274. Case Study: Dana Berggren’s Coworking Portfolio Goes From 4,000 square feet to 24,000 square feet in Las Vegas
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TRANSCRIPTION
274. Case Study: Dana Berggren’s Coworking Portfolio Goes From 4,000 square feet to 24,000 square feet in Las Vegas
00:00:02 Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast, where every week I keep you updated on the latest trends and how-tos in Coworking. I owned and operated Coworking spaces for eight years and then served as the executive director of the Global Workspace Association for five years. And today I work with hundreds of operators and community managers every month, allowing me to bring you thought-provoking operator case studies and inspirational interviews with industry thought leaders to help you confidently stay on top of what's important and what you can apply to your own role in the Coworking industry.
00:00:44 Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo. Thank you for joining me today. First, we need to give a shout-out to our most recently certified Coworking Community Manager Malu from Hayvn Coworking in Darien, Connecticut. Congrats. Malu. Malu has been in the Community Manager University since day one, and she's more in an operations role,
00:01:11 so I think she just did her official certification, but she's been in for, oh my gosh, I think we're gonna be, Hold on December 19th, 2021. 20 to 21. 3 years. That's crazy. That's totally crazy. So Malu, you should probably get another certification for most senior member of Community Manager University. If you are listening, we owe you one. So this week's interview is with Dana Berggren.
00:01:39 Dana is in Las Vegas and Dana opened her first Coworking space in 2017 at 4,000 square feet and just expanded into 20,000 square feet in December of last year. But I think they officially opened the doors a couple months into 2022. So she's now operating two locations. She has added community managers to both locations and is filling up her second location. She also is a commercial real estate broker in the Las Vegas market.
00:02:14 So she's wearing lots of hats and I reached out to her, she has gone. So her Community Manager has gone through our program and she was in our management agreement course and I knew a little bit about her business and had met her in person a few years back and she'll reach out occasionally and we'll chit chat about the business. So I wanted to share her story because I think lots of you listening are thinking about a second location and what to consider,
00:02:43 how to structure your agreement. And I forgot live to ask her about her agreement on the second location. I do think it's a lease, but she knows the owner of the building, so I should do a follow-up with her on that. So she is a little more intuitive about her second location and the numbers. Then you usually hear me talking about she went for a second-generation space on both her locations,
00:03:09 which can be really, really favorable because construction costs are so high right now. The challenge is making sure that the office sizes on your second-generation, second-gen space work for Coworking, right? A lot of times we like smaller office sizes or we need to be able to confirm that we'll have market demand for team spaces. So three-person offices. So her average office size is 200 square feet,
00:03:35 which is gigantic for Coworking, but as she says, not so gigantic for Las Vegas for people like their space. So she's making it work. She also has an atrium, which we were joking I think on one of the recent Flex Uncensored podcast episodes. We were talking about how atriums are like a death march for Coworking space. So a little bit can be a little bit challenging,
00:03:59 but she's making it work. She loves the atrium for entertaining guests and meeting room folks who are using her training room or her conference rooms and it also can double as an event space. So she's figuring it out. But I just caution be very careful about second gen spaces and make sure you run your numbers carefully if you don't have as much experience as Dana does with commercial office space and with running a Coworking space.
00:04:25 So without further ado, I'm gonna jump into my interview with Dana. Welcome. I am sitting here today with Dana Berggren, who is, she's lots of things. Dana, I'm excited to talk about all of your hats most relevant to our audience. The owner of the Coop Coworking space, which now has two locations in the Las Vegas market and she's also a commercial real estate broker.
00:04:52 And Dana, you are like under your own shingle for the real estate business. So I'm looking forward to hearing about that. So okay, tell us a little bit about your real estate background and then your Coworking story, how you got to do Coworking and I don't even think maybe we talked about this. I was thinking we met in New York, right?
00:05:14 But the first time we met in person at the GWA conference we Did. We met in New York in, was it October of 2017? Yes. And let's see what firstly I have, I have Kelly here really quickly. She has to come and say hi. Kelly was part of the Coworking Community Manager. Oh Yes. Hi Kelly. Good to you.
00:05:38 She's taken a picture. Anyway, so yes, I met you in October of was first GWA and how I interesting commercial real broker. I've licensed 7 25 years, I've had my real estate license, which to me is just, It's wild. Yes. Mind blowing how it goes so fast. So, so I used to be on the board of naapp,
00:06:10 which is a commercial real estate organization. And as I'm planning the opening of the first Coworking location, I start following you and your Everything Coworking podcast. And it turns out that the G w A was postponed, it was supposed to be in Florida because of another hurricane, and that it was postponed and that you were merging it with May, which to me was like world colliding.
00:06:42 Right? So I got the chance to meet you at the GWA in Brooklyn, New York, and I remember fangirling and telling you that I was fangirling because here you are, CrossFit, we all know you do CrossFit and you look amazing and you're wearing a red jumpsuit. Oh, that's right. You're just, I love that jumpsuit. I remember that. And you are facilitating this meeting.
00:07:13 And I was just fangirling because I think I like many other people, we listen to you religiously. You get us through so many difficult times with, you know, planning our spaces and you know, we can be on cruise control for so long and then something happens, we hit like a little blip or something and it's like, I gotta go back to Everything Coworking.
00:07:36 Cause I know there's an episode on that. So just, I wanna thank you for having me on. This is such a huge honor as someone who's, you know, been following you for so many years and you know how nice it was to meet you and then to have gone to, you know, many conferences since then and you know, get to meet people in person who,
00:08:00 you know, we listen to and follow. So yeah, so that's where we met. But I guess the longer version of the story, So I got my real estate license in 1997 in Chicago. I'm a native of Chicago boy. That's right. We had that in common cuz I spent 15 years there and I remember talking about that. Yeah, Yeah.
