247. From Coworking + Cafe + Food Hall - Jen Thoemke Shares Her Journey

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247. From Coworking + Cafe + Food Hall - Jen Thoemke Shares Her Journey

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, you are going to love this episode. I hope you love all the episodes, but JenThoemke shares her experience running a coworking space in a fairly small town of about 20,000 people in golden Colorado,

00:00:50 and into her journey. The cafe that was adjacent to her coworking space went up for sale and she bought it. And now she is taking it a step even further. She's working on her third location and this one, she is building from the ground up. So she will own the asset, which is amazing. And she is creating a coworking space adjacent to a food hall.

00:01:17 You'll have to check out her website, which is linked up in the show notes so that you can follow along on the journey. I love Jen story. So Jen is a part of our Flight Group program, which is a mastermind group. We have groups of operators that meet once a month. She has a Community Manager in our Community Manager University group.

00:01:36 So we get the behind the scenes on what Jen is working on in her business, how she is expanding her model and growing her team. She's super smart. She's a great marketer. She is a great business woman. So we're thrilled to share her story. I think you're going to love the detail. If she shares about the cafe, creating a coworking space at a smaller markets and the lessons she's learned,

00:02:00 she's been open for seven years. So she is a veteran operator at this point, and some of the exciting things she's working on with her food hall and coworking space. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Jen. Welcome. I am here today with Jennifer attempt G she is in golden Colorado, which is so fun to say she is the chief connector and creator at connects workspace.

00:02:30 And we're going to chat today and get Jen's perspective. Golden Colorado has a population of 20,000, so it's a fairly small town. Jen, you are working on your third location. So I'm so glad to have you on the podcast and to share your story and your insights on your journey. And also before we begin, I know you're on a journey.

00:02:52 You have lots of accomplishments and lots of things you're working on. So we love to hear all about it. So thank you for the time to tell us about your Coworking journey. Well, thank you so much, Jamie. Thanks for having me. I been listening to your podcasts for years now, so it feels really like an honor to be here.

00:03:11 So thank you. I know nobody likes to listen to their own, so you'll have to, you know, maybe, well, you won't air for awhile. We were just talking about how you're going to go see Kim Lee in Birmingham, which we were both very excited about. And I thought, oh, maybe you can listen to the podcast, but it won't be up by then.

00:03:27 Okay. So we'll get to where you are today, but tell us your Coworking story. How did you get started? What, what was happening in the moment when you said I need to open a coworking space? Yes. So we, this June will be seven years that I opened connects workspace in golden and I was in corporate America. I was in the mortgage industry and really,

00:03:52 I love golden. I'm a native to golden, wanted to be involved in what was going on in the golden community and would drive out to go to my job every day. My husband got to stay here and be involved in it. And I was always just like, oh, I want to be here. And I had always had a dream of owning a coffee shop or a wine bar,

00:04:10 something that brought people together. Just, I liked that, that vibe and that energy and my husband started popping in on these coworking spaces through his job. And he's like, this is a really interesting model, Jen, we should research it. And so we, I started doing a ton of online research driving around the ones in Denver and golden is a small town,

00:04:32 but we know golden through and through. We are really connected into the community. So we kind of just started driving around thinking of places that would work and that we found just a great opportunity at this historic building to start a 3000 square foot of space. It wasn't very much, it felt like a lot and it was really expensive to build out cause we were in this old building,

00:04:58 but we just wanted to test it out and see if it would work. And it happened to be just behind a coffee shop, which ended up it's a cafe. It's more it's breakfast and lunch as well, but it ended up being one of the best things that we could have done for this coworking space, especially being in 2015, still relatively new in a smaller town,

00:05:20 but we had instant a walk through traffic and people coming through. And so I grew pretty quickly. Our pro our, my offices were filled on day one. And then we kept taking on space around town. Golden's walkable. It's like has a historic downtown area. And so just to be able to meet the demand, we just kind of kept opening spaces all within walking distance.

