222. Christina and Amirh, Cofounders on the Coworking + Childcare Model They’ve Built at Pillar Cowork

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222. Christina and Amirh, Cofounders on the Coworking + Childcare Model They’ve Built at Pillar Cowork

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 co-working podcast. This is Jamie Russo. I am your host. I am here today with two guests again. So I think we are at the end of our run with the multiple guests,

00:00:39 but I enjoy the format and I in particular, enjoy today's guests, Amir Davis, and Christina Gutierrez. They are the co-founders of pillar co-work, which is a coworking and childcare space in Lafayette, California, which is with no traffic, 45 minutes from where I am. So I owe them a visit. I actually first met them at a GWA, which is the global workspace association conference back in,

00:01:06 I think we said 2017 on the podcast. I'm pretty sure it was 2018, but one or the other it's been a while. They open their space on March 2nd, 2020. So for anybody listening, you are having intense empathy for them and they were running part coworking and part childcare. So if you are listening and you're interested in the childcare model, we're going to really dig the details that they get into the learnings that they've had already,

00:01:36 even though they've had, you know, an unusual season of opening. And then they also just share, you know, other general coworking business learnings, and, you know, the size of their space, what they spent on their build out kind of, you know, what they would do differently next time. But they're two incredible business owners. They're doing a lot of things,

00:01:55 right? I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, so their community manager was in our community manager university and I hosted a Google, my business training, kind of a deep dive for that group. And I used their Google, my business listing as our gold standard, because it's excellent. So make sure you take a look at that. We'll put the link in the show notes.

00:02:19 So I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation really quickly before we dive in, I am doing a short keynote at flex world 2021, which is on October 21st. So this is your last week to register. It starts at 11:00 AM Eastern time, and it is office R and D first virtual conference. If you're an office R and D user, you probably have heard about this already.

00:02:44 If not, you are still welcome to join. It's a totally free event. They're hosting two tracks. The one you're most interested in is the flex track focused on the flex and co-working space industry and covering topics like management agreements, which Michael Abrams is hosting demand generation for flex spaces and more. And they're using a really cool platform which will allow for some engagement.

00:03:08 I think it's going to be a great event. I'm excited to be there would love to see you there. If you want to register, you can find all the details@flexworld.io. And again, it's totally free just to chance to get some industry perspective and do a little networking with some other operators. So would love to see you there. Okay. Now on to our discussion with Amir and Christina,

00:03:30 welcome, we have two guests again today. Co-founders of pillar co-work in Lafayette, California, which I just checked on. My Google maps is only 43 minutes away with, with a light middle of the day. I suspect it, you know, it would climb during rush hour, but I have Amir Davis and Christina Gutierrez with me, and they reminded me that we actually met in person at the GWA conference in Austin in what did we decide?

00:03:59 20 18, 18 20 18, because I need to get over and, and meet you in person. So I'm so excited to have this conversation. And I suspect many, many folks listening are very excited to hear some behind the scenes about what you're up to. So you have a coworking space and childcare space. So lots of folks want to tackle that problem, but some are brave enough.

00:04:28 And some aren't aren't crazy enough or crazy. Exactly. Brave enough. And crazy enough. I think this is often the case with coworking, but more so with the childcare piece, it's like, you feel this pain and you see what could be and how it could be better and you just feel called to figure it out. So that's my, my hypothesis on what happened with both of you.

00:04:53 But before we dive in and ask all the questions about your model, tell us about two of you, your backgrounds, your, your coworking story, start with the, how did, how did pillar come to be Coworking story? A beautiful story? Well, for me, I've been in the bay for about eight years when I got here, I was still a stay at home mom.

00:05:17 My son was yeah, quite young, not in school. So I was familiar with co-working only through rework. And then once I sort of recognize that there wasn't really anything, like for me, for moms who had, I had never entered the traditional workforce in any capacity, I went straight from college to being a mom. And so I started doing a little diving and came upon the wing.

00:05:39 And then I went down the whole rabbit hole of all the different sort of niche offerings in terms of coworking. And I have a friend who's here who happens to be a mirror. And I was a mutual friend, and clearly we were both working on the same things and sharing it with this mutual friend and Amir and I had sort of ran into each other at different,

00:05:58 you know, group events over the years because of this friend. And eventually she's like, I think you guys need to just talk, cause you're kind of working on the same thing and also almost in the same location, you know, that wouldn't make sense. Right? Exactly. We don't need to double the trouble here. And so yeah, we,

00:06:17 we got together, we figured that what we were both working on made enough sense to, you know, to figure it out, even though there were, you know, things that were a little different. So that's how we started Christina. Where did you move? Where did you live before the bay Area? Southern California. So I went to Cal state Northridge,

00:06:37 and then we came up here, but I've been in California for, oh my gosh. Like 19 years. Okay. Yeah. I'm from Illinois. Oh, you are? We're in Illinois. Springfield, right? Okay. California is yes. You know, I lived in Chicago for years and I, I still miss it. Not in the winter of course.

00:06:57 But anyway, Amir, tell us your, your side of the story. Yeah, For me, I was, it was because I needed a space like this. Right. That was where my idea for, or the concept behind pillar came about. I was working as a consultant when I had my first daughter, she's nine. So about, you know,

00:07:22 nine years ago. And I wasn't ready for her to go to childcare when it was time for me to go back to work. So I was, you know, a new mom exploring options and I wanted her to be close to me and I thought, oh, there must be a place right. Where I can work. And someone can watch her.