00:08:19 So much, so much in common. And so moved to Las Vegas in 2002 since I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. I lived in the city and it was, I was about to get married and it's like, you know, do we stay in Chicago and you know, raised the family or do we move? And it was like, well,
00:08:40 let's try something different. Let's go somewhere for a few years. And now here I am in Vegas 20 years later and just really loving everything about Vegas. So I've been in commercial real estate since, since 1997. I've been in real estate and then moved to Vegas and been doing real estate. I worked in corporate commercial real estate. I was most recently at Kushman in Wakefield.
00:09:08 And then I went to Avis and Young, which I know you, you know, I had realized that and I saw that on your LinkedIn. Yeah. Yep. You have the Avis and Young on people and Avis and young people on. And so I was there in 2014. I left corporate commercial real estate and I knew, you know, I,
00:09:26 I, once I decided I was gonna stay on my own, I needed to find an office for myself. And the concept of Coworking was just starting. And I just really resonated with that, you know, community, you know, type of feel. That that was, that was one of the parts I liked about corporate, commercial real estate. There was a lot of it that I don't like,
00:09:48 and some of it that I do like was the sitting around the table and talking about who's working on what, you know, who's out there and just, you know, the, the small talk with people. So once I decided to stay on my own in real estate, it was like, well, I need to office somewhere. And I looked around at some of the options that were in Las Vegas at the time,
00:10:09 and it was either, you know, too corporate and closed off or it just, you, some places were full, some weren't in the ideal location. So was kinda it Pretty quiet in 2014. So we hosted the GWA conference in Vegas in 2016, and it was like premier Regis, and then one like independent operator. And it was mostly right executive sweet seat versus Coworking at the time.
00:10:37 Yeah, Yeah, yeah. So yeah, Las Vegas is, is a unique, you know, animal in that respect, which is what I, I like about it. It's, it's different to me. It's different than anywhere else. And I can go anywhere else and always be excited to come back to Las Vegas. So that's what I, you know,
00:10:56 kind of I set out to do was open up a place where I wanna work, where I feel comfortable I can space with some other cool business owners. And that's started planning seriously for the, in about 2015. Hey, we'll be right back. I just wanna share a couple of opportunities from our show sponsors. As a Coworking space owner, you are always looking to provide more resources and programming for your members,
00:11:36 right? How about access to financial education and even investment opportunities? Well, Noumena is the number one community for freelancers and founders looking to grow their businesses. So Noumena and Coworking spaces go together like peanut butter and jelly. We found that over 75% of our community already work in or are seeking out a Coworking space. We'd like to help our members connect with you and find your space anywhere in the world.
00:12:09 So join our Coworking space directory to be featured in our community and give your members access to a whole library of entrepreneurial resources and financial education programming all at no cost to you. By the way, visit noumena.pro/ Coworking to fill out an interest form. That's N O U M E N A pro slash Coworking. We will include that link of the show notes for anybody who's walking around and doesn't have time to write it down.
00:12:45 You can find it in the show notes for this episode at Everything Coworking dot com. Noumena Financing the Future of work. The amount of opportunity in the Coworking industry is absolutely mind-blowing. It's projected to grow by 13 billion in the next five years. Just staggering numbers now you've probably seen Success Magazine. It's hugely popular and focuses on professional development, personal development and business coaching while they're branching out with their own franchised Coworking business called Success Space.
00:13:25 It's actually a brilliant franchise model with three revenue streams recurring and on-demand revenue from Coworking memberships, a full-service cafe and success-certified business coaching for small business owners to executives. To learn more about this exciting new Coworking business opportunity, check it out@successcowork.space, that's success cowork.space. We will link that up in the show notes as well. Tell me about your space Searchie lease,
00:13:59 that building, I can't remember your yeah. Structure. Yep. So the first location in Summerland, we are in 4,000 square feet and that's in Summerland, which is about a 20 minute drive west of strip. And originally I was gonna open downtown, but just the timing of it didn't work downtown. And the more people I put the feelers out to,
00:14:23 because what was at the time, it would build your community. You need to build your community first and then, you know, find the space. But I don't know, for me, every, I kept putting it out to people, you know, hey, who wants to share an office with me? And they're like, Where is it I'm like's in my head right now?
00:14:41 Right? So it was just one of those things where it's like, you know what, you can only plan it and plan it. I can only listen to so many podcasts, right? But it's, then it's, it's like, you know what, we gotta jump in and do it. So being a commercial real estate broker, I know exactly what landlords are looking for.
00:15:01 When I was looking for space, so to be the tenant out there looking for space, it was like, okay, what's your history? How long have you been doing Coworking? Let me see the financials, the performa, the, all of that stuff. And it was, you know, one of my very good friends, he wanted to buy a building and he said,
00:15:20 How about you find a building to buy and I'll put you in there as the tenant. So the first one came about where I found the building to buy and I invested money in the building as well. So now I was part owner of the building and I was the tenant. So we were, it was a four tenant building, so about a 10,000 square foot building of which I occupied roughly 42% of the building.
00:15:49 And then we had a few other tenants, you know, separate entities adjacent to us. And this is a single story garden style building, which is typical of what you'll find in Las Vegas. You know, that's more of the, the suburban kind of, you know, feel to it. So where you park your car and just walk up to the door.
00:16:09 So yeah, so that, we found that building in November of 16 and started that we, we closed on it and started the construction and we opened about February or March of 2017. So it's been almost six years in Summerland. So I, yeah, I love that you shared that because we talk a lot on the podcast about, you know, real estate structure and how important it is,
00:16:39 which, you know, as a broker and your approach is a creative way to get into part of the building ownership. Yeah. So you got kind of lucky, you had a friend who you know, said, Yeah, let's do this. Let's, and then you bought some equity and without having to come up with the equity to buy the entire building on your own and finance that and then became a tenant.