00:05:43 And you're, can you share what your husband does for a living? Oh yeah. My husband's a general contractor. He had dipped his toes in contracting back in the day and then got out of it was running a nonprofit when I connects, but then I jumped out of our main income stream. He renovated connects for me and then it just birthed his whole.

00:06:05 So he has a really, really successful general contracting business that was birthed out of building out connects workspace. So we have put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into. Yeah. So all of our spaces to date, we have bootstrapped and we have done all of the build-out ourselves, all of the painting, all of the furniture build-out we have a new opportunity,

00:06:31 like you had mentioned coming up, and this is the first time I'm actually contracting with his company. We're trying to do a more of an arm's length transaction for the marriage. It's an official paperwork in place just in case. No, I, so I, I think having a contractor on your side who is such a close connection is such an advantage because,

00:06:56 you know, you mentioned you started at 3000 square feet, which felt like a lot. And I think that is not uncommon for people to feel like signing a commercial lease. It's a very big deal, you know? And so it felt like that was a big enough risk, 3000 square feet, you know, for whatever. What was the length of your first lease that you signed?

00:07:17 It was only three years with an option to renew for another three years. I'm in lease negotiations again, I'm going on my seventh year and I'm in lease negotiations again, three times. It's it's exhausting. Yeah. And also, I didn't know how to do. I learned so much. Yeah. So you're yeah. So you've done multiple renewals now,

00:07:37 do you feel like seven years has gone very quickly, Very quickly. Yeah, very quickly. And I've learned a ton. I, like I said, when I signed my first lease, I basically just signed on the dotted line and then realized I, I needed to have somebody review it. I needed to do my due diligence. I learned a lot of lessons.

00:07:59 We put all of our own money into the renovations and then, oh, lo and behold, they increase the lease rate whenever we go to renegotiate because it's worth so much more, but it was worth so much more because of what we put into it, you know, all the, all the lessons learned 100%, but I think this is so common.

00:08:18 So it's helpful to hear this is a very common storyline. Okay. So talk about what your sort of Coworking portfolio looks like now, and then what's on the horizon that you're, you're working on. Yeah. So we currently have 15,000 square feet in golden. We have two floors of the one building that I'm, that I started out in and then a block away.

00:08:40 I have another 6,000 square feet. We have just over 220 members and we are at capacity. You know, we did take the dive during COVID and then I think it was June of 2021. When we really started seeing people come back for coworking space is full, we've seen a golden has been growing. You mentioned it's a small town, but it's a really popular town.

00:09:04 It's where people want to be. We're right on the foothills. And we're in a county that's, you know, upwards of a half a million. So there's a lot of people all in the surrounding areas. But because of that, because of being at capacity, I was looking for some new growth opportunities and there is a building right off of<inaudible> at the red rocks,

00:09:24 the famous red rocks exit on the corridor to I 70, that takes you up to the ski mountains, a building being built that we're going to purchase. This will be my first purchase, 12,000 square foot condo. And we're going to do Coworking and food hall combined. And that's pretty small because for 6,000 square feet of co-working and 6,000 square feet of food hall.

00:09:44 But to me, it's kind of manageable and it it's a beta to see if I can launch outside of downtown golden. And also if this concept is an interesting one that I could continue and go to other surrounding areas, That's super exciting. But you have had no end of challenges with the funding of this space, with the SBA loan, if anybody has any SBA magic to share with Jen,

00:10:09 please, please reach out. Have you had any resolution with that or is that still in progress? No, I, I did enough research to find out that our main, I think it's the CDC, the main underwriter for SBA loans in Colorado. We have one it's called the Colorado lending source. There's some smaller ones, but I looked and there,

00:10:31 none of the smaller ones had any SBA loans fund last year, Colorado lending sources. The one that has decided that they are just not going to underwrite on coworking spaces anymore. It's a hard stop. All the banks try to root for me and go to them and talk to, but once I'm big enough, I'm going to go to them and I'm going to,