00:07:40 And I lived on the east coast at the time and it did not exist there. And so, yeah, I think that's just where the idea behind it came for me. And then as the years went on, have another child or two, and I was still struggling with childcare, right. Like still trying to figure out how I could take care of the things that I needed to take care of and then still have the children be taken care of.

00:08:12 And in a way that like makes you feel comfortable, right. Because when you drop them off at childcare and you don't see them for seven, eight hours a day, you're, you know, there's just not that sense of security. I think that a lot of parents are looking for, and we only can imagine what the children are experiencing. Right.

00:08:33 So, yeah. And then, like Christina said, when we met and we both had similar ideas around what we wanted to create, it took a little bit of time for us to decide like, okay, we can adjust our own ideas and come together. And, and I, you know, I think, I think it's really like if we weren't working together,

00:08:58 I think we wouldn't, we wouldn't be here today. Right. Because there are, so it was really just two different businesses that were running at the same time. And I don't think that we really realized that, you know, we were creating such a, The coworking and the childcare is often really over last. Yes. Right. Because in our mind we were like,

00:09:20 well, the childcare is the differentiator. Right. You always talk about like, what's your differentiator? What makes you know, so different from the other 55 coworking spaces. And that's why, and I think, yeah, It's like thinking of it more of an amenity versus a completely separate business model. Exactly. Yeah. We took, we thought that was the approach we were going to take to begin with.

00:09:44 Like, it was an ancillary service that we would offer people that were interested. However, when children are involved, I mean, everything has to like the children take priority. Hence why I have on a childcare apron right now, you know? Cause it's like at the end of the day, that part of the business can not run itself. Whereas on the coworking side,

00:10:05 you have a little more flexibility around how you manage it and how you run it. Right. And how independent your members can be in terms of making coffee and sort of managing their day. Exactly. So, okay. Before we dive into the real details, so you opened, we discuss this on our pre-chat March 2nd, 2020. So everybody listening is now giving you sympathy books Where women can cry Together.

00:10:39 March 2nd, 2020, how many square feet is the space you're in and how much is allocated to coworking and, and daycare. So the space in total mind you, it was an old bank. Just want to throw that out there. And it had vault that we had to remove. Yeah. But the space itself is 5,000 square feet. I'd say roughly 3,900 is the coworking and the remaining 1100 is at childcare.

00:11:07 Okay. And then on the coworking side offices dedicated desks, what does that look like? So we have six proper offices and I call them proper because I'd say what four of them were a part of the initial construction, two were additional, but then we have a team that continued to grow and basically they outgrew our largest office. And so we had this lovely space.

00:11:35 We called the multi-purpose room that we were thinking like, oh, we can do small trainings, self-lead meditation, so many yoga. And they ended up taking over that space. So we don't have that anymore, but that's okay because it's a, it's a team of 10. Yeah. So if you want to include that, then say seven actual workspaces with doors.

00:11:56 And then we have six dedicated desks and the rest is mostly a hot desk And then knocked us and then do you own or lease the building lease. Okay. Yeah. And I suspect the, you mentioned before we started recording that it took eight or nine months to do construction and I thought that's kind of a long time, but since you started with a bank a bit,

00:12:18 I'm guessing you had a lot of work to do. Banks are so interesting because they seem like such an opportunity, but structurally there's so much work to convert. Is that your experience that I think in addition to just the aesthetic that we wanted to sort of, you know, give people, I think that was one of the things we talked about is clearly it's not just for women,

00:12:42 even though like, that was my original thought because I was thinking of what do I need as an individual. But I think we definitely wanted people to come in and for there to be a little bit more warmth than your average, you know, coworking space, you know, not so tech and broey to where, you know, it could be off putting for the person who doesn't really know what it is that they're trying to do.

00:13:03 And they just want to feel like it's a safe space. And then in addition to that, we definitely had conversations around, like we have to make sure that the childcare and the co-working are completely separate. And so we looked up because it has two entrances. So our main entrance on the street, which is at Mount Diablo that kind of the main through street in Lafayette,

00:13:26 we have that door and then we have a back ramp that leads directly into the childcare, which is nice because we actually have some families who will walk over in their strollers so they can bring the stroller up the ramp, park it in the back. Yeah. So that's, that's a good thing. One of the silver linings, I just wanted to jump in really quickly before we continue with our discussion.

00:13:52 If you're working on opening a co-working space, I want to invite you to join me for my free masterclass three behind the scenes secrets to opening a coworking space. If you're working on opening a co-working space, I want to share the three decisions that I've seen successful operators make when they're creating their coworking business. The masterclass is totally free. It's about an hour and include some Q and a.

00:14:16 If you'd like to join me, you can register@everythingcoworking.com forward slash masterclass. If you already have a coworking space, I want to make sure you know, about community manager, university, community manager, university is a training and development platform for community managers. And it can be for owner operators. It has content training resources, templates from day one to general manager.

00:14:43 The platform includes many courses that cover the major buckets of the community manager role from community management, operations, sales, and marketing, finance, and leadership. The content is laid out in a graduated learning path. So the community manager can identify what content is most relevant to them, depending on their experience and kind of jump in from there. We provide a live brand new training every single month for the community manager group.