00:16:59 So there's a lot of different ways to do it and your new location has a even like different sort of creative structure. So, okay, so 4,000 feet, what did the mix look like in terms of office and open space in the original location? The original location was very office intensive. It was a former real estate office when we bought the building.
00:17:23 So it was a lot of offices, it was very dark, it was a lot of, you know, tans and browns, you know, reminiscent of the mid 2000, you know, construction in Las Vegas. So I had a couple of friends and again, just being in commercial real estate, having some of my furniture friends and, you know,
00:17:45 designers and architects and stuff, just take a look at it and it's like, like, well if you eliminated that whole back row of offices along the windows, you can do some open space, you know? And so that was really the, the planning that went into it. New carpet, new paint, we did, you know, a lot of the grays and,
00:18:02 and whites and, you know, just brightened it up a bit. And a lot of what I did and continue to do as well is feature some local components to it. So we've got some local furniture makers here in town, some local artists we serve locally roasted coffee. So for me, you know, being in a city where a lot of people are from other places Yeah.
00:18:29 In Las Vegas, right? We've all, you know, a lot, I do have a lot of local friends, but a lot of people come from other places. So to have that local feel to it means a lot to me. So, and to support local businesses, so where we can, I mean obviously the mass desks and, you know,
00:18:47 the sit stands and, you know, all of that, those are gonna be more of the, you know, mass produced kinda stuff. But our conference tables, you know, the artwork and stuff where we can, we feature local people because it just, it tells a story and it, and it supports our community. Yeah. And so at the time when you originally thought downtown,
00:19:08 you know, you made the point, like sometimes you just have to start and you don't have all the answers, but people were telling you suburbs, they didn't wanna be on the strip. So you, you had that due diligence, like right location, Right. At the time, you know, downtown Las Vegas was more of the, you know,
00:19:26 for a lot of attorneys who need to be downtown by the courthouse, you've got your Fremont area now, the up and coming arts district and stuff like that. But, you know, at the time it just, you know, the more people I would talk to about, you know, downtown, they're like, Well, if you do it in Summerland,
00:19:47 were in, they, you know, And then I, I'm starting to think about it too because, you know, I'm like, wait, my kids, my kids are in Summerland, my kids are in school in Summerland, so yeah, I wanna work near the house. I wanna be, you know, close by to where if I need to scoot out and pick up a kid,
00:20:06 you know, that then I'm nearby to do that. So it's, it was more conveniently located to be in Summerland for the first location. Okay. So fast forward, you survive a pandemic. I Don't know how, Yeah, whatever your definition of surviving is, I'm here. You're I know, that's kinda how I felt when I saw we were just at the GWA conference,
00:20:31 Wait, the week before last. Yeah. I kind of got that feeling from some folks like, well, we're here. Yeah. There we're just exactly putting that behind us and well, so although, talk a little bit about what, what was your relationship like? So you had some equity in the building, but you still have rent to pay.
00:20:49 So is that, Yeah. Is that still kind of like a negotiation with the building owner who's your friend, presumably still Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. He, yeah, he's a a, a very good friend and yeah, but it's still, at the end of the day, it's business, right? There's investors and they want their return. So yeah,
00:21:07 I do have equity in the building, but the equity is tied to how much I'm paying in rent. So it's just, you know, that scenario has worked thus far. And listening to some of your podcasts as well, you know, I did listen to your recap and I was not able to make it to the latest DWA in Frisco, but just listening to the takeaways from it and the different structures,
00:21:32 you know, it's just every situation is so unique, as you've told me when I've reached out to you many times for advice, you know, like, Jamie, I need to talk to you. You know, every situation is unique. So, you know, can you take down, you know, with this new coup location that we opened, it's almost 20,000 square feet.
00:21:55 Do you have the wherewithal to take down a 20,000 square foot building? Do you wanna do a straight lease management agreements? I mean, there's so many different ways to look at it. And all of them have, you know, pros and cons. I'm looking, you know, I'm listening to, Yeah. And I'm also a member of your management agreement course.
00:22:17 I've sent, you know, my members, my staff through manager university and I cuz because I appreciate you putting out that content and you, you give so much, you know, information that my pleasure to, to be a part of and support all the things, the initiatives that you do in order to make, you know, the, you know,
00:22:40 Coworking industry better. So, you know, you can look at doing management agreement, but you know, with that it's, you know, now you've got a partner, right? And someone who's gone through a real life divorce and you know, business relationships Yeah. That have failed and stuff like that. It's just like you really have to plan for that stuff.
00:23:05 You might start off with the best of intentions and you know, everyone is all, but then, you know, people start to get their own ideas of things be, but then on the flip side, with a lease, it's, it's all on, you Totally trade off. It's, which yeah, different risk isn't necessarily financial. It's like you said,
00:23:29 like sometimes it's the relationships and, and how, yeah, how intertwined do you wanna get And pandemic or not. The rent is still due, the mortgages still do. I mean it just, you know, all of that stuff. So it's just really, you know, just aligning yourself with good people and hoping that, you know, you can work things out.
00:23:48 So talk about kind of your mindset in terms of going from 4,000 feet, you survive a pandemic and now you're in 20,000 square feet, Right. In addition, you still have the original space. So Yeah. What was it that made you kind of take the leap and what were some of the things you were thinking about getting into such a big space?