00:10:48 I'm going to have to put my presentation together. I just found out that they lend. Yeah. I just found out that they lend on, on hair salons, which is, if you think about it, they 10 99 there. Right. It's the same concept. So anyway, but so I am going for, I'm going up for investment, which I'm scared out of my mind and super excited about I'm going to,

00:11:12 I'm going to just step into that and find someone that really wants to take on the Coworking movement in Colorado. Good, good. Well, I liked the food hall and you're buying the building. So there's a lot to be said for that model. And I'm sure at this point, you know, to your point, all of the improvements that you put into a lease to space,

00:11:31 and now you're in the situation where that's sort of like biting you in the butt because they're increasing the rent on a space that you invested in already. So now you have control of all of that. So that's fantastic. I feel like we S we skipped over the cafe. Can you remind me when the cafe came into the picture and how does that fit into the Coworking location where it's at?

00:11:55 Yeah. Right. So wait, I'm in a historic, it's an armory building, a national guard army armory built in 1913, the only kind of functioning business in the whole building for years and years was this coffee shop bakery that kind of kept changing hands. And it grew into a breakfast joint lunch joint. And when we opened connects workspace, seven years ago,

00:12:20 we just made friends with the, the current owners and their offices, actually in our co-working space, it's behind the cafe. And so we just made it look like a part of us. They provided coffee for us. We would provide our space for overflow space on weekends. There's just a really good natural relationship. And then they wanted to retire and put the cafe on the market in 2018.

00:12:42 So I worked really hard to put together some friends and family and bought the cafe. And the reason was we're just, I mean, we're literally a door from each other. You can go through the cafe to get into connects workspace. And so the synergies between them, it's exactly what I wanted all along is to own a coffee shop. And it's a little harder because it has a full kitchen.

00:13:02 And when you bring back a house into anything I've learned is a whole nother challenge. And then you had COVID to it. It's a whole nother challenge, but, oh my gosh, it's amazing because my members, they get to have coffee and casual meetings down in the coffee shop. And then they come back and they get a, you know, rent conference rooms and go to their office for more professional focused meetings.

00:13:23 And they order food down there and get it brought back to them. It's just, it's, it's the reason that I chose to do a food hall combo with the coworking space, because the synergies are just, I just love it. It's it creates just a whole lot more energy. And then you bring, you have an avenue to bring your community in without paying for a membership,

00:13:42 but then they walked through these doors and they see like, you know, these people like working and networking and stuff, and then they want to be a part of it. So they feed both business models, feed each other really well. Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about kind of design and what you include in a coworking space, because we're at this strange point where so many folks are at home and thinking about the workplace,

00:14:07 like totally differently. Like it used to be that Coworking was sort of an alternative to an office, and now it is the office. And if people don't, you know, they're sort of resistant to go to the office, how do you make that experience something compelling for some people, the office environment is perfect, but what you're describing is like a hybrid of work and casual and community,

00:14:30 you know, the community, but in a different way with the coffee shop and the food service. So I think it's really makes sense for the time that we're in. So I'm excited for your, your food hall project and I'm not sure the cafe plus Coworking is right for everyone. Would you say that sort of it's two D would you say it's two different businesses?

00:14:53 It's two different businesses. They run totally different. And every one was like, have you ever owned a restaurant before? And I was like, why do you keep asking me that now I know, because they are as hard as everyone said. And you know, so, and I have a general manager, I am not owner operator of the cafe.

00:15:07 I have a general manager that runs it, but then, you know, I, it's, it's really hard to make money with that model. We're not a super big cafe. So yeah, it's a toll. You have to really, really count the cost of doing that. I knew golden really, really well. And I knew that this cafe had a lot of opportunity and upside and really was doing it because I wanted to bring,

00:15:32 I wanted to just do something great for golden. So there was, there was kind of this vested interest beyond just my bottom line. So I'm curious, you started with 3000 square feet. What was your sort of confidence in getting membership in a town? I'm assuming that had no Coworking before you opened, were you the first Funny enough, there was a coworking space that was open for about nine months in 2014.