00:15:11 We also host a live Q and a call every single month so that the community managers can work through any challenges that they're having or opportunities get ideas from other community managers build their own peer network. We also have a private slack group for the group. So if you're interested in learning more, you can go to everything, coworking.com forward slash community manager. And then I never remember to ask people this,

00:15:39 but what the space management platform do you use for your billing and office officer and you Got that off of Our childcare piece. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Would you say Amir that basically we have someone sort of help us kind of configure that? Yeah, it's interesting. We just migrated to the platform in the last month or two, so it's in the us,

00:16:09 but I will say that it seems like it's really user-friendly in general, but related to the childcare, I think it's actually going to help us keep track of the hours a lot easier because we've been doing it manually. And so yeah, there is a training component involved, but once we get that taken care of, I think the families are going to have a lot easier time reserving their hours and us keeping track of them Prior to that,

00:16:37 they were just telling like verbally telling, Hey, we'll be here tomorrow or, Hey, we'll be here next week and then you'd have to write it down. Yeah. And then track it and make sure they come in. Okay. Yeah. So we're going to dig before we dig into your model. I have to mention your, you know, I talk about the Google,

00:16:55 my business listing constantly. And we, I did a Google, my business training for our community manager university. And I used yours as like the gold standard. So Amir, I don't know if you'd get credit for that, but it's, but he wants a good example. Pillar coworking. We'll put the link in the, in the show notes, but you've got your products.

00:17:20 You have beautiful photos. You, you know, 20, 28. One of the reasons I, I did the training was I was noticing like in 2020 people just completely gave up on the reviews. Right. People weren't coming in though. They weren't in everybody. Doesn't, you know, nobody wants to like rock the cart and ask for reviews and, but Google,

00:17:41 still looking for that activity. And so I thought, okay, we got to get on this and get going. And you guys have 28 and you opened in, you know, March of 2020. So, and Amir, you mentioned most of those are organic. You don't necessarily, I mean, I might prod them a little bit. It's not like we're not heavy campaigns on review right now,

00:18:04 you know, just like asking people for help basically. Yeah. Because it has been a hard year. And so I think the people, the members of our community are really happy to help us when they can. And that's just one of the ways, right. They want you to stay in business and Especially for childcare, I think that's where it really matters a lot because a coworking space,

00:18:27 like people will try it, but you're not going to try a childcare that nobody knows about. Right. Like you need to Have social Groups. Yeah. So that, that's where I think it really helps us. Yeah. So I also love your member profiles and I have used those as an example also because they're so like the ones you do in your newsletter.

00:18:51 Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's simple variation as we've switched the, like the template a few times, but essentially it's, you know, I, you know, information for simple and they draw out really interesting, like the guy last month, you know, Dush like whatever biotech thing. And then you're like usual that we might not know about you.

00:19:14 And he's like, oh, I was in an acapella group. And you're like, oh, you know, that's, what's so funny when I saw that, I was like, the next time I see Josh, I'm going to ask him to see me a, just, I just want to hear. And so you keep those like little personal things that make it easier to say,

00:19:30 to introduce yourself and like Connect on that. It's simple, but you guys are really consistent about it. So, so I love that. So I know you've guys have had a hard journey so far, but you're doing a lot of things. Right. So, okay. So let's talk about how do you run the childcare model? What does it look like?

00:19:52 What's the commitment from parents? Part-time full-time how do you staff it? Give us the rundown. Okay. So first of all, the intention, you know, we want to be flexible and meet the needs of the community, right? And the idea is that we're supporting people that have work from home type of positions. So their work schedules tend to be pretty flexible.

00:20:21 And so our packages are designed to be pretty flexible. We basically have three tier packages and each one has a different number of hours, right? The highest tier is designed for someone that would come every day and stay from nine to four. That's our childcare day. It's short, you know, relatively short compared to the, the business day. And that may change over time,

00:20:45 depending on the feedback, get from our members. And we've had some people say they'd like a little longer of a day, but we'll see what happens there. So that one is the full-time package and in the middle tier, which seems to be, I think the most popular that one would accommodate a family that wants to come every morning from nine to 12.

00:21:04 So, and then the, the last one would just give you a bucket of hours that you could use for instance, on a Friday, from nine to four. So that's how we designed them. People tend to kind of break up the hours as they need them. And that can get a little bit tricky in terms of tracking. But I think like we were saying,

00:21:28 the office R and D platform does allow the parents to go in there and request the reservation. Then we get to see it and we get to approve it or, you know, rejected, which is cool. And so then we also have an, a digital record of where, you know, when families have come, which is great. So that's the way the memberships for the childcare are structured.

00:21:54 Also what we've done is we've included the parents coworking in the package pricing. So the families are just buying one package, which we, we didn't do initially, but it simplifies things, right? Yeah. So is it that 100% of your daycare families also working? They have to work in the space because we have a childcare license. So to be compliant with the California community care licensing organization,

00:22:25 parents have to stay on site. It's similar to the gym childcare business model, or it's the same model right. In the building. What happens if they want to grab lunch, They grab lunch. We have places like across the street, we're across the street from whole foods where across the street, a restaurant right here, like literally you don't even have to hit a light.

00:22:49 You can just walk right across the street. So, so that's really the direction we we take with that. It's like, you have to be able to come back here in two minutes, if we were to call you. Right. And we haven't had many issues like during the summertime we did. And we had to reel people back in like, no,

00:23:08 you can't drop them off. And then go get stuck in traffic and call and say, you're coming back. No, you can't do that. You know? So yeah. They have to stay on site and, and I think people are respectful of it. And, and eventually we may go through the licensing process and then we would be more of a full service childcare.

00:23:31 But to be honest, right now, it is nice to not have to like worry about the licensing things that you have to comply with. A though we do run it based on the licensing guidelines and standards. When, before we started, we were working with one of my professors from DVC and she's an early childhood educator and she helped us to design the space and the program to make sure that things were in line with their standards.

