253. Your Toolbox That Makes Meaning Happen - Call It Coworking, but It’s Much More

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253. Your Toolbox That Makes Meaning Happen - Call It Coworking, but It’s Much More

00:00:01 Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast, where you learn what you need to know about how the world wants to work. And now your host coworking space owner and trend expert, Jamie Russo. Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo. I think this might be the longest episode I've ever recorded, especially with a guest. And I think you're going to enjoy every minute of it.

00:00:39 So even if you have to listen to it in a couple of parts, it will be worth it. My guest today is Lindsey and her last name is Swedish. And I did not clarify the pronunciation with her. So we'll have to ask her that on a follow-up call, she is the CEO and co-founder at Lamb. And I have referenced her website and branding and language in emails.

00:01:03 I talk about it a lot with my members. I use it as a model. I think you're going to really like this conversation because Lindsey's business model is really interesting. And I think one of the directions in which we will see the shared workspace model go, it's not for everyone. Some of you will listen to this and say, oh no, no,

00:01:26 thank you. I do not want to run that model. It's you know, like I would say in stark contrast to the model that Carl Sullivan in Sydney is running. So it's so interesting this industry, because there's so many ways to manifest a workspace, right? And so many different needs to serve. And so there is room for a lot of different flavors.

00:01:52 Lindsey has a very specific approach and why to her business. She is really, really about helping people live more intentional, balanced lives. The space has your typical Coworking, although they have no dedicated workspace. And she talks about why that is. They started with some offices, although not many in 7,000 square feet. Lindsay was a student in my Coworking Startup School.

00:02:20 She joined in June of 2020 and opened May 3rd, 2021. And we've recorded on our one year anniversary, which is fun. They run an event 30 times a month, and this is for their social membership. So I've talked in newsletters, et cetera about this like social model, social club model for coworking spaces. It's a lot of work. And Lindsay talks about the team that it takes to accomplish that model.

00:02:51 They have a gym, a podcast studio, infrared saunas, retreat rooms. They do a lot of work with bigger companies that want to create an experience like an offsite or a team building day for their employees. So she shares a little bit about how they approached their B2C offering and their B2B offering. She talks about their marketing tools and kind of what works for their model.

00:03:16 She shares just a lot of detail and perspective about how to make this model work that is not focused on dedicated space, but it's really focused on membership and experience and social club offering. So I think this will be super interesting to many of you and Lindsay is very articulate and you can tell she's very intentional about the work that she's doing, which I find to be super inspiring.

00:03:44 So I think, like I said, you're going to love every minute of it and I won't make this any longer than it already is. I will let you dive in to listen to Lindsey, share her story. Lindsey, thank you for joining me. Lindsey is the CEO and co-founder at Lamb and Lamb is in Stockholm, Sweden. Although Lindsey is from Philly,

00:04:07 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. So we need to hear the personal story, how you ended up in Stockholm with a coworking space, but thank you for joining me. And we have to hit immediately on the fact that today's your one year anniversary. Yeah, it's so crazy. We opened our doors one year ago today, and it was really funny because on the day that we opened me and my co-founder Julia and our Community Manager,

00:04:35 Hannah, we were standing at the top of the stairs waiting for the first person to come to Come in Over the staircase, like creepers. Like you can see on the first person space, like a Buyer, the right place. And ironically, that first person who signed up on May 3rd, he's in the building today. That's awesome Company. They are currently doing a hip hop yoga class as part of a team retreat.

00:05:04 I hip hop yoga class. So yeah, we have to start there. And I have to say, I look at your website constantly because I get lots of folks in my startup school. Like you who want to serve women and have maybe found your space. Or as soon as I mentioned it, they're obsessed with your brand. Wow. Oh Yeah.

00:05:27 So there's, we do a lot of loving on your branding and, and the fact that you guys really invested in that right from the beginning. And I think that's somewhat unique, you know, you just committed to it. Cause I'm a little, sometimes a little in the camp on like, just put up a super simple website. You're going to want to change everything in a year anyway,

00:05:50 but you guys really invested. So before we kind of go down a rabbit hole, tell us a little bit your personal story. How did you end up in Sweden? What did you do for work? And then how did you come to open a coworking space a year ago today? It is a windy road. And if you'd asked me, I mean 12 years ago when I moved to Sweden or 20 years ago,

00:06:13 when I started my career, if I'd be opening a coworking space in Sweden, like I would have been like, nah, you crazy, what are you talking about? So I started out my career as a journalist. So I used to work for the associated press in New York. And then I moved to Bangkok. And when I was working in Bangkok on the Asia Pacific desk,

00:06:30 as an editor, I went for a little weekend trip to Hong Kong with some friends. And that's where I bumped into my now husband, who is Swedish. He and I bumped into each other at the bottom of the staircase in Which is like the party district of Hong Kong because my friend wanted to talk to his friends. So I got roped into being her wing man.

00:06:57 And we started talking and we hit it off and started dating long distance. He was studying in Macau and I was living in Bangkok and we were flying back and forth to see each other for a few months. And then he finished his studies and he was going to come to Bangkok and stay with me for awhile. And then he had to go back to Sweden.

00:07:18 And this was like four months into our relationship. I mean, we really hadn't been together that long, but we loved each other and it had moved quickly and, and he was like, I have to go back to Sweden and what are we going to do? And I was like, yeah, okay, I'll go to Sweden. So at 26 I packed up all my stuff and quit my job.

00:07:40 It was my dream job too. And I didn't know if I was going to be able to pick up being a journalist in Sweden is pretty unlikely, but I just, I looked at all the, I looked at all the people on the desk, particularly the women and journalism is a incredible profession, but it is also one where is really easy to give up a lot of other parts of your life or the work.

00:08:04 And I saw for a lot of women on the desk that they had given up the opportunity to have partners and families and their work was their life. And that was not a sacrifice I was willing to make. And especially given the choice between like even it was right in front of me, this job that I dreamt about that I'd worked really hard for.

00:08:25 It was the only company that I wanted to work for. And then this man, and I just thought, if I don't do this, I could regret this for the rest of my life, because the next step for a young journalist, like 25 on the Asia Pacific desk, you are definitely getting embedded. You're definitely going to cobble or as Lama bod or west Africa.