00:16:02 And so I met with her when I was thinking about opening and she told me that golden wasn't ready for it. She was off our main street. It was not golden, was not ready for it unless it was in front of their face. And because I was right at a cafe that was already popular, I became in front of people's face. The other thing is,

00:16:23 is my husband and I are natives. We met at golden high school. We got married, really young. We spent seven years in the Pacific Northwest and we know everyone. I had all offices. I mean, all, all six offices filled on day. One, Coworking took a long time. We opened in June. I didn't really have much buzz around Coworking until maybe that September when school went back in to session.

00:16:46 So that took time the offices were full and people were asking for more offices right away. And it was, we were just really well networked. And then the other thing is I just donated the space a lot. I would let anybody use it just to be in this space. And then I gained a lot of new members just from them being around.

00:17:04 And golden was, I kind of started right when golden really started to find themselves in and become a tourist destination, a place where people want to live highly active community. And so, because they can, you know, park come in and then they can go on a bike ride at lunch, they can go on a run, they can walk the Creek.

00:17:24 So I just, I kind of hit the right time. I think at the other is she would have been able to stick it out. She would be fine right now. And then also she's she started a consulting company, not in Coworking and something else. Ain't marketing. And she's a member of my coworking space. Now That's funny. Yeah. Timing can matter a lot.

00:17:47 Obviously everybody who just COVID recognizes, you know, sometimes it's timing, you have the right idea and it's not quite the right time and we're not quite the right location to your point about being downtown, but being downtown, it can be hard to find larger space. What is the size of your largest space? And is it still right on main street?

00:18:07 Yes, I have. I met my first floor right behind the cafes, 3000 square feet, then two floors up on the same building as 6,000 square feet. And then a block away is another 6,000 square feet. Yeah. So you kind of make it work your little yes. Segmented, but which, but that's the thing about downtown, right? In a historic.

00:18:28 Yeah. Yeah. You just walk, you walk a block away. We give our tours, we have them walk with us in the snow. It's fine. We have con conference rooms in all of the locations. People can book any conference room. All the membership is under one umbrella. The new location will have the same membership under one umbrella. It's hard for staff.

00:18:47 I would say we're really trying to find our baseline for staff right now. And today we had every single conference room booked and people everywhere. And then it was a little crazy. So yeah, it was, it was hard on the staff to be in four places at once, Right? The kind of day you love from a revenue standpoint, a kind of David,

00:19:07 like your team needs a glass of wine at the end of the day. Hey, I just wanted to jump in really quickly before we continue with our discussion. If you're working on opening a coworking 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 coworking space,

00:19:30 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. If you'd like to join me, you can register at Everything Coworking dot com forward slash masterclass. If you already have a coworking space, I want to make sure you know,

00:19:52 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. 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.

00:20:20 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. 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.

00:20:52 We also have a private slack group for the group. So if you're interested in learning more, you can go to Everything, Coworking dot com forward slash Community Manager. So it sounds like your first base was really kind of, you know, contacts and bringing people into the space, getting them exposed. What does your, how do members find you today?

00:21:15 Is it still kind of the same, or do you focus on SEO? I'm guessing you don't run ads, but confirm that I don't know. I do not run ads. So because golden is so small, I do have a couple competitors. And if you Google Coworking and golden, you know, we work will come up, even though they're not even close,

00:21:35 but, or conference room, but I just don't have much competition and I don't have enough space to have to fill. I've always been at or close to capacity. And so I haven't been able to find the value in that. I, I have an ad and write up an article in a local golden living magazine. Cause I just like to keep myself in front.

00:21:55 And I really started that knowing I was opening this new location. I do feel like I'm going to have to do a lot more for this new location because it is not in downtown and I'm targeting markets that I haven't entered yet, but I'm already starting that we're already starting our social media on that. And just getting people excited about it and then word of mouth and,

00:22:16 and, and sponsoring, like having people in sponsoring a PTA event or a networking event, chamber of commerce, just letting people in the space so that they can see it. I feel like there are trade-offs to smaller markets, the advantages being right, you sort of can own organic results, right. But people just don't know the model as well. So you have to be willing to do that extra hustle of get people in,

00:22:44 explain what it is and, you know, let them feel it and try it out. You can't just kind of run ads and know there's a pool of people that are searching for space, but even in small markets, there are always people looking for offices. So your members with offices, why do they not work at home? That is a really good question.