00:24:03 So all of that is considered as we run it because we want to run a high quality program. It's just that we don't, you know, licensing, doesn't come here and check on us. We just check on ourselves. Right. But what age are the children that are able to use the childcare Right now? They're two to five or six. And so we have had some people requesting for younger ones,

00:24:32 but right now we just want to stabilize this program for the toddler preschoolers. And then we'll eventually bring infants on probably just a small group because the space, the childcare space is small. So in comparison To other, Yeah, Yeah. Here's the full size Jake and plank dedicated daycares, Right? Yeah. We, we wouldn't have two separate spaces for the infants and toddlers preschoolers.

00:25:00 I mean, we can separate the space, but it's not like separate classrooms. So, So would it simplify the business to just require everyone to be full-time It would Absolutely. But you feel strongly enough that you want to support the sort of more ad hoc sort of drop in memberships? Honestly, I think we might have to move in that direction, but I think it's going to become like,

00:25:31 it's a matter of demand. Right. So right now, or for the past year, we couldn't, we couldn't feasibly turn away a family that says I want to come every day from nine to 12. Right. Even though it is not easy for us to manage right. Administratively. But I think as time goes on, like we have full time students starting in January.

00:25:56 And so as those full-time students start, we'll have less spaces available for that flex, those flex spaces. And so as that happens, you know, we'll probably have to say to people, this space will be given priority to somebody that wants a full-time slot. Yeah. Which was initially how we had created it. Right. I mean, you're, I'm saying like with the full-time packages was that they always get precedents over anyone else who's coming in for a drop in rate or for less time.

00:26:25 So, yeah. I think the, from a model perspective, you talked before we started recording about just lining up staffing, right. With, you know, you have to commit to that full-time staff. And so when you have members that aren't committing to full-time, I think a lot of folks get passionate about supporting the families that don't want full-time and it's so hard to execute because of that lineup agreed Kind of like the 80 20 idea,

00:27:00 right. Like we really have to focus or ideally in the future, like we're talking about the full-time students will sort of be the ones who are kind of carrying it. And then we don't really have to worry about, you know, the ones who can't make that commitment, not to say that we wouldn't support them, but, but you know, just,

00:27:21 maybe we're reeling back some of those offerings and it's not as a free for all in terms of choices. What advice would you give to someone who has it in their head that they want to do the drop-in and that they would somehow manage caregivers to, to match up with ad hoc demand. I'm not dropping. Right. Definitely. So it's funny. Cause I was kinda thinking about dropping.

00:27:50 Cause initially we were imagining we would accommodate dropping people as well. Right. But then COVID happened. So we never went down that road. So really we never accepted. Drop-ins like, you know, I just need to come in for a couple hours. You have to be a member at this point. And that's because of COVID. So fortunately we had that,

00:28:11 you know, that we learned that lesson, I think the easy way, because to your point, trying to accommodate on demand childcare without having a consistent group or schedule for your staff is really challenging. And especially like the gym can do it because the gym, I think they just pull out their child. I mean, they just pull out gym employee for Multitask they're yeah.

00:28:37 They're not, they're not early childhood educators. They don't have a background in, in childhood. You know what I mean? There's no expectation While you work out. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. And so we're not doing that here. Like these people are educated, they're passionate. They're like, this is what they're doing for their career. And so when you have that level,

00:28:58 like of quality in your staff, your, you have to be able to give them work and like in a consistent manner or else you'll lose them to someone that can, so that's a tricky thing, but it's interesting because I would say in the past two months, I guess things are just the landscape related to COVID is getting better. People are probably just so burnt out that they're like,

00:29:23 I have to figure something else out. And so we've seen a lot more families that are like, I want to, I want to give this a try and what happens a lot of times is someone may start with like less hours and then they'll, they'll want to add more, you know, they'll increase their packages. So I think it'll be interesting to see what happens in the next six months in the childcare,

00:29:46 because it's just progressed so much in the past six. Yeah. But it's tricky too, because like our progression, I don't even know if we can really like what will be the baseline for our progression. Right. Knowing where we started it, the trajectory is definitely going in the right direction, but not at the speed that, you know, we as business owners with one it's like,

00:30:07 okay, can we like speed this up a little bit? But I mean, yeah, it's definitely a waiting game. And we've been saying like so much of it is contingent on human behavior. Like we can do what we can do on our parts to make sure that, you know, you're safe and that our space is safe. And you know,

00:30:24 you know that we're taking all the necessary precautions, but really it boils down to our people ready. And you know, hopefully like Amir said, people will get to that point where they're like, okay, I actually need to leave my house and get out. I think California is even, you know, we'd talk to people from all over the country cause we're still masks in doors.

00:30:47 And you know, there are other places with those requirements in place, but lots of places that don't, and it's different, right. Especially when you have open space to go, I went to a space Monday and yeah. You know, you sit in the space with your mascot, you know, tick it off to drink coffee or whatever. But it's,

00:31:05 it was pretty quiet. Cause I think, yeah, people just start kind of coming out in full force yet. And to your point, it's just a timing thing. It's yeah. Challenging. But your offices are full. They are not, No, they're not. Okay. They're not, That's that's been one of, I'd say the sort of continual challenges.

00:31:25 Would you agree Amir about, yeah. Our offices, I think in the beginning, like literally in the beginning, when you asked if we had any members during the shelter in place, we had maybe two or three, it was worth it to them to stay for a few months. But I would say they were private office members though. Yeah. Is that what you're talking about?