00:08:46 So I was like, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to do. And I showed up in Sweden with my big old Bag And immediately moved into my husband. Now husband's parents' apartment, which was like 900 square feet. And we lived there for two It's like impossible. His parents. Yes. Oh, wow. So I walked off the plane,

00:09:15 drove up to his parents' apartment. Like here are my bags. Hello, Mr.<inaudible> so nice to meet you and then moved into their house. I mean, if you could survive that, you know, right. I feel like That is like the ultimate test of a relationship. Can you survive living with their parents when you don't know each other that well,

00:09:34 Totally right. Ever specifically, when you just met them Sort of fast forward. I, I, you know, been a few years working in the communications and writing jobs and I wasn't really happy. And I really struggled to get a footing in Sweden as a dotcom is a very insular city. You really need to know people. You really need to be connected.

00:09:58 I wasn't connected to anybody. So I struggled. And at 30 like three years into being in Sweden for a year and three years, I was working in a coffee shop and serving cappuccinos and trying and failing to speak Swedish. And I was also a tour guide and I was greeting people coming off the cruise ship, doing their Scandinavian cruise. And I was on the boat or I was on the bus,

00:10:25 you know, in the front of the bus like that on your left is the Royal Because Of a fire that originated in the ballroom. I mean, did your Voice Lindsey, Thank you. I can tell you the tips were a Bismal. I remember there was some American couple that came off the boat and they, they put 50 cents in my hand and I was like,

00:10:49 this is horrible. It was also, I remember this May 5th and it was snowing. And I was like, what have I done with my life? This is all going off the room. What did I do? But then I, I was fortunate enough to meet somebody, a man who was running his own agency at the time. And he was looking for an English language writer.

00:11:14 And in Stockholm, it was pretty early days. Most of the brands were still writing in Swedish, not in English now that's completely different. Now, every company I've Found that when I get your newsletter, it's in English and English. I mean, every company is desperate for English language writers. And as that trend increase, my career success increased. So I worked with him,

00:11:36 we ran the agency together. We worked for a lot of big companies doing all kinds of different copywriting and brand communications projects, some marketing strategy. And I got to work for some really big companies. Like I, I was one of the, I was the lead copywriter, excuse me, on the Ikea catalog, the global Ikea catalog for two years.

00:11:57 Wow. So that was super fun. I got to sit in a room with the designers and come up with the rooms that what's the story. And I traveled a lot down to Ikea's cattle Capitol L holds, which is like the smallest puny little town in the whole world. It's not very exciting. It's just all Ikea. And then I got to work with like Volvo and Nikon and H and M and absolute vodka.

00:12:24 And I, I got to travel a lot, especially with the Ikea catalog. I went to the<inaudible> islands, which are off the coast of Madagascar. I got to go to New York a couple of times to do some stories there, Back in the game. It was great. It was amazing. I felt like, here we go. And then I was feeling itchy to do something else and feeling like I wanted to move on.

00:12:48 And I ended up taking a job as head of content for a FinTech company and had an incredibly intensive year and a half where I was very challenged because the environment that I was in was a bit toxic. The pace was unreasonably fast. And I'm somebody who has a very high capacity for work. Yeah. I can do a lot in the time that I have.

00:13:13 And even for me, I was feeling like I'm going to hit the wall. Like I can't do this. And I remember it was the summer of 2019. We're working on this huge project. It was amazing. It was like a big report. We'd commissioned it from you gov. There was all this data we needed to synthesize it. It was really about providing something of value to our customers and it was going to be this amazing production.

00:13:40 And it's just started ballooning and growing and growing and growing. And I was, I went to my boss and I was like, I have to raise the red flag here. Like the time that we have to do this is not reasonable. Like we can't, if I'm going to do this, I have to wake up and I have to get into the office at five 30 in the morning and I have to leave at 7:00 PM.

00:14:01 But also can your brand even function enough over? I remember about it. I did all my writing in the morning and then all the rest of my work, the rest of the day. And, and they said what every company says, because they don't have anything else they can say, which is it just needs to get done. And so that's what I did.

00:14:22 I woke up, I got into the office at five 30 in the morning and I left at 7:00 PM with a one and a half year old at Home. I was going to stay at this point, right. You have a small child. I have a small child and I couldn't think about anything but work. And my brain was completely occupied and it ended,

00:14:40 and it was a great success. And everybody was like, yay. And I felt like, wow, great. Now I can ha and then it started all over again the next day. And I was like, I cannot do this. I am destroyed. I am exhausted. This is not okay. And I had tools, but I had been on this personal growth journey for 20 years.

00:15:00 I'd been working with a coach and a therapist learning. How, how do you communicate in a healthy way? How do you set healthy boundaries? How do you manage your feelings? How do you give and receive feedback? I had been learning all of these things and I had been practicing them for two decades when you're in an environment where no one else has those skills On an island,

00:15:29 Everybody is stressed and freaked out and under pressure from the top-down, it doesn't matter. And it brings out the worst in people. And that's how you get a toxic work culture. And I just bought, this is not for me. I can't write. Even when the humans are not inherently to add no bad things can happen in an environment like that.

00:15:51 Yeah. If you are an environment where you are forced to function in a constant state of fight or flight, nothing good is going to come out of that. I'm sorry. That's it. And this is the problem that we, this is what a lot of our work environments look like, and it is absolutely broken. Yeah. This way we live,

00:16:13 It's not, I mean, it's just not sustainable. I was at a startup before I started my coworking space. That was similar. The fight or flight was constant and it was right. It was work all the time, weekends. And this was before I had a kid and I can remember just like sitting in a conference room. I also had a coach and like laying on the table and being like,

00:16:33 there has to be something else there. I can't do this anymore. Like, why are we talking? Because I can't take it anymore. There's something different. Help me figure it out point. And the, the problem is, is that our only option is to run away to something else that you hope will be better. But when this kind of thing is systematic,

00:16:58 the way that it is, there's no guarantee that you're not going to run right into the arms of the exact same thing over again, right? Because the problem is we don't know how to manage, getting into fight or flight and getting out of fight or Flight. And we are terrible at doing the maintenance and the consistent behavior that is going to maintain balance for us.

00:17:23 You know, if we did that, if we knew how to do that, because this stuff is not that hard. And if we did it consistently and we were in a culture that encouraged us to do that, things would look so much different. Our communication with each other, the way we feel, the way we sleep, the way we relate to other people,

00:17:43 the creativity we have, it would all be different. And this is essentially the basis for Lamb. The idea that we live a life, most of us that is disconnected from ourselves in each other. And we're distracted by everything around us, which means we don't live with intention. We don't live with an idea of the life we want to create for ourselves.

00:18:09 And so what we aimed to create was a space where all of these tools and skills that we should have learned in school, and we should have learned from our parents, but for whatever reason, it's just not part of the system, a place to learn those tools and skills in a community of amazing people who are all going to support your journey and in a workspace that is built for balance and to make it easy.