00:23:03 A lot of them, they like the separation. They like to leave. You know, I had the same amount of offices before COVID as after. So people, you know, the whole work from home idea, you know, was that was birds of, out of COVID is, you know, is a little fresh and new, but I I've grown.

00:23:22 I've grown on the other side of COVID. People are like, I, I can not talk to myself anymore. Like you're talking to a screen, I have to be able to see human beings and such, but I have, we have a lot of professionals. They want to have the conference room access. We have people, I have one guy he's a tutor.

00:23:39 And he joined during COVID and he joined because he just needed an office. And he's like, I've met like my family I've met people. Like he, he's a single guy that lives by himself that he, he gets to be around people and he talks to people and you get to just at lunchtime, go for a run up the, you know,

00:23:59 up the mountain. And just, it's just, I think people love being in downtown golden. And I think that we've created a place where they feel like they're, they're cared for. And they're, they're welcomed. We used one of your photos one time. I'm trying to remember what it was an example for something in our Community Manager training. And you have a Community Manager in our group,

00:24:21 but it was such an authentic photo at a member event. And it was so well captured. And it was just, I can't remember why we were using it as sort of a, you know, a good example of something. But I remember that really clearly, because you can tell that people really connect and enjoy being there. And it's really authentic.

00:24:44 The okay. We talked about, Well, I just think we bring the authentic vibe and almost, almost like the family vibe that we care for you. My community managers are very like social and ha and happy people and they're, they're, they're thoughtful. And I think it, it doesn't always play nice with everyone, right? There's the hyper professionals that are going to be super,

00:25:09 you know, high maintenance and need a lot. And, and we'll make sure that they know, like they might not be happy here because we are more casual and comfortable and yeah. Flexible. And so it's, it's who we want it to be. And it, it is also who golden is. So we're being true to who our community is.

00:25:29 Yeah. And you know who you are and you're okay with the folks that aren't a fit. So we started talking about your team. Can you just talk about what your team looks like to run the 15,000 square feet and what it'll look like and the cafe, and as you move into the food hall yeah. What does that look like? Yeah. So my,

00:25:49 my main model, my main 15,000 square feet in downtown golden, I, I want it to be able to kind of run with a full-time community manager and a part-time community host that supports the Community Manager. We're testing that right now to see because of our various locations, it might be a little difficult, but that's the same model that I would like to run up at the food hall,

00:26:13 which would just be the connects workspace part. Just the Coworking part of the food hall will be a Community Manager full-time and a part-time community host right now because of our growth and the idea to be able to continue to grow. I have an operations manager who is putting all of our processes down into notion is asking all the hard questions about why we're doing what we're doing and is helping me to build out this new space.

00:26:40 We have a marketing and integrations, a person that works from home that we will eventually roll that position into a Community Manager role, but with an opening of a new space, she's doing a lot of work in just making sure all of our integrations are really tight and honed in. I feel like we're like rebuilding the foundation. Like you build a foundation for one sized business,

00:27:03 and then you decide to grow and you really need to make sure your foundation, your infrastructure meets that. And so we have this benefit while we're building up this new space to really test through that. So marketing and integrations will fold into Community Manager once we're open. And then all of my restaurant, the cafe food hall, all that will be under other businesses and different staffing.

00:27:27 So the coworking space right now, I have three full time, including myself and two part-time staff members. And I do also have a couple host for trades. Sorry. I have our one location. That's a block away is all offices with a few reserve desks. So it really is low maintenance, but still needs to have someone on site. So we will allow someone to host over there in trade for a membership.

00:27:56 Would you expand? I'm just curious. Cause I get this question sometimes you're sort of annex space. That's down the street. That's essentially unstaffed but you have floaters and you have right. Your, your host for trade. Would you have done that location with open seating or do you think it works because it's mostly offices. It only works because it's offices.