00:31:47 Jamie? The private office members. Yeah. It's been challenging recently and I think too, you know, just like spending habits, we know that, you know, Americans at one point had like the highest rate of savings in history, things were completely closed. And then as they started to open, you know, people are deciding how they want to spend that money in for some folks,

00:32:11 you know, an office is not really a priority. It's like, well I can make do at my kitchen table just fine. And you know, keep that stash, especially if they're not being compensated by their companies. Yeah. So it's that, that, that one's been tricky. Just trying to show people that there's value in a private office, although it is,

00:32:33 you know, it's a large investment for some, yeah. That one, that one has been hard. That will come. I hope because that across the board we've seen, are they small offices? Are they, or are they team offices To our four? We could fit up to four. And then the other one is inefficiency office that actually is occupied.

00:32:58 But the other three are like one to two. So small teams. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think the three to four, right. Is a timing piece. Cause right. Folks are waiting to kind of do the office share. So yeah. You'll, you'll get there on those. So can folks join the coworking side without doing childcare? Yes.

00:33:17 Okay. So you can have members, coworking members that don't have kids. What, so what does your membership look like? What's your typical member? Well, it's interesting because in the mornings that's the busiest time and that's when the parents and the children are here. So a lot of our members currently are parents and we'll actually have like the husband and wife they'll switch off.

00:33:47 Like one day mom brings the child next day. Dad does. So, and I think those people, they have all kinds of jobs. They may be entrepreneurs. They may just be corporate employees, but they need the space and the childcare. Right. And then we have some startups that are here. One of our startups, like Christina mentioned, they're just really doing really well.

00:34:08 We have, we have a couple of startups and then we have just people that are like small businesses or employees, corporate employees. Yeah. Kind of a mix. Yeah. I would say too. Would you say, I mean, they're, they're hyper, like they're local. Most of yes. Majority of them, like if they wanted to, they could probably walk,

00:34:31 but I don't think anybody's really driving more than 10 minutes in their car. Just based on what I know from the phone, Actually some of the families are the families, some of the farmers we have, we do have that further out, but I think it's, you know, it's, they're just doing it because they need, they need the help and they,

00:34:51 they liked the childcare. But I was going to ask you, Jamie, do you find that suburban spaces have a harder time filling offices or like more expensive products getting those sold? So I would say it depends. I suspect your challenge is this office size. I mean, everyone will tell you they're sold out of like one person offices all day long,

00:35:24 you know, and then the middle, you know, sort of three to four people just aren't doing that yet. He, you know, in California and other places they're starting to come back. So I think that's kind of the challenge. It seems to me that the trend is people are even selling like team sweets because companies are starting to make decisions about,

00:35:44 okay, we're going to provide space, but we're going to have some sort of rotational schedule. And then, you know, the people at home were like, cannot, you know, be home with my spouse and my kid anymore or, or leaving the house. But it's the small, you mentioned like the efficiency or micro office, like gone, all of those are gone.

00:36:05 So it's the middle ones that are harder. But to your point, you know, right. It's and I don't know Lafayette, well, people may have offices at home, right? Like in urban more urban areas, nobody, you know, has an office like where we live in Burlingame, you know, houses are smaller, lots are smaller. You know,

00:36:27 we had to turn our guestroom and turn it into an office. And I feel very claustrophobic being at home with yesterday. My daughter was home and I was just like, oh, I can't, you know, just makes me insane. But people, yeah. I mean, people have different sort of tipping points, you know, when they have bigger houses or maybe there's one spouse that's going to work.

00:36:49 And so right there okay. At home. But yes, have faith. People are filling their offices, but the bigger offices are taking time, but it's always a trade off. Right. Because, you know, I help new people who are starting spaces. And like one approach would be to do lots of micro offices, but you did construction like every office with like,

00:37:12 you know, its own HVAC and its own sprinkler. And it's expensive to do those smaller offices. So it's like this trade-off of how to, how to balance what you're offering is We did just recently though, incorporate sort of a hybrid package. It's funny. I was, I had seen that somewhere and I went back to try to find it. Cause I thought it was brilliant and that I couldn't find it again.

00:37:36 So I wanted to ask you about was in the Newsletter Letter and it pops up on the website too. You may have seen it. I bet it was the website pop-up yeah. Okay. It's interesting because I think those price points are definitely more in line with what people are willing to pay, especially if they don't know if they're really ready to full on commit to,

00:37:57 you know, even a two to three person occupancy. Like one of those offices, that price point is like, it's a happy medium, but to your point, it doesn't really cut into what we thought in terms of projections that we would be able to make off of that office when we move forward with the construction and you know, said, okay,

00:38:17 well then this will be our ROI. If we add these offices here, they need to be. Yeah. So tell me about the hybrid offering. What does that look like? So basically it's one of them is like our community members, our community member is five days. Any days that you want out of the month for $99, the hybrid flex is sort of a,

00:38:39 the next step of that. If you find yourself needing more time with an actual door, then you can't get that in our phone booths. Then you get pretty much a bucket of hours that you decide how you want to use it in a private office. And I guess like the caveat, which is not really caveat, but that we tell people is if,

00:38:57 you know, if someone comes in and they want to lease this office might be in a different office the next time, but you still get a door, you know, for a few hundred dollars more than what you would've paid being in the space only five times a month. So it gives people, you know, going back to that idea of flexibility.

00:39:16 Yeah. It gives people options. And I think for them, you know, they probably feel good about like, okay, I'm in here. I have a closed door. I can take this meeting in a professional space. That's again, not my kitchen and it feels worth it to them. So I would buy that package all day long. I think it is such a good fit,

00:39:35 but I wonder if it takes time to kind of build the demand for that because you have to teach people that that's an option and what that looks like. Cause I think it's a great option. Yeah. I was in a coworking space on Monday and I kept like every like half hour I'd walked by the phone booth, like, okay, is it full?