00:18:33 And so we put all of these things under one roof, so that instead of running out to that fitness class at 12 o'clock on your lunch hour, getting there late, maybe not even being able to get in at all, cause they don't let you in then rushing back to the office. And this restorative moment you're supposed to have in the middle of your day,

00:18:53 turns out to just be another stress factor. You know, instead of that, we have a gym, you know, instead of let's power through our day and end with absolutely nothing in the tank, let's encourage people to take a 10 or 15 minute break during the day in a retreat room where they can just power down and get a little bit more energy back.

00:19:15 So it's little things like that. It's not complicated, but it's just that no one's ever made it super easy for us to do it and put together the pieces. And we just thought, this is a way to do this. And the way that we really see it is that Lamb is the proof of concept for what the future of work can look like.

00:19:35 Yeah. I love the word intention. I remember when I had that coach, when I was having my fall apart moment, she said, you know, 90% of people don't live with intention. And I was like, that's so interesting, right? Because you just are reacting, you know, just right. Making it. You're just trying to make it and that fight or flight thing.

00:19:58 And like, what could your life be like if you were intentional every day, but that's really environmental. And that's the, Like, we have apps and we have gyms and we have all this. We have all these tools, but they all live in different places. It's up to you To initiate, create a schedule or a habit for it. And consistently do it day in and day out when there's no one reminding you to do it.

00:20:26 And all it does is draw on your own willpower to do it, which we know is not an infinite well, and once that dries up and we give it up, let's call it a meditation app. We've done it for a couple of weeks, but life gets busy. We go, oh, you know what? I'll do it tomorrow night. Instead,

00:20:45 tomorrow night becomes three weeks, three weeks becomes three months. And then the app uninstalls itself, because you haven't used it in so long and then right, like a big fat failure because your effort at taking care of yourself fail. But the problem is in the setup, it is so hard to initiate a behavior change without a support system. If you are just relying on your own willpower to create a new habit or a new routine and nothing around your environment has changed at all,

00:21:16 it is going to be infinitely harder for you to stick with that. And that has nothing to do with your, your will to do it, or your ability to do it. And yet when we fail, which we all do, which I have done a million times when I've tried to do these things, we feel terrible about ourselves And we blame ourselves,

00:21:36 right? Yeah. For what? Yeah. And I think understanding that these changes, although they're simple are not super easy to do, unless you have the right support, the right triggers and the right opportunity to do it because that's the stuff that's going to make it so much easier. We're talking about the model at Lam, both what it was a year ago.

00:22:00 And then if it's changed in terms of business model memberships, how are you bringing this to people? What does it look like? Yeah. Well, the model is mostly stayed the same, especially on the sort of customer consumer side of things. Like the B2C side. The thing we have changed is offering services to companies. So, and that's something that we've done,

00:22:22 Like hip hop yoga. Why Not? So we have two different types of memberships that Lamb, we have a membership that's called our social club and that's for people who don't need workspace. And then we have our work memberships and that's where people who do need workspace. The general premise is you want to join Lam because you want access to these tools and you want to be in a supportive community.

00:22:47 So for us, it doesn't really matter. Do you need workspace? You don't need work. And then it becomes kind of a simple choice for those who are a part of our social club. They can come to our events, which we have 30 a month. Yeah. When I opened your newsletter and see those lifts, I'm like, but this is common for models like yours.

00:23:06 It's, it's an intense model. It is. It is. And you need to staff up to do It right. A hundred percent. And that This is so common with spaces who support women. I see that most with the folks that I work with, they're running these models that are very event intensive and right there, they sometimes are not willing to admit how much effort it takes to run that model.

00:23:34 Yeah. We have a full-time staffer who does our events schedule? Like we have an event manager because there is no way to do this otherwise, because it is such an admin heavy thing to do. And the truth is, is that the events from a business model perspective, they are not a revenue driver at all. This is not part of like,

00:23:55 we don't really even take these events into account. Like we're aiming to break even essentially, but It's the offering for your social membership, essentially. It's the product, It's the product for the social membership. And that is a lot. That is the big reason why people, people join. But then it's also to get access to the infrared saunas to get access to the community,

00:24:17 to be able to come and hang out in the space. But then, you know, we really wanted to be able to have the same offering for everybody, regardless of whether they needed workspace or not. Because for everybody it's changing all the time. So then we have our work memberships and we have three different work memberships. We have our light work membership,

00:24:37 which is by far our most popular, which I am super surprised about because when we first brought this up, I was like, is, are people gonna buy this? And it sells like crazy. It is access to workspace at Lamb two days a month or four half days and six credits. And I can tell you about the credit model. The credits are how people consume services at like,

00:25:01 Yes, I remember. So Lindsay went through our startup school and I can remember spending a couple of our Q and a sessions. How are these credits going to work? And I can't remember who it was, who sort of a couple of people sort of solved the Equation. The Jace, Jace. He has changed Everything. Yeah. Jason has, I have to have Jason on the podcast too.

00:25:24 He just opened maybe last month. So his he's got the coffee shop on main street, coffee shop and Coworking. So we'll get shaded, but yes, lots of How has advice on the credits changed everything? I forget. I forget even what he said. Cause now it's so integral to our model. Like I should really have a rev share agreement with Jace or something,

00:25:47 But the, the light membership is one of the most popular ones we offer. And then we have a part-time one, which is eight days a month. And then we have a full-time one, but a few things changed along the way. And that's even before we get to like the B2B stuff. So when we opened it was may and Sweden never locked down.

00:26:06 So we had challenges with COVID for sure, because people were staying away and a lot of offices were closed. So we were really just keeping our ear to the floor. Like, what is it that people want? How are things going? One thing we noticed was we were getting a lot of form submissions about private offices, but no one would pull the trigger.

00:26:29 So No one, They remind me, you have, is it 7,000 square feet when you do the okay. Translation and how many private offices Zero, You have none. We do not sell private offices. You ever sell private offices? We did. We had four. Oh, you had four. Okay. But still that's a very small number for 7,000 square feet.

00:26:51 Yes. Yeah. We had a very small number and Interesting. And now you sell them. Not at all. We do not sell private offices at all. And it's interesting because the questions about them have dried up. I mean, partly because obviously we're not advertising as an offering, but they, people just never pulled the trigger. And it was really interesting.

00:27:09 It was like a anthropological sort of Interesting, right? Because this goes against probably everything I sent to you, Lindsay, this is going to be challenging. Yes. Yes. Open space is a lot of open space And, and you're not wrong. I mean, but it was funny because people were asking about private office, it was like rote, right.