00:28:16 I would not do open. It's just too. It's too high maintenance to not have staff there. I do wonder, I'm curious when I do hear people that don't have their coworking spaces staffed. It's, it's an interesting model that I haven't figured out because we're running around all the time doing stuff, but our model is highly, highly relational and social and community.

00:28:37 So you mentioned a lot of meeting room volume. So some people are in locations where they just don't get that. I think that makes such a big difference when you have people coming in and out of the space that are members and then being, you know, attached to the cafe, you probably are more likely to get to get some of that flow,

00:28:55 which is positive, but much more work for the, for the team. So in the food hall model, your food hall team will be completely separate from the Coworking side. Is that right? Or is there any crossover, Correct? It will be completely separate. There'll be different staff with different management, but it will say like here at cafe 13 and connects workspace,

00:29:18 the teams work really well together. They support each other. Cafe 13 provides our coffee, they bring it back. So it's very much supportive roles, but completely yet integrated is a good word for it. Okay. Or maybe it's not, but the staff does, you know, so I have, I'm a member of my start-up school. Who's opening a coworking space,

00:29:40 attached a coffee shop and they're on a main street. It's only coffee though. It's not food. And so I think he's trying to figure out right. Could that, can the barista multitask or is the barista only doing coffee? What if you only did coffee? Could you see more like, oh, the barista helps out when the coffee shop is slow or no,

00:30:02 it's too. It's just separate. You have to have separate staff that are dedicated. Okay. That's important. I believe you do. Yeah. You keep, cause you just can't, you can't manage when a conference room is needed at the same time, a group of 10 comes in for coffee at the same time that lattes, that take Right for lattes.

00:30:22 Right. So they each have to work on their own from a, from a sort of business model standpoint and economic, the P and L has to work. It can't, you can't share and hope for sort of synergies there. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious, you know, you mentioned right now you have some sort of interim, like an operations person,

00:30:44 a marketing person is there and you also mentioned sort of rebuilding the foundation because you're building a bigger business or are you having a little bit of a struggle with sort of like wanting to add sort of overhead at a, you know, sort of pre-revenue I feel like that is a struggle that a lot of spaces we're trying to expand, try to figure out it's this chicken or egg problem.

00:31:08 Right. Like, can you yeah. Can you just talk a little bit about how you're working through that? Yeah. It's, it's difficult. I'm I really am. I'm putting out expenses earlier than I want to, but I know it's going to yield. We'll be able to fill the space quicker. We'll be able to have, we're just putting a lot of energy and hoping that we get returns quicker and it's hard.

00:31:37 It's scary. So I would say it is something that I I'm taking a risk on for sure. But I couldn't imagine doing it. I couldn't imagine not having that. Yeah. There's no way I could, it would be all on my shoulders and I just, what I need to be doing is the, you know, finding the investors and going out,

00:31:55 I, I really am trying to keep myself in my correct lane. And so I have to have people that are supporting all that And operating kind of in a CEO role, new business investors, working on the new location. So I'm curious, you, you know, you just sort of referenced this rebuilding. Are there any sort of big lessons that you learned from your first years that you'll transfer to the new location or kind of as you're sort of rethinking or growing the business,

00:32:28 what are, what are the things that are either changing or that you feel like we've nailed this? We're, you know, we're taking this with us as we grow. My biggest is I'm paying for attorneys, which is really hard and expensive, but that was my biggest lesson. Right. And I, you, I know you speak on that and had I found you before I opened,

00:32:49 would've been great, but yeah, really read the leases, read the purchase agreements, management agreement, whatever it is, know what you're getting into, pay, pay people that know stuff that you don't know. It really, you know, I did learn through the school of hard knocks and lost money because of that. So those are some big, big learnings.

00:33:14 What I feel like we've really done well is we we've learned how to curate community and you know, we haven't been able to do that very much with COVID, but as we're hopefully coming out of it, I'm really excited to get back to events and get back to really pulling people together and just being a comfortable place for people. And I feel like I really know what I need in a Community Manager when I hire I've I I've figured that out and I can take that on to the next place.