00:39:56 Can I take a call? And then they only have two meeting rooms, which you have to book in their big meeting rooms. And we talk a lot about this insight that people feel funny just taking like a zoom call in a meeting room. Right. It's this weird All executive Boardroom. Right. But they love the right, the, the office,

00:40:17 the ability to pop in and use an office, but not be committed to it. And you know, yeah. The, the one person office in the space I was in on Monday in downtown San Mateo was $2,000 a month. So for no, for a person off the office, maybe to $2,000 a month. Yeah. And to your point, I was like,

00:40:42 okay, totally out of my budget. No, thanks often. So the hybrid option, like I just want access to a place the door. Yeah. I don't, but I don't need it all the time and I'm not willing to pay for it all the time at that rate. Yeah. And like you said, I think that's the challenging part.

00:41:00 Like we have these plans now established, we can execute them office R and D actually helps us facilitate the, you know, signing up of the, with the spaces for people can do it on their own, but it's, you gotta remember to let people know. Right. Like when they come in and they see the space and they're saying, I,

00:41:20 I want this or that you got to promote it. And so just constantly promoting this and just getting the word out so that people catch onto it. I think that's, that's the tricky part. Yeah. Where do most of your leads come from? How do people find you? I would say our, our paid ads. I mean, aside from word of mouth,

00:41:44 because that's really in that, that's what I was going to say. Like Lafayette it's it's, hyper-local like, it's super, it's very much a cheers vibe. Like Q you know, where everybody knows your name, like that sort of song. That's very much the ethos of the city. And so a lot of it is word of mouth, but definitely,

00:42:03 you know, our, our Facebook, Google ads for people who don't want to go through the tunnel to Oakland or to Berkeley or to San Francisco. And then, you know, you go the opposite direction and you're going past Walnut Creek. I think we're sort of a happy medium for that to kind of cut into commute times. So the, yeah,

00:42:24 the paid ads have been great with that. What do you run the ads yourself or do you outsource those? So we've done a bit of both, right? Amir, you were kind of handling those for a minute and then we hired someone to take them over. And now we're actually in the process of getting someone else to even do a deeper dive than what we had with our current marketing.

00:42:48 She knows him Rubin. So funny. Yes. Lots of people work with Ruben and I, you know, this, I'm glad you're doing paid ads because I think it's probably timing on those offices, but yeah. I mean, it's always like, it feels painful. I'm sure you guys came in 2020 and you're not swimming in cash and now you need to invest in marketing.

00:43:15 And, but I run a couple of programs and I have several folks that use Rubin and they're the most relaxed on the calls. So, you know, again, I think it depends on their, you know, I have one guy in Roseville and he's like full, his offices are full and he, he's the one that introduced me to Ruben actually,

00:43:39 and then a woman outside of Virginia and she is also full, but so, you know, hang in there it'll happen. But I think, yeah, running ads is good because that's how you know Searchie active searchers. Yeah. They're on there looking on Google and Fay and you've tested Facebook ads as well. Yes. We use Facebook ads. I think Facebook has given us a lot of visibility in the local community,

00:44:08 but also like the organizations within the community have been very supportive in helping us get the word out to like the chamber of Lafayette. We also are partners with the Lafayette partners in education, which is, you know, they're connected to all of the schools in the area we're working with them and they're like helping us do cross-marketing and Karen groups, we're trying to work closely with the groups that are just affiliated with the children in the area,

00:44:43 because that's where it's at for us. Right. Like bringing in parents and, and, and because it's a, a new concept in this community, I think the level of excitement that people have when they visit or they see the space or their friends tell them, it's like, it's high. So word of mouth is really, is also really big for us.

00:45:06 So how do you to divide and conquer in the business? What are your roles? And when you hear that, my deep breath, no, Amir, do you want to speak to that? Or you want me to tackle that one? Yeah, you can. Yeah. I think initially in, in this goes back to just like, just forming a partnership.

00:45:28 If you've never number one, if you've never run a business, right. Adding a partner is just adding another level of learning. What's a really, you know, high learning curve around how to configure those things. So in the beginning, I think we thought that it was going to be very 50, 50 in, in all the respects. But I think what we're finding is I tend to not be on site as much as a mirror.

00:45:53 Like not nearly as much as a mirror. And you were kind of at a place where we're figuring out, like how, how does that work, you know, best for both of us, but also for the business. And then even in terms of hiring, like just figuring out like, okay, if there are gaps in presence, how does this community manager fill those gaps?

00:46:13 Like how does this person that we're bringing on as a part of the team, you know, kind of take a little more off of your plate, because like she's mentioned earlier, she has on her lovely pillar kids, you know, apron because we're in the process of, you know, hiring a new childcare lead. And so she's had to step into that role.

00:46:30 And so, you know, we have a temporary community manager, but who still needs direction. So I would say like, we're at a place right now where we're recognizing like, okay, we really need to almost, it's almost like a, a new start in a sense where we're just, you know, with more business, we're realizing like how we need to really firm up what each other's responsibilities are and just be realistic about it.

00:46:59 I think too, I think that's part of where we underestimated what it would take to run this business because for the childcare, you know, essentially it's, you need to have a director, someone that's directing the program at all times, and then you need to have staff in the classroom with the children. And I don't, we didn't understand that. So,

00:47:24 you know, that would be my piece of advice to anyone that was interested in creating something similar is like, you know, don't underestimate the level of staffing and just like making sure that you have somebody overseeing it all for the, from the childcare side. And then also someone in the space executing it with the children hands on every day, because it's hard to have that be the same person.