00:24:08 Well it was, I had been wanting to expand the coop, but it was always, we talk ourselves outta doing things, right? You're like, I've got this one space, I'm running it, it's so much work we're going through, you know, shuts and you know, we don't really, you feel like out of control. So it's like,
00:24:26 do I just, you know, hunker down and keep doing this one? Or you know, if the goal is to expand and to bring flexible office to the community at large, then you know, we have to seek out these opportunities. So my friend who is president of nabo, National Association of Women Business Owners, you Know, you are so like active in the community.
00:24:53 I was looking at your LinkedIn, I was like, this girl is like always doing something. I'm so tired. Need Vacation. We'll have to talk about that afterwards. It's better, but it's better than the alternative, right? And it's that to me, again, that's the best part of Coworking is, is it's creating the community. That's, that's why I do all the stuff.
00:25:21 I went from the board, I was on the board of C cm, which is commercial real estate to naop commercial real estate. And then when I went out on my own, I found that my values of a woman business owner were more aligned in line with National Association of Women business Owners. Yeah. But I, my Coworking space is co-ed. I love working with men.
00:25:44 I have two older brothers. So I just, you know, it's just for me as a woman business owner, I just thought that that organization resonated for me. And I met my friend Sonya, and she needed new office space at the time and she had said, you know, she wanted to be in the southwest part of Vegas. And so we just really,
00:26:09 I said, well, I wanna expand the coop. So we set out to find a building and she runs mastermind groups and stuff like that. So she's very space Yeah. Business coaching and, and helping, you know, people. And so the Coop Summerland has one small conference room, one large conference room, which seats about eight 10 around the table and then a phone room.
00:26:36 And that's, it's really, you know, when you're in 4,000 square feet and like you've on your podcast, you are really, you know, kind of landlocked there. Yeah. There's not a whole lot more you can expand and do. So, while it's a space for number makes me feel that monthly nut feels a whole lot better. Yeah. It's like,
00:26:58 okay, well if we wanna offer people Now here we've got three phone rooms, we've got two small conference rooms, we have two large conference rooms, and then we have a classroom. So those have been renting. Unbelievable. And that's, and we have a large atrium space too, when you walk into our entryway. And that has also served as event Space.
00:27:25 Event space. I can picture that from your layout. That's great. Yeah. And it's just interesting hearing, you know, your previous podcast, I think with Geo and Nick, you had talked about, you know, Efficiency and how atri are like a total disaster. I'm An atrium and it works. So it's just, it's one of those things,
00:27:47 right? It's like people can opine about something in their experience. But I think all of our experiences are unique. I think it's really operator driven in so many ways. So Right. Nick's proforma experience is mostly from iwg, which is Regis, right? So they're, I mean, they really have kind of a formula for their layouts and, and they would,
00:28:12 they don't do events. I would guess they don't, they just don't. I wonder if any of them have even like a classroom training style space, because that's not their model, right? They sell offices. Right. But if, so, it's really about your experience as an owner and a little intuition, right? Like, what do I think I can make happen here?
00:28:34 So totally Right. And I, and I think that being able to, because, so we moved into an office in December, we closed on this building, December of 21. We closed on this, you know, roughly 20,000 square foot building. We did some modifications to the building because again, it was built, you know, oh 5 0 6. So it's got,
00:28:56 you know, needed some updating. But I have found in my experience that it's, you know, you wanna give people the nice new fresh space, but you can't go overboard on that stuff. Well, when I hear you talk in your podcasts about, you know, 1 50, 200 a foot, I like, who is paying for that and what's the payback on that?
00:29:21 So if you wanna get up and running and opening immediately, you know, you do what you can and just, I guess, what does it build the plane as you're flying it? It's just, you know, and, and hopefully you've got some flexibility. Like this office here was built by a real estate developer. So some of the finishes in here are super high end and beautiful.
00:29:45 We're close to, so, you know, we've got larger offices here, Which I was worried. So are those going? They're going, you know, some people it's, they're like, I just need a tiny little room and a door. So what we did, we took one of our upstairs rooms that we were gonna make a podcast room and we turned that into a small office and it rented.
00:30:12 So we lo that was able, that made us able to capture a lower price point. Yeah. And then we rented that and then I took one of my phone rooms, the three phone rooms that we have. I took one with a huge window, but it is still a tiny office. And we have that one available for day path users who want an office.
00:30:32 Like A day office. A day office. And then that one's available too. So it's really just three reconfiguring and being flexible for those needs that come in. I can't run. I think you had said something, or maybe it was, was it Geo who had said something about taking 160 square foot office and just running a wall down it and making it to 80 square footers?
00:30:58 I mean, you know, you've gotta run a wall down the middle. Now you've got two doors, two framing, two, all of that stuff. And Even doors with construction costs today I have some members, somebody put in a door, I think it was $20,000, just put the door in. Right. Wow. It's crazy. So you really,
00:31:16 yeah, you have to do that stuff early and let it, and to your point, do you have to move hvac, do you have to move sprinklers? Like what else do you have to do? Yep, Exactly. Exactly. So it's just one of those things where it's, you just learn that lesson from the first time around is that it's not gonna perfect.
00:31:34 And people who are looking for, you know, you know, some people are just the, what's the dollar per square foot? What's the size of the office and what's the cost? They just care about what's inside those, those four walls. And then there's other people who, they wanna belong somewhere. Yeah. They want that sense of community. And so it's really,
00:31:58 I'm curious as a commercial real estate broker, so I mean, you really, it's not, I don't talk to too many brokers who are also operators. So you have a pretty unique approach. Do you divert the conversation when it starts focusing on square feet? Like 1:00 AM I paying because the rate they're paying for the square feet is high, Right. Compared to market rent.