00:33:47 And yeah. How is hiring in a smaller market? I have had, it's been interesting. It's creative. Let's say that. I, Amanda, who is my Community Manager, that's in Community Manager University. She moved from Boston to golden and sent an email saying she was curious about Coworking. I was like, Terry she's. It was amazing. I didn't know that about her.

00:34:23 I'll have to, to ask, ask. That is super cool. I do feel like that's one of the advantages of like a slightly, we're still in the early stages of this industry, but when you get community managers who either have experience already, cause we have, we see some of that in the Community Manager group and our Flight Group, you know,

00:34:43 have folks who right. Move locations and they love the role, but they're moving. So it, and to have somebody come in who right. Is interested and wants that role is Yeah. And another one, that's just a funny story. She's my community host. And we're training her up to be the Community Manager up at the new location is she's a friend of the family and I was friends with her on Instagram and she kept just posting really great stuff.

00:35:08 And she looked like she was having so much fun in life and like she's young, she just got married. I just reached out to her like, Hey, are you looking for a job? And she's been perfect. And I think it was because she had posted so much, it was like her personality came out in that. And I was like,

00:35:24 you would be a great Community Manager. And she is so I love that. Right. So you haven't had to rely on like LinkedIn or posting on Craigslist. Yeah. We had a guest on the, you have, right? Yeah. We had a guest on the podcast. He's in Kayla dares space. She is in the Flight Group, but a different group than the one that you're in.

00:35:50 But he, yeah, that's what he talked about. Like leveraging your network and that even, I love your example about seeing someone on Instagram, who you just felt like her vibe w would be right. And reaching out and it's, it's a small town. So, you know, you have some connection. Yeah. You just like this idea that you're,

00:36:08 you're constantly kind of looking for people that might be a fit and it, they may not come from Craigslist or LinkedIn. It probably depends on the market you're in. But yeah. Anything else about sort of the, the growth experience that you would share or kind of lessons learned that you would pass on? One thing I hear you talking about it quite often in that I'm just more and more impressed by is using all of the systems that are out there.

00:36:37 You know, we use notion and a sauna and slack and, you know, we have a lot of just more than we, I just, it feels like a lot, but Calendly, you know, they, and yeah. And then Zapier is to make them talk to each other. And so I think that has been, our goal is to try to take as much off of the Community Manager so they can spend their time really curating the community and the bigger you get,

00:37:03 the more just nonsense admin you have to do. And so we're really, that's one thing that is allowed us to grow. I, there's no way, you know, what I was doing even five years ago would sustain us to grow. So I think that's been really, really helpful and fun to just keep trying. That's the other thing, I have a pretty young team,

00:37:25 so they're very interested in pivoting all the time. It's like, they're like, we'll try this, we'll try that. And I'm like, okay, so it's good. It's been fun, Which is right. A huge advantage when you were sort of right. Still learning and growing and that they're along for the ride instead of we don't like change, you know,

00:37:44 cause that is, I think a personality type you could get in a role. And so they're excited that you're excited. That's great. So you mentioned notion, notion is like an all in one. Can you describe notion for anybody who hasn't used it? Yeah. This is hilarious because I'm, you know, staying in my lane, I'm not going to tell you,

00:38:05 I will tell you very much, but we use notion for it's our operations manual. So anything that we do there is a process written in notion and we all have access to it and we have everything. So if I had to, for instance, run on connects, which I've had to, because we've had with COVID and people out, I could do it.

00:38:27 Like I can go into notion and I can read, He didn't remember how to onboard a member. You can get in there and yeah, Exactly. Yes. Yep. Yep. And it's live and it's active and it can be on our phones. And so when they're opening spaces and all our door codes and such, you know, it's easy to access and to start live operations manual,

00:38:49 I've heard a couple of people mention it. I think Felicia uses it too. Felicia Rubenstein who owns Haven, any other tech that you use that you would share? People are always curious about tech stacks and Coworking. I think those are our main sauna is that's where we do a lot of our projects. Yeah. And I know you just did something on HubSpot.