00:27:33 They were like, I need a private office because I need a private office. Why do you need a private office? Because I need a private office And then you would dig into it. And then they would sort of realize that they didn't actually need a private office, but they were fine with flex space and open space. And, and the big thing was they didn't want to pay.

00:27:53 And our challenge was that Stockholm is a very mature Coworking market with a lot of very big players, not a lot of niche players that benefits us, but there are a lot of big operators. And during COVID they were discounting private offices like mad. And I mean, they were able to offer prices that we could not sustain. So we made a decision in fall last year that we were not going to sell private offices.

00:28:22 Then we also made the decision that instead of having three months binding time, we would have one month finding time and that people could go up and down on their memberships as often as they like At will At will. And it was huge for us because it was the thing that convinced them to sign in a, in a moment, in a time of great Uncertainty.

00:28:45 They were like, hell yeah. If I know I can get out of this because for us, it was also, you know, we thought like, okay, it is a risk, of course, especially because in Sweden, in the summertime in June, like things in July just completely shut down. So I'm actually a little bit nervous now about the summer that people are going to figure it out and downgrade and our recurring revenue will,

00:29:08 will tank a bit. We'll just have to manage that as it comes. But, but the truth is like, even if it was a risk, we, we talked about it in the team and we said, look, we do not want to have a business model that is predicated on. We've locked you in. And that's why you stay. We want to have a business where you stay because you believe in this because you want to be a part of this community.

00:29:29 And this is an important part of your life. And so far that's worked out and what's interesting is now of course we've been open for a year. So now we have the, you know, the natural churn that happens with members and people going off and traveling. But the feedback that we get from them is amazing. It's like they never leave because they don't like Lamb.

00:29:49 They leave because their life changed. I'm going traveling, oh, I got a job and I won't be able to be there so much. Ah, I can't make my life puzzle work right now. I just got a dog. But when, when that stabilizes I'll be back. So it's been really nice to see that, that we can support that flexibility.

00:30:10 And then it brings up other challenges, obviously from a know, running a business perspective. But so far it's worked out really well. So I would say those are the two biggest changes that we made in our business model since we opened. So what Do you do with the private offices? There are meeting rooms. Okay. Are they bookable? How am I making calls?

00:30:29 If I have calls to make I'm an entrepreneur and I joined your space. So we have two phone booths downstairs. We have a few small meeting rooms, one of which I'm sitting in right now. So we have three small meeting rooms in our library, which is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And two of them are two person meeting rooms and one's a four person meeting room and our podcast studio.

00:30:50 And we have a lot of people coming to record their podcasts. And then we have a two person coaching room upstairs. So we have quite a lot of like smaller rooms. We also have a five person meeting room upstairs and a 10 person meeting rooms And an eight person meeting room. So, but what we've done is we have each room has like three or four different purposes.

00:31:12 So the corner office upstairs is normally a quiet flex space. So nobody can talk in that room and anybody can go in there and work. And then on the days where it's we book it, it's an admin booking only then we'll just say, this room is closed for today because at this point, oh, the third change, we don't have any dedicated space.

00:31:32 That lamp, everything is flexible. Okay. There's just no demand for it. I mean, there is, but our model, what we realized is we say this all the time, like we said it today, today's been an insane day in the space. We have a 20 person marketing team here for a team retreat. We had a giant production team here doing a live stream event in the corner office.

00:31:58 We had a 10 person group that was doing a leadership coaching program, like an intensive three day plus our day passes plus all of our members. I mean, it's been insane. And what we noticed was that people did want dedicated space, but because of the limit, in terms of the space that we do have, we could sell it several times.

00:32:23 Yeah. Because the revenue on the things you just described, you need that revenue. If you're selling only flex and it's super flexible, you can get in and out. And that needs to be a fundamental part of your model. Yeah. How did you learn to sell that? How are you attracting that business? You mean the like team retreats, The live stream,

00:32:46 the yeah. Whatever. That's not kind of typical membership. Right. I think a lot of that, there's this simple model of we sell offices and dedicated desks and that's what we do. We don't do events. We don't like it's super chill. You picked the exact opposite model of we sell flats. We do social memberships, which means we have to a lot of events and then we're going to make sure we have this layer of other revenue that's coming in that's variable every month.

00:33:14 Yes. Yeah. And so In a lot of ways, my preference is that it's not like this longterm, but because we're a year in, we're in the midst of a very changing market, we're trying to respond and see where the opportunities are. So my preference would be that it's, that it's not this varied that it's not these many product offerings.

00:33:39 Long-term that we find the thing that works, the thing that's lucrative for us. And then we look at the stuff that just doesn't generate enough revenue. And we just say, we're not going to do that stuff, but we're still in a little bit of that, that mode of like, we need to throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks.

00:33:54 So some of it was a very conscious choice to attract that type of revenue. So for example, the, this is one of the new offerings we have on the B2C B2B side, which it's a team retreat. And basically it's a, where a team can book an offsite to do team building. And we offered them the same events that we have on our events schedule,

00:34:16 but we can do it for a private group. Oh, very cool. Okay. And then they get conference space to do workshops and things like that. And then they can mix up their day. So the team that we have here today, they showed up at eight o'clock this morning, they had breakfast, they had coffee in the kitchen. Then they went and did a workshop for most of the day.

00:34:35 Now they're going to do hip hop yoga. And when they're finished with that, they're going to take a little breather and then they're going to go upstairs. And they're going to do a plant-based cooking class in the kitchen with one of the Dinner instructors. And the thing for us was we, it was natural because number one, we already have the space and we're already managing the space.

00:34:55 Number two, we already have the relationships with those instructors. So creating private events is pretty natural and we're already flipping rooms. And, you know, we already sort of being very flexible with how we use the space. So for us it felt like a really natural extension of what we do. And because it's a company it's much, much more lucrative than,

00:35:16 you know, it's, it takes the relationships. We built doing the events and it makes them more lucrative and it takes the investment that we've made in the space. And it allows us to sell it a second time or third time. So that was a very intentional choice. And then the other stuff like the production, I mean, it's funny because people find us and they like,

00:35:39 I am still astounded at like, I think in the last year we built a pretty sophisticated company for being only a year old. You know, we have lead gen efforts. There's, you know, we have, we do paid advertising. We have our email newsletters with a long subscriber list. We have a very active Instagram account with almost 4,000 followers.

00:36:01 Like we have really gone all in on the marketing side of things. And we also have just up until recently had two salespeople. And now we have one sales person whose job is to go out and just sell. Okay, got It. Every offering we have. And even with all of this, the biggest driver of new business for us and new leads is word of mouth.

