so I'm right in the middle of that, like Exodus of people going to places like Louisville and Madison, You know, wherever they want to live.
00:31:11 Well, it was interesting. Our intent was it suited our model when we sort of tested the model loosely, nationally, we actually had this big theory. We had this big theory that was a hundred percent wrong. We thought our hypothesis originally was that the model was most suited to sort of large metros sort of fringe metros, right? Say Parker, Colorado,
00:31:42 or maybe out in the Valley in LA where you would get sort of out of the city center, but where you had sort of families, young families congregating, right. And the model sort of index. When we tested it quantitatively around the nation with our target audience of young families, it sort of tested quantitatively well over-indexed everywhere, but it actually index lowest in those areas.
00:32:11 And which was really a surprise. But I think in retrospect was because it was in some ways that's where you still have the most traditional way of life, right? You have people going to, well, at least a few, a couple of years ago, let's now is different, but people still going to let's take Parker, Colorado people still driving the work to the Denver tech center and buying a four bedroom house on a plot of land kids going to school and parents going to work every day.
00:32:43 What we found was that smaller and small mental metros was where we found lots of young, small business and entrepreneurship, a lot of young families who were starting to gravitate the, to these kinds of markets cause they're high quality of life, sort of moderate cost of living high quality of life, lots of university presence that drove a lot of culture and arts and sort of richness,
00:33:13 a lot of knowledge workers and a lot of, a lot of dis people who were not necessarily surrounded by lots of family who did their childcare, lots of support network, right? Because there's so much transience and they're, they're really looking really making community when they get here. People from all over the country and all over the world, frankly, you know,
00:33:40 here at university of Illinois, where down the street from university of Wisconsin in Madison and their whole health complex. So really what we find is we get our membership is coming in from around the country and around the world because of the kinds of communities that we're in. So there's a little, A bit of a network effect happening where folks are wanting to move to places like Madison that are so appealing from a lifestyle perspective to take the winter tick,
00:34:16 tick, like February and March out of the equation. But, And then, you know, Like you come in with these sort of placemaking community building that makes it even more appealing because maybe that's what was missing or we don't have family. We don't have right. Childcare support, you know, those things to sort of make that piece work. And now there's,
00:34:37 you know, the, the whole sort of ecosystem is coming together, which is amazing. It was in our, you know, it was in our DNA, our parent parental DNA, our moose DNA to really be in sort of smaller communities, right. Not to sort of start out in LA or New York or San Francisco. It just sort of, wasn't really an R or Chicago in our DNA to do that.
00:35:06 It really made sense. And we love the idea of really being able to step in and where we saw so much resonance to be able to step in and offer a set suite of services where lots of young families were a lots of young people were because of the quality of life, but maybe all of those urban services hadn't sort of shown up yet. Right.
00:35:33 And there was, they were, there was that need to be able to fill. And so that's really why we ended up in sort of some smaller markets. Again, we're sort of testing different sizes, but I think, and I'm really excited about some of our moving as they get a little larger and larger. But I think there's something about our DNA that really keeps us it,
00:35:59 this desire to sort of fill a need. Right. So what is, is pretty exciting, it's pretty exciting. I have a practical question for you that came from my Facebook group, which is how challenging is it to get sort of local approval and permits and kind of all the things to put this together. It's probably pretty challenging. Obviously each of them have their own dynamics and we do have different business leaders that help us do that.
00:36:31 So on the childcare side, you are need to be, we get licensed by the state. Usually we're bringing in a model that actually the state hasn't licensed before, because what we do on the childcare side is flexible and extended hour. So it's meant to live, to fit the coworking model. So if you, if you only want to come in on a,
00:36:55 we can sell passes on a weekly basis, full time, part time. Wow. Non COVID times, late nights and Saturdays as well. And it's meant to fit how people work so they can use it. Or if they want to go out on a date night or whatever that looks like. So usually we're licensing something that looks a little unusual to the state.
00:37:17 So that takes about a year to get that done. No, I'm just thinking about your, your national expansion and talking about, you know, your next 30 locations. It's like, you're working ahead on all of those. Yeah. And obviously, and the childcare piece has different building requirements often than the facility at large. So we have an expert who focuses exclusively on getting that done,
00:37:43 licensed and built or to fit the building requirements. Obviously we have a food and beverage team who is focused on building food, beverage operation, obviously that has to be held permitted and licensed. And we bring them all together into one project, but everybody has to own their expertise and align. For instance, the food and beverage operation has obligations to the childcare business because we're providing food to the childcare operation,
00:38:16 according to licensing standards. So realistically I think of the whole business as the domain of a food and beverage team, right? Because they're serving the workplace members and events and they're serving the and vice versa, right? So everybody works together and it's really critical. We operate under structure with the managing director for the, for the property. And then each line of business has its own lead and re what my job is to really cultivate and grow a collaborative leadership team.