00:32:21 Do, how do you handle that conversation? Well, it's gotten a lot easier now, the first go around in 20 16, 20 17, you know, when you're trying to sell, you know, offices to people or rent offices to people, it was just like, wait for how big of a space? And you're like, well, well you're also sharing in the cost of the common area of the utilities.
00:32:44 It's a flat fee. It's the, you know, you've even Ready all the Yeah, Yeah. And some people, you know, some people they, they don't care. They'll just, they, they'll rent an office in, you know, if an attorney or a CPA just has some extra offices, you know, they'll just go in there and Park forever.
00:33:02 Yeah, Yeah. They'll do their thing. And you know, part of me is, you know, I'm a, I'm, I'm an extrovert. I like meeting people. I like creating the relationship in both of my Coworking spaces. I have offices available to me and I sit in the open space all the time. You know, it's the coop south.
00:33:20 People smile, they walk in and look and see if I'm there. Cuz now I run between the two Locations. Right, right. Yeah. So they're looking to see if I'm, you know, perched my, you know, cozy spot on the couch in the atrium. But that's, to me, that's where the good stuff happens, right? Yeah.
00:33:35 That's where the people keep coming back because it's, you know, they come in and they know that there's gonna be a little conversation. I get zero work done. Right. I was, I was like, And you get nothing done while you're sitting there. Exactly. But, but just, you know, the conversations and the, you know, the talking and you know,
00:33:55 we, I bring in breakfast each, you know, telling people too. I bring in breakfast in Summerland. It's the first Tuesday morning of each month at South, it's the third Tuesday morning, it's called Feed at the Coop. Nice. And we use one of our members as a catering company. And I was using a different place to provide the food.
00:34:18 And then when I had met this, you know, catering company, they signed up for a membership and it was like, well I do this breakfast and it's supporting those who support us. And you know, that's just a, you know, classic example of of, you know, Coworking. It's being a part of that, that community. So,
00:34:37 you know, some people really like the feed at the coop and talk to each other, get to know each other on a more personal level. And other people, they'll grab a plate and go back into their office and other people won't show up at all. But it's interesting when you, you know, community events and stuff like that, people wanna know what you do.
00:34:57 You do community events, you do this and then you're like, are you gonna attend? Totally. But maybe they show up, they just, it's optionality. They just wanna know they can if they want to. Right. It's so human behavior is so interesting and unpredictable. It is. Hey, I just wanted to jump in really quickly before we continue with our discussion.
00:35:17 If you're working on opening a Coworking space, I wanna invite you to join me for my free masterclass. Three behind the Scene Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space. If you're working on opening a Coworking space. I wanna 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 includes some q and a.
00:35:41 If you'd like to join me, you can register at Everything Coworking dot com slash masterclass. If you already have a Coworking space, I wanna make sure you know about Community Manager University Community. Manager University is IT training and development platform for community managers. And it can be for owner operators. It has content training resources, templates from day one to general manager.
00:36:07 The platform includes many courses that cover the major buckets of the Community Manager role from community management operations, sales and marketing, finance and leadership. The content is laid out in a graduated learning path. So the Community Manager can identify what content is most relevant to them depending on their experience and kind of jump in from there. We provide a live brand new training every single month for the Community Manager group.
00:36:35 We also host a live q and a call every single month so that the Community Manager can work through any challenges that they're having or opportunities get ideas from other community managers, build their own peer network. We also have a private Slack group for the group. So if you're interested in learning more, you can go to Everything Coworking dot com slash Community Manager.
00:37:00 Okay. So I wanna just revisit your larger offices. So in general, was your approach with the building that, like do you have a fixed price for each office? How are you sort of managing like the imperfect size? Like sure. You know what I mean? Like, if you were to build from scratch, maybe you'd have 10, you know,
00:37:20 90 square foot offices, but you don't, they're, some of 'em are bigger, right? Some of, Yeah. How are you kinda approaching that? Well, and that's the thing, cause I think about it all the time. I could go into a shell building and build from scratch. Yeah. But I wouldn't even know what to do because it's,
00:37:37 you know, I don't know what that perfect size looks like because it, Summer Lynn is totally different South. It's like every space, people who have multiple spaces now I'm sure can attest that each space has its own personality. So I wouldn't even know, you know, what if I had a blank slate I that, to me it's probably more comforting to get an existing building and try to get a good deal on that building and then just figure out how to make that work.
00:38:09 So my offices, I would say average about two square feet, Which is a huge office for Coworking. It's funny, The market. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you know, when I was in, when I went to Brooklyn and I was flying back to Vegas after your conference back in 2017, I went into a Coworking space. I cannot for the,
00:38:34 I think it, it was maybe Commons or something, it was in, it was in Brooklyn and I went into the Coworking space and the private offices were maybe six inches around a desk. And I'm thinking this is a private office and, and then you're in Vegas, which is like the open, you know, the wild west out here. And people like their space,
00:38:58 Their space, you know, different. Yeah, Yeah. So it's just different. So the, but yeah, I, I think we're, we are a good size for a lot of people. The 200 square feet is definitely larger than they need. So you know, that's why we introduced that smaller office kind of concept. But then that's too small.
00:39:20 So I don't know if you'll ever be a perfect fit for everybody, but you know, so the 200 square foot office can hold roughly, you know, three, four people. Some people cram and more than that. And then we also give people the flexibility in pricing. So we, where in Summerland we were more of a month to month type of situation here.
00:39:45 People wanted to lock in for a longer term. So we do, you know, the month to month is gonna be a higher price point and then we do the six month term and a 12 month with discount. You know, so it gives people, I find that if you give people more choices instead of just saying, this is what's available, take it or leave it.