00:36:29 Hey, I want to interrupt this podcast for a quick announcement. We are launching a series for our Everything Coworking members and some of the series will be open to the public. So the first one is open to everyone listening. It is a new series called how I did this. And the first event will be three coworking operators demo three CRMs CRM is customer relationship management.

00:36:59 And if you were in business, you may already have a CRM. This is one of the biggest challenges people have is getting one set up, figuring out which one to use. So we've asked three operators to share how their CRMs will work for them. Active campaign, HubSpot and pipe drive. They're going to pull it up, show it on their screen and answer all of your questions.

00:37:20 The first event is May 25th, which is a Wednesday at 12:00 PM. Pacific 3:00 PM. Eastern. We hope that you can join us. Live. Our members will get the recorded event, but anybody who's not a member should join us live. You can register to join us at Everything. Coworking dot com forward slash how I did this. We hope to see you there.

00:37:43 That's Everything, Coworking dot com forward slash how I did this. And so there is all kinds of like, they call it the dark funnel of marketing, right? Like you can only measure like the tail end of like right before the conversion. Right. Everything else that happens, like Kind of mysterious. Yup. Yeah. I heard about you at a party.

00:38:04 Or then I, my friend said something and then I came to an event and then I didn't think about you for six months. And then I came for a tour and then, you know, so it's funny that it's still word of mouth. And so we get a lot of leads like this production company coming through. When you say word of mouth,

00:38:20 would you drop social or paid or you wouldn't drop. So you feel like it's an ecosystem that okay. A hundred percent, because here's the thing. Like I think everybody would love to believe that that marketing is a, is a data-driven exercise. And in a lot of ways, I would love to believe that Lindsey, I know I got my KPI trackers and I know we all do.

00:38:45 We've got our dashboards and we know we got our key KPIs. We're tracking all that Stuff, But at the same time, so much of why someone decides to buy from you. You're never going to know why you're never good. And what's interesting for us is in the last year, something we've discovered is the sales process. And I think that this is quite particular to Swedes as well.

00:39:09 This is a very cultural thing. They take their wheat old time, make it a decision. The sales cycle is like, we have people who came to events with us last summer who took a tour in October or just signing up for a membership now. Yeah. Again, I think this is somewhat specific to, to your model. So probably cultural,

00:39:33 but also it's not the, I need an office and you play in the sort of, lots of inventory of affordable offices. Nope. You're selling an experience that I don't need. I want, yeah. So you have to do the social and you have to do the event. I interviewed someone for the podcast that I think is bringing live today. When we were recording,

00:39:54 he is in Sydney does no social and he, but he has 18,000 square feet of offices basically and dedicated desks. And I was like, look, Carl, I don't think I have two social bar where you either, I'll be good for you. It takes a lot of time, but you, right. You have to do those things because it feeds it.

00:40:13 The brand is so critical and the experience and how you help people, people are sort of looking, watching it right. And feeling it saying, okay, now I got to do it. And we have a lot of, and, and exactly to your point. Like, I, I, I would imagine that this is not necessarily the case for a lot of other coworking spaces because you know,

00:40:35 a lot of, most other coworking spaces are in the service office business. We're not. And what we're trying to build is much more of like a, yeah. I almost feel like you're not even, it's like, I wish there was a different word. I have a lot of folks in the startup school. It's super interesting. I mean, incredible women like you who,

00:40:53 yeah. They just want something more and they want to create this for other people. And I almost feel like it's doing them a disservice to call it Coworking. I mean, when it's too hard To find another word, so We'll get, it's the people thing that people understand, like you need to, we've gone back and forth about this a million times.

00:41:11 Like, yes, we say Coworking. And then we get put into a box and people understand us as a service office and then measure us against that. But then if you don't say Coworking, then you've very hard to create an understanding of exactly what it is that you are. Yeah. How would someone find you through search, for example, like,

00:41:29 Well, I can tell you this. They do not find us through search. There is no possible way we have talked about this for a year. There is no possible way for us to rank on search Organic Google. He made, if I search, is that because of all of the inventory, that's already in Stockholm, So many established players that are huge.

00:41:50 So that was part of what Carlos at Carl's like, I don't do ads. He has, he opened, he had just celebrated his 11th year in business in Sydney. And so right. His organic SEO is just gold. So any like if you can get to that point, my God, like you'll, it'll do all the sales for you. It'll generate all the Leads or your paid ads,

00:42:13 Google or Facebook They're on Facebook and Instagram. And then we do LinkedIn. We took we, yes, we did an experiment with, with Google ads in the beginning when we started paid advertising, but it didn't Work nothing. There's nothing. And the thing is with Google, you know, like either you rank, you rank paid with paid and then it was going to cost us a fortune,

00:42:39 but you Can't be anywhere near The big guys. And then number two, your, your second option, if you want to rank for organic is you have to be a content marketing machine and we're too lean and it's too much of a long game. So we decided, all right, we're going to put our effort into paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram.

00:42:58 And then we're going to start testing LinkedIn because now we have a B2B offering. And so we think that that could be a really good way for us to attract the business clientele. And then, and then we do social and we do a lot of events and we invite, we do a lot of things to get people into the space because the one thing that we've noticed after a year in businesses,

00:43:20 if we can just get people here, if we can just get them through the doors, everything changed. As soon as they, we are on a very busy, weird street in Stockholm. So dropping off, then it goes all the way through the city like miles. And it is the main shopping street. And it's where a lot of like shady business happens.

00:43:45 The part that we're on is quite a nice part, but most people in-stock on kind of avoid dropping off them. But the good thing about it is it is super central to everything it's close to central station goes to all the subways, all the buses, there's amazing lunch places around here. Like it takes a lot of boxes, including there's a crazy Polish lady who walks out up and down the street screaming every day.

00:44:09 She seems like A nice little fixture of like dropping off though of the Vibe, The vibe. And in one of our, one of our meeting rooms right underneath it is a store called com club where it's like all like platform boots. So like rave clothes. And so if you're in that room at like four o'clock in the afternoon, it's like, it's just part of the vibe,

00:44:38 but the good thing you have this contrast of dropping off them. And then people come in here and immediately they're like, oh wow. It's so, so, wow, this is, it's so welcoming. It's so biting. And then they meet us and we're very welcoming and open and warm. And like, this is not your typical like, oh,

00:45:01 Hey, I need to register you. Yeah, you're going over there. And that's not typical to Coworking. That's difficult to like Swedish office. And, and once they can get here and experience it, then we've got them like for the vast majority of people, we've got them. So that's part of the other piece of the event. So the,

00:45:19 are the events open? Are they members only, or you're doing a Mix. Okay, Got it. So the members get in the public pays. So the members use their credits to go to the events and the public pays with their credit card. And we do about 30 events a month. So everything from like, if you think the way to describe it,

00:45:42 if you think about like the life balance wheel, if you've ever seen that, right. It's a like physical health, mental and emotional health relationships work. How many of play creativity, things like that. We try and hit those with the event schedule. So we have everything from yoga and sound healing. We do cacao ceremonies. We do breath work.