00:38:55 Cause if everybody runs to their silos, it's not really an it's not it doesn't, we don't really get the benefit of the adjacencies. And most importantly, our customers don't get the benefit of the adjacencies. So it's usually new for the managers on the ground have to integrate like that. Right. Recruiting. Yeah, absolutely. But such an interesting, so I didn't walk through these at the beginning,
00:39:22 but you have, so your brand, our logic workspace, logic, kids camp, everyday kitchen, clever moose cafe, which I love and then logic events. So those are kind of all the pieces you're pulling together. So is the childcare, so when you Conceive of a new location, roughly how long does it take to kind of pull, pull a location together About two years,
00:39:49 it takes about two years, all in all, because no matter what space we're going into it, even if it's an existing building, it takes a fair amount of energy to design the space. So you've got both distinction what flows. So it's easily easy to move seamlessly throughout it and to solve challenges, like how do you get food from the kitchen to the,
00:40:12 to the restaurant and the workplace and the event hall, things like that. So it's about two years all in all. So it's, it is a bit of a time consuming process, but we're getting better and better at it each time. So Yeah, it did. And then, so I'm curious in terms of funding, is the entire model funded by the moose organization?
00:40:42 Do you do that Partnerships with developers? How does that book? Yeah, so it's it generally speaking is funded by the moose organization. We do have in our Madison and Louisville locations, we do, we are working with developers, but the moose organization does handle the bulk of the buildout. We'll look at different development models going forward, but we wanted to do these three as sort of really wholly owned developments that we could really tweak and control.
00:41:19 Right. Because we were still figuring out the model and what works. It's been great to hear our members tell us what they love and what really works and be able to adapt and adjust and evolve as we both in location. And of course, as we rolled forward, and of course then there's the COVID factor that everyone's wrestling with. I know you've had,
00:41:42 I was going to say sort of like good news, bad news for you in terms of timing. Like, it feels like people are going to be craving even more, everything that you're offering, but you just opening in 2018 and a little bit of time under your belt. Well, and then, you know, I'm sure you, you closed everything for some period of time.
00:42:02 Yeah. We closed this location here in champagne. We closed in March, March 18th, which was pretty devastating and reopened throughout June sort of different businesses came back online. And throughout June, obviously we're at reduced capacities. Our Madison location was supposed to open in April. We opened in late June. So not too bad. What I like to tell my teams on the ground,
00:42:41 if you can open a business during COVID Is up like the grit and the creativity I could tell that's where Andrea is. Like, I can almost like see her wheels turning, like just trying to, you know, figure out how to keep moving. And, and it's a challenging time. I think the biggest challenge that folks have for workspaces this like normalizing the idea that,
00:43:08 you know, it's okay to come back to work when it's, when the protocols are in place. And that's sort of the biggest hurdle is that like helping people feel like it's okay because we know everybody wants to get out of that. Right? Yup. You're I, I definitely do. So those are the conversations I've been having with most operators is how do we help,
00:43:30 you know, get people over that mental hurdle of, you know, the protocols are in place. You can, you can, can come back out in most places. Now I'm in San Francisco, near San Francisco. It's not, we're moving very slowly, but for many parts of the country, But we, you know, one of the things,
00:43:48 I mean, first and foremost is we have to be, it is our job to be hyper rigorous in our health safety protocols. And we, we decided before we opened our doors, that we were going to be hyper rigorous about it. And frankly, we had no business opening our doors if we couldn't create a safe space for our members. But we also,
00:44:09 you know, one of the things I, I tell the teams as we think forward is we have a whole different set of customers now who people looking for solutions that never would have thought they were looking for solutions before their circumstances have changed. And sometimes they don't even know they're looking coworking. They're just looking for a solution to a problem they didn't have before.
00:44:38 And let's not put the onus on the customer to figure out how to use us. How can we help them understand how we might be a solution to their challenge, right? Or fill a, fill a need. Maybe they can't even articulate in terms of just, you know, bring back the line between life and work, you know, return your kitchen tables with some regional.
00:45:09 It said, you know, what are, how can we come alongside them and really create those opportunities that maybe they can't even articulate that they have a felt need around. And so we work on that a lot and we're doing lots of listening and it makes me feel great when our members say I'm so happy to be here, or I never thought I'd be doing this,
00:45:39 but it's great to have a place. I feel safe working and I feel more productive in, and I feel like I'm connecting with people, even if it's not the same way I might've done it prior to, I think just combating loneliness alone is one of the reasons we find that our members want to be here 100%. You articulated all of that. So well,
00:46:03 and I do think challenge slash opportunity is to your point, all those folks who maybe weren't in our segment of, you know, small business owner, entrepreneur, and now we've got all these work from home folks that may not, may not know about coworking because that's just not right. Been a need. And all of these other rights sort of intangible feelings people have that they're trying to solve for so Well and even small business.
00:46:30 Right. You know, when we think about the volatility we're in right now and how do people want to, maybe they don't all want to come to work, but maybe they still need that place to land or that place to come together. How do we actually, how has small business needs change before between then and now? And how can we come alongside small business to solve that challenge and give them a way to work?