00:40:05 I think if you give people choices of what they can do and how they can use this space, then I think that that works better. So you mentioned that the Vegas commercial market is still pretty spicy. Can you talk about Yeah. What, what's it, it's an interesting market. I don't know. I've been to Vegas obviously, but don't know much about like what is like the live there or what like the office behavior is.
00:40:31 Well It's amazing. It's amazing to live here. I must tell you, as you can see behind me, we're pretty much sunny skies all the time. Wait, What's the temperature today? Today, I think we're in the low to mid nineties. So we're finally sub a hundred. Yeah. Ok. For me, I like it. I'm from Chicago and if I never see the snow again,
00:40:51 I'll be fine. That's fine. Yeah. And Then anywhere outside of, you know, the Vegas area, you got the humidity. I've been to Dallas before and where It's 95 and human right. And you're, you're pointing to your hair and there's never a good hair day in Dallas. Yeah. This hair, Yeah, this hair prefers the desert.
00:41:14 So anyway, but the Vegas market, you know, we're definitely seeing on the, you know, the residential side probably like most other places is, is softening a bit with higher interest rates. But what we saw during, you know, the shutdown was that people were coming here from California in drove. So our, I have two friends from, they were from my CrossFit gym who moved to Vegas.
00:41:42 Yeah. It's, it's a really good life out here. It's beautiful. The climb at the mountains, everything. It's, you know, to me very livable. And it's, it's really become, my whole family lives out here now. So the whole, you know, siblings, my mom, everyone, everyone moved out here and it's really, it's really become the land of opportunity.
00:42:06 It really, there's a lot of opportunity out here if you're willing to work hard and, and meet the people and become ingrained in the community. So the commercial market is still super strong. There's still a lot of investment money out there. So, you know, it's, it's softened a little bit. I'm hearing from my friends in the corporate commercial real estate,
00:42:28 you know, based on rates that some of, you know, some of these deals are going sideways or there's some re trading happening on some of the larger portfolio deals. But it's still, I mean it's, they cannot build building fast enough. Construction costs are so high. So yeah, the, the commercial real estate market and it just is a,
00:42:50 a mention of Michael Abrams who has been a recent addition into my life through you and just a wonderful source of information being on calls with him and hearing him talk about, you know, the CBDs, right? The central business district getting, you know, decimated and people leaving cuz now they can go wherever they want now that, you know, more people are remote and stuff like that in Vegas.
00:43:16 I mean, our buildings, the new construction buildings, they're prelease, they're, you Know, super interesting. I saw a report, I was on the Avis and Young, I was just grabbing their URL for something, for a podcast for my show notes. And, and they had a report about C occupancy and I clicked on it. And the numbers are still really awful compared to February, 2020.
00:43:41 Like down, I think like the median or the average, I can't remember what they posted, was almost 60%, like less pandemic, which is crazy. So Vegas is not really, what, what do you think drives that? Why do you think downtown Vegas is doing well relative to other major cities? I think again, it's just the, the Flight to I guess quality of life.
00:44:08 I mean, I, since I, I haven't really lived anywhere other than Chicago and Vegas really. So for me it's, you know, I think to myself, well you know what I, if I went back to Chicago, to the city itself, you know, am I living in a high-rise building? Am I in elevators with people? Am I,
00:44:29 you know, you've got your weather element and you know, stuff like that. You know, do we need to be in this building? So I kind of like how people are talking about that hub and spoke model where maybe headquarters is still, you know, in the metropolitan area. Yeah. So do you think it's HQs that are opening in Vegas,
00:44:51 like you mentioned kinda strong construction and pre-leasing. Who is that do you think? Well it's also, I, I think our, the tax climate of Nevada, you know, we're a no state income tax in our, you know, governor's office of economic development. They're just really, they've always been very active in getting people from the high tax state to Vegas.
00:45:14 Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, that makes sense. So the pandemic probably accelerated that a little bit, which yeah, makes complete sense. So, okay, I wanna go back to your 4,000 feet to 20,000 feet. So what was it that, you know, kind of made you take the leap and were there, you kind of did a similar preexisting building not starting from scratch.
00:45:37 Any other considerations like, okay, now that I've lived with this 4,000 foot space, here's what I want, you know, out of the next location? Well, I think it was really just knowing, and from listening to, you know, the podcasts of, of the, the wiser ones who've come before me of, you know, really you,
00:45:59 you have to scale in order to make that profit. So in Summerland, you know, in 4,000 square feet we do well, but there's not a whole lot more to go from there, right? There's only so many offices you can rent in conference room bookings. So the larger you go, the more options you have with the space. And it was,
00:46:21 you know, finding, you know, a building that we can grow the space in and just putting your faith in the fact that if you build it, they will come. So, you know, the first go around was really difficult, the ramping up period, you know, just trying to explain to people what is Coworking, what is flexible office space.
00:46:48 So now that a lot of people are educated for better or worse about Coworking and, and the players in the Coworking space, you know, now more people are seeking, you know, Coworking flexible office and just I guess that, you know, goes to how you position yourself, you know, all the topics that you cover, right? How to best position yourself for,
00:47:11 you know, the incoming traffic or you know, for the interest in Coworking space. So yeah, it was just one of those, you know, opportunities that came up where, you know, we were looking at maybe an 8,000 square foot space of was like a unit within a larger building. So now you've gotta deal with common areas. Yeah. And sharing that with other people.
00:47:37 And then already you're, you know, you just, you already see that you are out of space. So like as a, as a real estate broker and someone who worked for office developers, people would buy like a little office condo thinking this is all the space I need. But then you realize once you move into it, you've already outgrown it.