00:39:15 We tried it out for a year. And when we kind of, we went back to just utilizing a sauna. HubSpot was just a little too big for us. I felt like we needed a full-time person just to be able to run that. It's really impressive, but maybe we'll get there, but right now was just a little big. And then,

00:39:35 and then Zapier, I just think that is the coolest thing ever to be able to, you know, to zap things. And we will, somebody will submit a new application and we'll get a slack and it'll get a, make an, a task. And it will just do all the things for us. I think that's, that's been really useful and we're trying to find new ways of it.

00:39:54 What is the space management platform that you use Proximity? And the reason is I used to nexus, I used XL and then I grew up to next. It is. And then I grew up, the reason I was switched from nexus to proximity is they're local. They're a Colorado company. And I met with them really early on in their trajectory. And finally just realized next to this being across the ocean from us just became a little more difficult.

00:40:22 And so, yeah, so it's been really good. We're able to participate in some betas that they're, they're doing, they have a beta with QuickBooks, they have a beta with something else that we're practicing. So that's, that's been really cool. Awesome. Yeah. They're a great team. They've run their own spaces that yeah, the, the local piece can be really helpful.

00:40:43 Jen, as a, as a wrap up, what are you most looking forward to in 2022? Oh my goodness. Well opening the new location and I'm just hoping, cause we're on, we're hoping for summer and you know, it just every month makes me a little more nervous that it's going to push to fall and then winter. So opening the new location and people coming back together.

00:41:06 I just really want to be able to have events and bring people together and reengage into the social world. I think that it's sorely lacking and I just, yeah, I really want to be able to provide that for people. So my team does too. We're all excited. Like let's throw a party. Well, right. The food hall is going to be the,

00:41:31 the ultimate party location. That'll be awesome. Yeah. I was actually in Denver last week and I was in and out. So anybody who's in Denver that I should have visited next time I will do a longer stay. I was there for a GWA meeting and we, the board had not met in in-person in at least two years. It would have been right.

00:41:54 Probably February, 2020 we would have gotten together. And it's so I probably had like, I don't know, 20 conversations in person that I just never would have had over zoom, maybe more in the span of like 24 hours. It might not even have been 24 hours, but I'm like, you know, just like dinner and then a day of meetings and some time at the airport and that in-person,

00:42:16 Hey, it just felt so good. Cause I, you know, I've seen friends, but I have not really seen business friends, so that was awesome. And it's just, it really is different to be in person. So yeah. I'd love those. So I'll have to schedule my trip. And what is your expected opening date for the food hall Right now?

00:42:35 We're hoping for July. So that's, that's our hopeful date. All right. Maybe I'll plan for September. You better make sure the GC is managing his projects. Well, are you seeing any supply chain challenge? Yeah. Yeah. That's the, that's the issue? Yep. Supply chain is our biggest just getting, getting the parts. I mean even just like metal to install the windows.

00:43:03 Yeah. Just so that's going to be the delay. Yeah, yeah. Not the GCs fault. Yeah. I, I like to normalize that because the folks I have in my start-up school program who are starting things, I mean, they've seen their expenses go up and the time it takes to get things, even furniture, I talked to the sales manager at room,

00:43:24 he was saying, you know how backed up? They are on room orders. So even the basics like that. So anyway, well thank you for taking the time. I know you're super busy. You mentioned you had a crazy day and you're working on a new location, all the things, but it's so great to hear your story and just, you know,

00:43:42 to kind of get into the details of what, what your journey has been. And I know others love to hear, you know, kind of the behind the scenes of, of what it's like as you're growing. So I can't wait to lay my eyes on the food hall at some point. And thank you for sharing your story and taking the time.

00:44:00 Thank you so much, Jamie. I so appreciate you having me this great chatting. Hey there, thanks for sticking with us through the end of the episode, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. 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.

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