00:47:51 And then, you know, and then the coworking space spaces, its own, You kind of has a similar requirements, right. Somebody has thinking on it and then somebody has to be working in it. And now you sort of have that yeah. On both sides with yes. And you to have other kids and family and life that's on your dime.

00:48:13 Yeah. Quick question though. Like if you could compare like our space to some of the other spaces that you're familiar with, what percentage of them would you say the founders of the owners are working at the space? I think it's a pretty strong mix. I think it really depends on a little bit on the personality of the owner. The, or yeah,

00:48:42 there are other commitments. I think some owners sort of create the space because they, they actually like it, the idea of the community manager role. Right. They want to build the space and they want to be the person. Right. So doing both is totally works for them. Right. And then you get people who the community manager role is unique.

00:49:06 Right. It's exhausting. I mean, it's very odd when you have people in this space and you guys have been kind of building up, but right. If you are not used to it and you know, you go right. Sort of work the for, I used to like be so exhausted if I had to fill in, I would be like ready to sleep under my desk at the end of the day.

00:49:25 Because if you're going in for my afternoon shift in like 30 minutes in, And it's a lot of detail. Right. So I think, I don't know if you've read the book traction. No. So attraction would be great for you to, to read or any, any partnership because you should figure out sort of in your business, which role you are attraction talks about.

00:49:48 Like usually there's a visionary, who's just like big picture sees what's next. And then there's an implementer who, who would look more like a VP of operations. And it's like, okay, this is, this is how we're going to actually execute. And so the visionaries don't do well with the details, right. Running a space, coworking or childcare is so,

00:50:08 so many details and it can be really hard. I am definitely that personality, like stay in the details is really hard for me. So I could never work in the space all the time. But some people that really, they thrive in that role and they're happy to do it, or they, maybe they run a coaching business and they do it from the space or,

00:50:29 you know, they just can do it various. But that makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. I think too. Yeah. It depends on the size of the space you guys are kind of in between, as you, as you have bigger spaces, the economics of having staff get easier. Right. So, and more members you'll get the,

00:50:52 I mean you're really still climbing out of you're really just starting. Yes. Yes. We're just starting. Yeah. That's exactly what it feels like. How long is your lease on the bank? Five years. Okay. Yeah. It's beautiful. You did an amazing job. So if you were to start over, what, what changes would you make?

00:51:14 Oh my goodness. You mean like in a new space Or say somebody came up and said, I want to sit down and have coffee with you too. What would you tell them? What are some things that you would advise them on? Not that you did wrong or right. Just now that you sort of know a little bit about what, you know,

00:51:33 what would you say? No, like off top, I would say if you don't own the building, like don't over invest in it. I think that was our first. Yes. I would say, I don't know what else to call it, but yeah, because that, you know, that put us in a position where we began off, like in a hole where we didn't even,

00:51:52 like, we didn't even imagine it because we were new to commercial real estate. We had no idea when we walked into this space, what it would take to bring it to business right. To market, what, what, what that would really cost us. And so that would be the first thing I would say, like really know what you're getting into when you do tenant improvement projects.

00:52:13 If you're going to invest in a space that you don't own, like make sure there's a cap on what you're going to put into that. And then, like, I know you keep talking about the management agreements and that sounds super interesting, like exploring your options around those things before getting into a lease for a space, I think would be like one of the things that I would want to do in a,

00:52:37 you know, In the future. I think following up on that, making sure that not only do the projection is actually line up with your investment, but being realistic around what you think your return is, or like, what is it that you're looking to get out of the actual investment? Is it that you want the actual return or is it that you want to create something that's going to have,

00:53:01 you know, longevity that will put you in a position to have more like, just being really clear around, you know, what is the goal like for, I think, you know, as a partner ship also, but for yourself personally, because if you can't define that going into a partnership or going into opening a business, then it's like, okay,

00:53:21 you know, you're kind of just out there, but yeah, definitely the money part. No, no, what's your, you know, your heart stop number and, and what's feasible for you. It's hard though. Right? Cause you get emotional about what you're trying to create and you see it, especially once you have drawings and you know, you it's become real and then you get into it and right.

00:53:49 To, to Amir's point, it starts to get bigger than two and it's hard to turn back. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else that you would, you would tell folks getting started on that journey? I'm trying to think. I think if there's a way to really, and you, I feel like you've touched on this before Jamie, so I'm not saying anything new,

00:54:16 but investing in creating your community before you actually have the space to make sure the 150% sure that there is a demand for what you're, you know, potentially going to create. So, you know, whether it's, if it's a maker-space that you're trying to do or, you know, whatever this, you know, community that you're trying to build, that eventually will be in a physical space,

00:54:43 I would say really investing time into that and creating that, you know, community of people so that when your space is done, it's just like, you know, okay, well now our space is open and here we go. Yeah. And that, that would have taken more time. It's funny when I think about it, I don't know that that really would have changed how we were doing things,

00:55:07 but it's still, yeah. I mean, I still think it would have, I think it would have for sure to build up that following beforehand. No, I'm just saying, I don't think you are. I even were thinking about that prior to this project. Oh yeah. But moving forward, you know, that would definitely be we, but I will say,

00:55:29 I think we did hear the podcast on him before we started. Right? Like there's so many things. Yes. So we talk about that. It's a common challenge. There's so many things when you're managing construction and you're trying to do the basics too at the same time. And that's even after you've made all of those decisions, because even before that,

00:55:54 right. You're excited entrepreneur who wants to just like go and so slowing down and, and also it's not always as feasible. I mean, you, you want to try to validate demand, but you know, it's not like probably you would have gotten folks to sign up so far in advance for a childcare space. Right. They want to see it.