00:47:59 So it was just, We're really bad at predicting, right? We're bad at predicting. So the i, the whole flexibility, the ability to expand is one of the big benefits for of Coworking. Yeah. And I've, and I've been to Coworking conferences. I think I was in one in Toronto, Juicy, which yeah, shout out to Liz and Stormy as well.
00:48:23 I was at a, a conference and they were talking about the build out of the space and maximizing what you have. I was like, lost my train of thought there on that one. The, let's see, as I was giving the shout out, Hold on. I know I'm going backwards too. Wait, we were talking about more space, what you do with the space.
00:48:49 I might have lost it too. Sorry. It'll, it'll come back. It'll, Yes, I'm sure it'll come back. I know Cause I'm trying to, I'm trying to give shout outs to people. No, that's funny. It'll, I'm sure it'll come back as soon as we start talking about something else. Okay. The atrium. What type of events have you done in the atrium?
00:49:07 Okay, so the atrium space we have, you know what's nice about the atrium space is that it gives the entry space to the rest of the office. So walk into the atrium space and it's like a nice reception area for other people. And then you can move back into the classroom or into one of the other conference room spaces as well. So the atrium space,
00:49:33 we have it outfitted for couches tables. We've got a custom table that we had a local person make here. And so we, you know, have that, you know, flexibility up there for people to use the space that opens out onto a beautiful patio. So you can do like an indoor outdoor kind of thing. We were gonna do a coffee cart,
00:49:59 like coffee bar kind of concept to It. That's right. I forgot about that. Yeah. And so we were gonna do that concept, but then the further we got down the road with that, it was like you have to the floor and plumbing run in plumbing. Yeah. Or if, if you build the cart yourself, do you have to,
00:50:20 you know, now you've gotta put tanks in there and now if you have tanks you have to have an agreement with a commissary to come swap your, you know, water in and out and stuff like that. So the, what we're working on right now is, you know, cause we serve locally roasted coffee, which is very important to me. So we serve locally roasted coffee,
00:50:44 but I'd like to expand that coffee menu and we don't have the coffee shop component to it. Cause clearly I have enough, I can't Get a cappuccino with the coop. Clearly I have enough on my mind where I can't possibly run another business out of here. Yeah. But so now we're working with a local coffee company who just got a coffee truck.
00:51:06 So we're gonna have them. Yeah. And them do stop. And that's the thing, it's giving people that platform to do what they do. Which is, you know what, what the Coworking space is. We, we run, you know, we give people that platform to run their businesses and so to allow a new Startup coffee company to test the water with her coffee concept and also bringing more services to the members of the Coworking,
00:51:36 But in a flexible way. Flexible services for your flexible audience. Yes. That's, I forgot cuz you, so it's a freestanding building but it's in an office park cuz you had mentioned you thought Exactly. Yep. Yeah. Yep. So we have, we are in more of an industrial area in this location, but we are in office building and we are surrounded by,
00:51:57 I say is it a class A building? I mean I guess per my standard of, but if you're talking, you know, real estate standards, I mean class A is more of, you know, like full service amenities. Yeah. You know, stuff like that. But It's not an industrial building. I, I might call it class A if I saw it in terms of it's Yeah.
00:52:20 Looking. Yeah. So we are definitely, yeah we are not a flex. We're not flex building. We do not have an industrial component to the building. But we are in an area, since we are close, closer to the strip, we are surrounded by other buildings that might service the construction industry, the strip and stuff like that. Yeah.
00:52:41 Dana maybe co-housing next. I'm super interested that model, Honestly its one of the things I'm thinking of. Yeah, I think there's great, You're gonna outsource the coffee idea but maybe, maybe that we, I guided you a podcast. Well I'm working on a, like a, how I did this session on it because I think it's really interesting. Do you know Kane Wilmont?
00:53:04 Did you meet Kane? Yeah, Yeah, I've met Kane, I think a couple of your conferences Probably. He's always there. Yeah. And he's been on the podcast a couple times. But we were at the conference and he went to visit Salt Box and literally at the like seventies party we're like in the corner. I'm like, okay, let's reverse engineer it.
00:53:23 Tell me what the numbers are. Yeah. Yes. I toured Kane's place in, I believe it was in Toronto. Yeah. Oh that's right. For Juicy. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Great. And I will remember, I will remember the, the point of of the juicy Toronto that came up. I know. We'll so do you control your door access since you have a free standing building?
00:53:47 We do. So the coop Summerland doors are locked 24 7. Okay. That's just the nature of how it's built out there. We use kec door access for our doors and they're fantastic. And then we also have PC access for the coop south, but our front door is open nine to five because we are staffed front. So that was just easier. There's more,
00:54:15 you know, foot traffic and, and stuff like that with all of our increased, you know, conference rooms and, and stuff like that. So Yeah. Got it. So could the atrium do like a wedding or are we talking more like cocktail hour? I'm thinking cocktail hour. I mean the atrium's not that big where maybe, I don't know,
00:54:35 a thousand square feet down there. Maybe 1200 square feet. So you know, what we like about that space is giving people, I mean it's really a wow factor in the atrium space. So people come in, we have a big monitor with rotating scrolls of company logos and upcoming events and stuff like that. And then it's just, you know, it's more of a casual,
00:55:00 you know, we allow people nice and weekends to do, you know, their meetings and stuff like that. And then, yeah. So it's like a nice kind of reception area and then it gives people the option to, you know, change their venue of like, well that's, let's now go back into the classroom. Yeah. Or let's go,
00:55:19 you know, into one of the large conference rooms or something like that. But it's, it's a very nice casual space. It's really what I wanted to, the kind of environment that I wanted to work in post-corporate commercial real estate was, you know, just that professional yet approachable. Yeah. You know, environment where people just feel at home.