00:47:07 Because as we all know, it's, there are some great things I think there, we all know there are things that will never go back to where the way they were before, but at the same time, people are, people are people they'll always be mobile. They'll always want to be in community with one another. So what can we do to help facilitate that in a way that makes sense for now?
00:47:34 So I'm curious, are you doing anything to facilitate a virtual learning? We are actually, so we actually do remote. So we're actually doing it on our coworking side. So it's actually done, it's been really interesting on the coworking side because it's actually forced us to do something we might not have gone to immediately, which is really cross location events. Right?
00:48:03 So what we find is we're actually creating more events across our whole community, our champagne and Madison community. And of course, we'll launch Louisville that way, because we're able to draw on the talents that we have obviously in the building and our local communities, and really share that. And I'm not sure we would have started that way. Right. So there's more richness.
00:48:28 I think we would have probably stayed a little more localized, but given the fact that we are need to start our event programming or re and restarted in champagne, virtually, virtually in Wisconsin, we can't have gatherings of more than 10 people. So everything has to be pretty virtual. So that has been really exciting. The network of resources versus individual location.
00:48:56 Yeah, exactly. We just did a fantastic, the diversity and inclusion leaders talk. We have a program called logic, everyday leaders with a member of the community in Madison. That was very, that was engaged with, by members throughout our locations, which was fabulous. We're actually also on the childcare side, we're actually facilitating remote learning for parents who need a lift for school agers.
00:49:26 So kids can come with their tablet and their lesson plan and we'll make sure they're, you know, our teachers will make sure that that is being facilitated for them. They go to the childcare side for that. They go to the child and mom and dad can work. Yeah. And then we're looking at, can we be for older kids? Can we be a place for them to do,
00:49:53 do remote learning, maybe do testing, things like that. So we're in talks to do some of that work as well, but yes. So we're doing it on the childcare side though as well, because that's a felt need, right. Sometimes we find that parents just can't do that work and do their work. So I don't know how, how do we have anybody is I don't really have I,
00:50:16 so I have an eight year old, who's a third grader and we did a, a pod, but it was a major lift to get that all together and to find somebody and to find a spot. And so to have, I mean, your resources tremendous, and that may not be, but I think, you know, to your point about how we use spaces over time,
00:50:38 I mean, thinking about third places as places where you can do schoolwork and you can have both family members are doing what they need to do at the same time, even when school's back in session, you know, that may may shift how we think about what's possible. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And I think we have to think creatively.
00:50:57 And like I said, how I, in all of our business lines, the common denominator is how do we help people as they move forward? How do we help them figure out how we can be, how do we help them articulate how we can be there for them and not put the onus on them? Right. We know here, especially being in the Midwest,
00:51:21 right. It's starting to get cold. So it's already starting to get cold. It breaks, but you know, it's like, I'm here in champagne, Urbana, this area, the city, or the County just recently did a survey. 73% of people don't want to go out to restaurants right now. They just don't want to sit in a restaurant.
00:51:43 Okay. Let's go figure out how do we go serve people? How can we, what are our opportunities to actually bring our food community, bring events out into the community? Because if we just sit here and open our doors and hope people show up, that is not going to be a recipe for success anytime soon. So I think how we all as business leaders,
00:52:08 how we get creative and help people to really, especially as all these, we're still wrestling as consumers, we're still wrestling with, well, how, how are we, how is life even coming together? What, what do I even need? How can things work better? How do we be entrepreneurs in almost sort of service minded entrepreneurs for our customers and help them?
00:52:37 Yeah. I love it. Such an interesting story. Cheryl, I'll, I'll wrap up. I'm sure you have many, many other projects to work on today. I appreciate you sharing the story. I am sure that my audience is as, as compelled by your origin story and you know what you're offering, and it's such an interesting evolution in sort of the ecosystem of work,
00:53:05 live, eat childcare, all the things. So I look forward to watching your story and would love to reconnect it, you know, as you, as you make progress and learn more, I think we will all have a lot to learn from, from watching what you're doing. So congratulations, and what a special role to be. I'm sure it's at times very overwhelming,
00:53:29 but, but really motivating, satisfying purpose driven. So thank you for sharing your story with us today. Well, Jamie, thank you so much. I am learning too. I love learning from other entrepreneurs and other coworking leaders. You know, it really excites me. I feel like I have so much to learn, but I, yes, it's,
00:53:54 it's, it's a tough environment and not be ideal for launching new businesses in. But I think I, to be honest, I'd rather, there's nothing. I'd rather be doing nothing. I love, I love this business. I love what we stand for. I love are the causes that we care about and I love being a part of this industry.
00:54:22 And I'm really indebted to all of you who came before me and I love learning from you. So thank you for including me. And I definitely would like to stay in touch for sure. Thank you, Cheryl. Thank you, Jamie.
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