00:46:06 We do hip hop yoga. We do ecstatic dance. We have plant-based cooking classes, kombucha tastings, fermentation workshops, dumpling, making parties. We have wine tasting. Yeah. I, every time I see your list, I'm all of them please. I would like to go them. Yes. We just ran at sculpting art classes. We've got this emotion series,

00:46:28 how to deal with anger, how to deal with fear. We do group coaching. So you'll sit down in a group and you'll like, you'll just start talking. And then that, that coach will, will facilitate a dialogue between everybody. So do you have sort of facilitators for all of these events that kind of repeat every month? Okay. So you have kind of a,

00:46:50 a group that you work with. Okay. And you, okay. Let's talk about your team. Cause you mentioned you have somebody who manages the events, who else is on the team or what roles. So we have EMA who manages our events. Then we have Yohanna who is our head of community. And she is the one who is like the mama bear to everybody who comes through the space.

00:47:11 So she's 50 years old. She's been working in Coworking for years now. She is warm, welcoming, and she is the one who runs the community. Then we have a space manager because we have 7,000 square that gets used a lot for a lot of different purposes. So that is responsible for they're like the innkeeper, they make the beds, you know what I mean?

00:47:33 Like they, And the pillows are in place a ripe down and the chairs are where they're supposed to be. Exactly. Then we have Dennis, who's our head of marketing. It's also my husband and our head of sales and business development is Tori. And she's my sister. And then we have a consultant who does our social media marketing. How did your sister end up in Sweden and your poor mother?

00:48:02 So I, I know mom, Sorry, mom. I know. She's like, well, all the more reason to come visit We though. Or had she been there? Yeah. Yeah. So she's been here a bunch. I mean, they both spent a lot of time here. Yep. Tori's interesting. In the sense that we spent 15 years working for a company doing executive sales.

00:48:25 So she worked with big pharmaceutical companies doing tech installations. And so she had this B2B sales experience that we really needed. And Tori had been working for this company probably for too long, you know, like, like a lot of people, you know, she was good at it and she made good money, you know, you know, These kind of rides and that.

00:48:47 Yeah. But like a lot of companies, it was a very toxic culture and she was really close to hitting the wall quite a few times. And part of the reason in all honesty, why I started lamp was because I felt so incredibly frustrated watching her repeat the same broken patterns and completely forsake herself in her own health, in sacrifice and sacrificing herself for a job that she didn't really care about all that much to begin with Normalized rate,

00:49:20 which is the other important piece when you're in that fight or flight. It's funny. I never thought about it in those terms. And I just feel that I'm like back in those days of like that feeling, which is basically like a constant run of like adrenaline it's bad for you, but it gets so normalized. Right. It's so normalized, which is what was happening to your sister.

00:49:44 This is how it is because that's what she's directed by all the time. And you're like looking from the outside thing, how do I help her know there are other options. It doesn't have to be that way. No, exactly. And it, the problem is, is that it's almost impossible to reach somebody like that when they are in it. And part of the reason for that is that it's this autopilot,

00:50:07 she was completely disconnected from herself. So there was no awareness that she was operating in, find A little voice that was like, Hey, Probably. But then you're like, you're like shut up. I have things to do. And then the problem is, is that when you have done this for so long, and especially when you've been working for the same company for a long time,

00:50:26 everyone, you comes to expect that you will operate this way, that you will operate at this unreasonably high level, that you will sacrifice yourself. There is no going back once you done it. Yep. I had a friend who got fired for that exact reason. At some point she was like, I can't do this anymore. Which was so like with like 200% of what she should have been doing.

00:50:48 And they were like, then we don't think you're a fit for the role. Thank you very much. You know, just like, but to your point, she'd been no one would, that was not acceptable. Cause you've done it for so long. So she couldn't dial it back to some reasonable level. Yeah, No, because then it's like,

00:51:03 oh, you're slacking or you're not giving Raul or whatever, ridiculous yardstick we use to measure this. And so it just got to the point where she was on the verge of like almost a third burnout. And she was like, I'm not going to do this anymore. And so she quit last summer and she decided she was going to come to Sweden for two months and she was going to take a breather and she was going to figure out what you wanted to do with her life.

00:51:30 And she came and she stayed in our apartment and she came to Lam every day. And she went to the breath work classes and she had lunch with the people in the space. And she started making friends and she was seeing coach and she was going to the gym and working out, she was eating lunch for the first time. In 15 years, she was eating a healthy lunch.

00:51:56 And by the end of it, she said, Lamb, put me back together again. Like I can't believe that I did this. And I sacrificed myself the way I did for so long. And she went home and she was like, I'm coming back. I'm going home. I'm going to clear out my house. I'm telling Mom Telling mom and I'm coming back.

00:52:22 And she came back in February of this year. And so she's been here for like 12 weeks and she is our head of sales and business development. And That's such a fantastic story. And also that role is hard to learn right. From scratch. Like you can't just hire someone off the street and say, great attitude, figure it out. You know,

00:52:45 there's a process and you have to know how it works. Yeah. Yeah. And we're also instill in messy startup mode where we're, we're like this, that we need to have a process we need to do and we've come pretty far, but a year end. I mean, you're still working stuff out. And so somebody who is smart and driven and gets it and read between the lines and can see the patterns and can go,

00:53:08 you know what? This here, this is a formula. We can use this when this happens and okay, this person, I can feel it. They need to reach out. They need it. They need a little bit of a softer touch. They need this. They, somebody who's been doing this for such a long time, gets the people game and understand.

00:53:25 And it's funny because I think she had a lot of fear about coming in as an American into a Swedish work context. And how would that be? How would that be received? And her approach be felt to be too aggressive Americans. They love it precisely because it's not Swedish because it's more warm and open and more, no bullshit. And I think Swedes in a lot of ways,

00:53:52 just they get tired of like the Swedishness of like, no, I'm going to be really polite and I'm not going to stick out and I'm just going to argue, okay. But I'm not going to get in your way. And they want that American like, Hey, get in here, I'm going to help you out. What is it that you need?

00:54:08 We got it. We've picked you up, come on. Like, they really liked that approach. And so I think it is a huge differentiator for us too, in that way that they get To Experience like embracing the Philly. Yeah, Exactly. Bringing the Philly in. Okay. Oh gosh. We are way over. I need, this could happen.