00:56:18 They want to feel it. Right. Yeah. I mean, you can do things like renderings and can try to really help people visualize what it's going to be to get that commitment or build a wait list. I mean, there are things you can do, but, And, and I, I mean, are you familiar with the spaces in so-called that are doing it like Brella or big and tiny workspaces?

00:56:41 Okay. Yeah. So there, there are spaces in Southern California that are creating this model. And I don't know why it's not happening in the bay area yet, but, and they're opening additional locations and you'll see them like put out their teaser, you know, and say, Hey, we're coming to this location, you know, down the line.

00:57:05 And, and I think because they had that following from their first space and people are talking about them, it's a lot easier, right? Like then when no one knows who you are and you come out the gates and you're like, Hey, there's this, you know? And I, I see, I see both of these things happening. Some are new businesses that are trying to get it started and then some are established and they're just continuing the excitement and spreading it into new locations.

00:57:31 So I think, yeah, it's just, it's important. But to your point, I think when you're new and no one knows who you are, it's harder to do. Yeah. It's harder to do. What is the name of the first one that you mentioned Brella, R E L L a. I saw someone brought one to my attention. I think they're in predominantly shopping centers,

00:57:52 right? Yeah. That's what I was going to say. I saw that and I thought, oh, that's so interesting because yeah, they were doing like after hours babysitting, they had a lot of offering and I thought, oh, that's interesting because right, mom and dad could go in and go see a movie or have dinner. Right. Drop the kids.

00:58:14 And so my other theory on that brand is that, is that the Westfield, I suspect they have a management agreement in their examinations because right. So the malls are saying, how can we get people here? Oh, let's have a place to come shop. And so it's, it's super smart. So I don't know who's behind that, but I'd seen it.

00:58:40 And I thought, right, they are not doing their own build out. They've got classes, they've got a lot of things they're wrapping into that, which yeah. Can you, yeah. I, you know, there's a lot of exp I think this is a hard, okay. So they have tons of goodness. Well, they have a big team,

00:59:04 So they got funding and they, after they got the funding, I think it just took them to the next level. Right. And I think that's the other thing, like, we're just the two of us at this point. And so that kind of changes the game as well. Once, you know, you're able to accomplish that, then you just,

00:59:21 you know, possibilities become a lot larger, but I think it's a trend that we're going to see more of right. There is going to be more people trying it. I think we'll, we're going to see too, is established childcare providers like the bright horizons or like larger companies that are just going to go in and partner with other, you know,

00:59:45 space operators, even if it's not corporation like a specific corporation, but you know, just start partnering with them to create this type of situation. So, because it, it is, it's valuable. It's invaluable. And that's one of the things I think we all learned during COVID. It's like, if you don't have someone helping you with your children,

01:00:06 good luck. They're small. Like you can't do anything as a parent. You're not getting anything done. We have four year olds. Oh gosh. Oh, wow. Yeah, you both have four-year-olds You're pregnant at the same time. You lifted out your story Where you were figuring it out. We were both pregnant at the same time. So maybe blame it on the pregnancy for our crazy decision.

01:00:33 So you opened your space when they were whatever one or one. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. My son has grown up here. He's been coming here for a long time, so, yeah. Right. So right. That you're kind of realizing your dream well, and you're also in a point where you're still so new, I guarantee you that these folks who raised all that money had a time period that you're having where they're like,

01:00:59 so in the business, right. You're so in it. Cause you have to work the front, right? You've got your front desk shift coming up. It's like, what time is it? I Think you probably need to wrap this up. And so it's hard to think, right? You don't have the thinking space to figure out, you know,

01:01:14 what to do next. And you still have four year olds at home and work at the space. So yeah. But everybody goes through these growing pains. It's totally, totally normal. The, the Brella people went through that as well. They just came out of it and fundraised and got a very fancy website. So ladies, it was so wonderful to connect.

01:01:42 What, so what does the next, what does the rest of the year look like for, for the business? What are your goals? I think our goals are just to continue to increase our visibility, increase our occupancy, hope that we can see some really stable trends that will kind of infer how we should be approaching, you know, the next two years of our lease.

01:02:06 Because like, that's sort of the, you know, if there is any hard stop, it will be that because it's not our building, but yeah. I think just continuing to do what we're Doing and more and keep learning. Yeah. Same thing. Same. Just keep growing in the community. Yeah. Ladies, thank you for taking time away from,

01:02:35 I know busy schedule to do this and tell your story. I guarantee you, there are many, many listeners. I can't tell you how many people come into my program or podcast listeners that have similar goals. So they ate up every single word of your story. So we have all of your contact where you, where you live on the internet in the show notes,

01:02:57 your Facebook, Instagram website. So if you are looking for that, you can find that on the website. So thank you both. It was wonderful to hear your story. Thank you so much for having us. Yes. If anybody's in the Lafayette area, come on by. I know you have to get up here three minutes. It's not that far.

01:03:21 I just come in the middle of the day, grab a coffee. I need to come for lunch. That's exactly. And then leave before three get least. Yeah. All right. Well thank you again. This was awesome. Yes. Thank you. Hey there. Thanks for sticking with us through the end of the episode, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast player.

01:03:43 And if you were enjoying the podcast, please go leave us a review. It helps other folks find the podcast who are thinking about starting a coworking space or already operating a coworking space and are looking to stay up to speed on tips and trends. And we started a YouTube channel. We'd love to have you catch us on video. You can join us for podcast,

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