00:54:28 There's so much to talk about. You have to go cause you have like a kid to pick up or something. No, it's okay. Dennis picked up the kid. So I think because you're a year in, I mean, I kind of loved the perspective, like what happened, how you thought it would happen and what has been totally different. Good question.

00:54:50 I think one thing that was super surprising for us in the beginning was as soon as we opened our doors, we were expecting that we were going to have Coworking business and we did it. We had droves of people who came in, who wanted to join the social club. And it was amazing because their enthusiasm for wanting to be a part of something completely new,

00:55:15 a community of people come from all kinds of different countries and backgrounds, you know, that doesn't really exist in Sweden. Everybody sort of sticks with their little cliques and everything. So that was very new and very attractive for a lot of people who have maybe felt outside of some of these very insular networks that existed in Stockholm. But it was very hard pill to swallow in the sense that our social club membership is 70 bucks a month.

00:55:45 Yeah. You know, we needed co-worker You were struggling a lot. So that was a little bit difficult. And I think the Coworking business came in the fall and it started to really pick up and now represents most of our revenues Through what happened. It just Evened out. It just took longer than we expected. And I think that it created a lot of,

00:56:08 We did this, like COVID Omicron. I know Sweden was like, this isn't happening, but still Was Punched you in the face, Got December, January, February, and March. Like they were last month. Yeah. And in first year and you are just racing towards breakeven, it was devastating. Thankfully, we got in touch with somebody who somebody introduced us to him and his business is he talks to space operators,

00:56:41 not just coworking spaces, anybody with an office and his job is to look at every agreement that you have with every vendor that you have and cut your costs. So we partnered with him and he was amazing. Like I just found out yesterday, he successfully got our landlord to agree to chop up the rent payments. So instead of paying quarterly in advance,

00:57:06 which is just, that is the way business is done. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That we could pay monthly. That was huge. And that we had, we got four free months in the beginning and then we had a baited rent for 2.7, five months, and then we were supposed to pay back those in two bulk sums in June and December.

00:57:32 Okay. That is it. It was at a KC tactic. Yes. They're like, give us a little time upfront. We'll get back to you. Okay. Which was amazing. And we needed it, but then Omicron hit and we were like, guys, we're on the right track, but we need more time. So now they've agreed to push the payments to January next year.

00:57:55 So that's bought us quite a lot of time. And then we were able to cut agreements like in half. Wow. I mean, they weren't huge agreements. Like maybe it was like $2,000 a month and now it's a thousand dollars a month, but everything, everything matters, especially when you're a founder Salary And you're trying to get to break even and,

00:58:13 and all this stuff. So I think that, that was one of the biggest surprising things at the beginning. I think one of the biggest surprise, like biggest things now is, you know, I'm a marketer from the beginning. And I think that, I felt like I had to know exactly what it is that we were selling in detail from a story perspective.

00:58:38 And in a lot of ways, I felt like we had a really strong story when we started. But the clarity that I've gotten over the year that we've been open about what it is we're actually doing here is amazing. And it took a lot longer to get than I than I thought. But for me, it's so clear now. And the fun part is what that means for what we offer.

00:59:04 So it started to become really clear that like this idea of, you know, we started out calling ourselves the anti burnout space and in a lot of ways that really attracted a lot of people to us, but it also put us into a bit of a corner and it was a little bit of a negative connotation and it was focused on the stress and everything.

00:59:23 And then we started to broaden that and pivot away and started saying, no, this is about what does your meaningful life look like for you? And what are the skills and the tools that you can equip yourself with that are going to get you there because you're not going to do it by doing what you've been doing, because what we've all been doing is not sustainable.

00:59:44 So then focusing on like, well actually what it is we're offering is a toolbox that we never got anywhere else. Oh, wait, I saw that language on your website. And I was like, oh, this is so interesting because seeing, especially what you're doing is so important. I mean, I think that's what you're saying. It's just like,

01:00:03 what are the words that you use to tell somebody what you're doing? Yeah. Yeah. That's what connects with them. You know, we were selling serviced office space would matter so much, but we're not, we're selling something bigger than that. We're selling a vision. And for me, Coworking and this place was always a vehicle to something bigger for me.

01:00:24 I don't want anybody to ever be in the situation that I was in at that FinTech company feeling like they were surrounded by a lot of people who didn't have the tools and skills to be able to manage the stresses and challenge life. And that is everybody and that is everywhere. No matter what country you're at. So sort of seeing this as like, look,

01:00:42 there are a certain amount of like essential skills that we should have all learned, call it adulting one oh one, just to survive and thrive, not just in work, but in life, in general, every relationship above that, there's just this giant knowledge gap. And I see it as our mission to fill that knowledge gap. How do we give people these skills and tools and make it fit into the life that they already have?

01:01:06 The busy, crazy, stressful life that they already have. And that has led to something that has been a year in the making, even though it hasn't been something on my mind for the last year, but in the fall, we will be launching the pilot version of a 10 week self-leadership program called the transformational toolbox. And it is one module every week.

01:01:30 The 10 essential skills that every manager and leader needs to lead people in this new way of working, because the pandemic was a time of really deep introspection for it made people question, how am I spending my time and how does work fit into that? And we came out of that saying, you know what? I'm not willing to accept right Business as usual.

01:01:58 I'm not willing to accept the toxic work environment. I want an employer, a manager, whatever I spend the majority of my time doing. I want them to care about my wellbeing. I want them, I want to feel a sense of meaning and purpose. I want a sense of belonging and you're not going to get that. If you don't train managers and leaders for how to be better communicators,

01:02:27 more empathetic listeners, if you don't teach them how to properly give and receive feedback, how to empower people, how to encourage focus, how to manage the nervous system. I mean, all of these things, this is like, it's adulting, one-on-one, it's managing. He is one-on-one. But to your point, no one has those skills. It's like,

01:02:49 it seems like that sounds obvious, but not happening. And people won't believe. Right. I think that's what we've seen. People are saying. Yeah, I won't work in an environment. I want something better. So the talent will go to those skills. Yeah. And the funny thing is, is that, you know, everybody's, especially in Stockholm,

01:03:07 I don't know what the, I'm sure it's a little bit like this in big markets and states as well, but you know, everybody's, everybody wants to work for the sexy tech company, right? The one that offers like the coolest perks and benefits and everything like that, the truth is, You know what I mean? Like, oh wow. They had an M and M bar,

01:03:24 a ball pit. They, I don't know whatever the hell these companies do now. You know, I guess it used to be like Equipped to manage people. Yes. And so their day-to-day life is actually miserable. Yeah. So the funny thing is, is that any company that sort of embraces this way of working that equips managers and leaders with emotional intelligence skills,

01:03:48 where you teach them how to actually meet an employee with a sense of compassion and like, Hey, I'm here to support you. How can I help? Or yeah, I see that you're struggling with this. Why don't I help you reprioritize this or hear what you're saying? My perception is that if we had those basic skills, you couldn't work for a cement mixing factory and you would have people lining up out the door to work for you because that's what people want.

01:04:21 You don't have to be a sexy company. If you do these things, if you have a culture where you are embracing all of these different aspects of wellbeing, then you will have people lining up out the door. But if you keep doing things the way that you've been doing, you're going to be scraping by trying desperately to attract talent and feeling like it's impossible.

01:04:43 Because right now it's job seekers, market and employers, they need to step up their game. And the big reason why I am sitting here as a co-working space operator, talking about the importance of employers, caring about wellbeing is because what we have built is what I see as the future of work, what we see as the future of work. And it's something that they can do to,

01:05:07 and our big, hairy, ambitious goal is to make these skills commonplace. And in order to do that at, you need to change company culture. And that's our big, hairy mission that somehow by, by coming to land, by being a customer of land, by going through our programs, that we can have that impact of changing this at a bigger scale than you would get with a one-to-one interaction,

01:05:34 although that is still and always will be a big part of our focus. Yeah. So Lindsey, will there ever be more than one Lamb? Oh yes. Definitely. I think we're, you know, we're still, or still tightening the screws and, and still sort of refining things, but I, I really want 20, 23 to be the year of expansion.

01:06:02 I could hear some, Ooh, I think that's stale. I think, you know, or, or how do you, you know, how do you scale that? But I'm sitting here thinking more, people want a Lamb than live in Stockholm. Yeah. And it's, it's actually really nice. We get a lot of that feedback, you know?

01:06:18 Like, oh, if you, if you ever think about opening in Milan or like, when are you coming to Asheville? Or like, we need something like this in Portland. Like, I mean, we've gotten a lot of that feedback, but it is an interesting Model. I Actually, for ya, I have a call with somebody later about licensing and I think it's not easy,

01:06:37 right. To bottle, you know, your, your team, your, what you guys bring to the table, you're going to do it. But I think it's not a model. Everyone can run out and execute. It's a fairly complex model of what you're doing. It's yes and no. The truth is, is that I think, I think it has so much to do with feeling brave enough,

01:07:01 to be human and be authentic and see people and not just see a customer, but see a person and see a potential relationship. We all have the capacity for that. We are all infinitely capable of connecting with people, look at our relationships with our family and our friends. Everybody has it in that. The question is, do you feel brave enough in a business setting to embrace that,

01:07:35 to say, I am here for you. I see you. I hear you. I genuinely want to help. I genuinely want to understand what it is that you need and see how I can help you meet your own need. That's something that we're all capable of. And I mean the model, I mean, the model you can repeat, I mean,

01:08:00 I'm hoping that we're going to make it a lot simpler when we figure out on this works, this works, this works. Okay. We strip that out. It is a matter of understanding, the amount of staff that you need, the competence, they need to have the type of space you need to support it. And the type of customer that you want to attract beyond that,

01:08:22 it is about tapping into that very human part of all of us that wants to connect with somebody else. And if that's the jumping off point for how you run your business, then the truth is I don't think that what we're doing is all that special. It's special because more people don't do it. And I really hope that more people choose that path because what it gives to you as an operator and a business owner,

01:08:52 there's no words for it. The testimonials we get from our customers, I almost feel embarrassed about repeating them because they're, so if usage they're so incredible, it's stuff like you've changed my life. I have been trying to heal this stuff for years and being in your space and being a part of your community has changed my life. I wish this had existed in my life 10 years ago.

01:09:20 I can't imagine my life without land. All that requires is being authentic and everybody is capable of that. So you're saying it's worth it. A hundred percent Of Y far the best job I have ever had. I mean, I like live and breathe Lamb, which is not a great exam. I really should like have a life, but I love what we're building so much.

01:09:51 I love this community and all of what we've created this, we've given people an opportunity to have this incredibly rich life, you know, like that. No more of the, let me still a little bit of the boring routines, but you know, a life with more joy and experience and creativity and connecting with other people. Like I would not give this up for anything.

01:10:18 I mean, there are days do not get me wrong. We had our sink backed up at home like last week and we had a plumber come in and I was just, I was sitting there and I was looking at this guy, like plunging the hell out of this thing, trying to get the blockage up. And I sat down and I was like being a plumber.

01:10:36 That looks nice. I know it's so simple. Just go home simple. Yeah. Maybe I should just give it all up and be a plumber. But then I come in here and I get to give a speech about this new program we're doing. Or I talked to a member or I meet one of our coaches and, you know, we put on an event and people go without,

01:11:02 and then I'm like, I'm back in it. I'm like, yeah, no, of course there's nothing else that would want to do. And I think that that enthusiasm is pretty infectious. Like everybody on our team is like, this is the greatest job I have. And they're all using their superpowers and doing what they're great at and doing it in a way that is in corporate.

01:11:24 And isn't in a like square little box. And that gives them the opportunity to connect with people every day. I mean, that's incredible. That is the best feeling that there is. Okay. Well, speaking of incredible, you have shared a lot of incredible insight and I cannot wait to continue watching your journey and yes, we need a Lamb in Burlingame,

01:11:48 California. Please put us on your list. I will. Yes. I'm super grateful to have met you and to have been a little part of your journey and thank you for sharing your one-year anniversary with us today. And we'll let you get back to celebrating. Yes. I mean, so happy to be here. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

01:12:10 And I mean, it just has to say like we would not be here without doing Coworking Startup School. Like it was such an invaluable part of our journey in understanding exactly what we were getting into and how to structure it in a way where we were poised for, for growth, appropriate growth. Even though I was very optimistic that we back, a lot of your advice is extremely prescient.

01:12:32 I really do believe that doing Coworking Startup School is a huge reason why we're here today and why I am the operator that I am with the knowledge I have. It has given me an incredible amount of confidence to understand what it is we're trying to build them and also have the backing to understand how to make decisions and what decisions are important. And when they come down the pike to sort of know,

01:12:57 this is the right direction to go. So thank you. Because without it, we would be poking around in the dark. It takes a village. Yes, it does. Yes. All right, Lindsay, thank you so much. We look forward to having you back on and hearing more. Thank you for spending so much time with us today. Thank you Jamie.

01:13:18 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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