00:55:44 Yeah. So I also, I like that point because you know, we were talking about the monetization of space and how an atrium is because atrium is rentable square feet but not usable square feet. Did I get that right? Like you're paying for it essentially, but because it's big, a big open space, it's not as us usable One of those things.
00:56:04 I think that it's like, yeah, can you directly, you know, it's like additional things that might not, you know, directly monetize or something like That. You, so somebody brought this up in the Facebook group, they were taking out their couches cuz no one sits on the couches. And I was like, wait a second. Maybe they don't sit on the couches,
00:56:31 but maybe they like the fact that there are couches. Right? Yeah. Kinda like, like the events, like it's difficult I think in this business to really, like you can't strip everything down to only what people use because it's not necessarily about that. Right. Right. They your point, you're like, I can tell you love the atrium you love walking in,
00:56:52 you left out fields you like, you know, you love sitting there and greeting people and they come in and that's a big deal. And sometimes that is part of the equation. The numbers have to work, right. You can't do a deal with an atrium and not be able to make money. But there are intangibles that come with things like that that sometimes are important.
00:57:13 Yeah. I mean for me it's, you know, it, it seems, and and I know you had have talked before about, you know, it's about the private right people, they think, you know, Coworking is just open space. I wouldn't be interested in Coworking because I need my own private office. And it's like, well we have a lot of private offices,
00:57:34 it's more of, you know, the people like their private offices, but they like having access to the space. Sometimes they just wanna pop out and say hi and you know, chit chat a little bit, stretch the legs before getting back in front of their computer. So it's nice to be able to offer something like that. And it really is to me,
00:57:55 the atrium space and then the open space in Summerland, those are really the, the heart of the space. So that's where the, that's where the connections happen. That's where you build the the community. Yeah. So you have to have them. Totally. Okay. So are both, so you said the new location is, are they both staffed,
00:58:17 both location staffed? Yes. Both locations are staffed and that's something that I needed to, you know, I still grapple with that because I'm not sure if it's come across in, in our, our interview, but I'm not the most organized person so I have a lot of stuff swirling around up here. And So sometimes I think when we have a lot of our own ideas,
00:58:40 we feel unorganized. But you're obviously you're getting some things done. Dana, I'm not totally worried about your I'll pep To that struggled with is the delegating. Right? Once it, once it came time to, okay, we're doing this, we're doing the second location. Cause outta the first location I'm running the Coworking space and I'm also doing my commercial real estate mom of two.
00:59:20 Right. You know, we've got all the stuff I'm on organizations and volunteering and stuff like that and we're just, you know, that became increasingly difficult to manage. All of that's just really surrounding yourself with good members in the Coworking space. Give you a when you need it. And then once I opened up south, it became clear you, there's no way.
00:59:43 So then it's like, okay, well now you have to hire. Well I, I've worked in corporate but always as an independent contractor so I'm not used to hiring and HR and all of that stuff. So it's really leaning on people to help you, you know, figure that out. So I staffed Summerlin with, I've got a full-time person in Summerland now,
01:00:06 and then I have Kelly, who you met, she came on board when we opened up cos South. And that was, you know, a godsend really. Cause you know, she helps me with run the software and you know, do the, do the day to day south of which, you know, 20,000 square feet, more conference room space,
01:00:29 more members, more Through the space. Everyone has me beyond. So I had, I had Matthew in Summerland and then he recently left and now Trudy is there in Matthew's place. So I do have people staffing both, but still during the day you're getting texts and phone calls of you know, what to do, what am I, you know, and I'm doing the commercial real estate thing and you know,
01:00:55 all of that stuff too. So it's still, it's like, you know, more, more space is more, more head space and take That more going on in your brain. So what does your commercial real estate role look like? What do you help clients with? I pretty much do everything in commercial real estate. So I do office industrial retail,
01:01:16 I do land, I've done entitlements for people where we do ground up construction. So yeah. And it's really, I kind of stumbled into real estate when I was 22 in Chicago, and it was just, it really became a passion soon after working in development for some of the lost developers in downtown Chicago. And I think I've always wanted to be a developer and opening the coop really allowed me to do that in a small way.
01:01:48 It's like to, to build something. Yeah. I dunno. I, I feel like when you come from corporate, corporate, commercial real estate or just the corporate world, you just kind of have that thought of where if you weren't here working this listing, if you weren't handling this file, we could find 50 other people to do it right away.
01:02:09 And the Coworking space, it's really independent. I don't wanna say independent, some independent business owners, remote workers, you know, the whole, whole, the whole gamut of people. But it's really just working in a space on your terms and hopefully giving people that feeling that, that they matter you being here matters. Yep. So I'm reading this book,
01:02:34 it's one of those books I need to finish and then start over and like, take notes. But I got to this chapter yesterday where he's talking about how like we all really value being on our own schedule and having our own time and this whole like, time freedom concept and, you know, that's a lot of what people want post pandemic now that they feel like they're allowed to ask for it.
01:02:58 But one of the tradeoffs of that is like, everybody's like on their own schedule, he's like, there's so much value in people, like, almost that like we might want it so much that we become disconnected to people. Yeah. Which makes complete sense to me. And I thought like, this is what Coworking solves. Yeah. Right? Like,
01:03:21 it solves so many things, but I think that's not just the, it's, it's kind of the loneliness thing, but this like, well we need independence because like as a mom, you wanna be able to go deal with your kids, You know? Like it can't be irrationally strict. And yet the structure of things is sometimes like how you interact,
01:03:43 like how you cross paths with people, you know? It's, Yeah. It's interesting. And so, like, the act of going to an office and even if we don't want to be restricted to working nine to five, like well, if we all agree that's what we're gonna do together as a way to have this like, feeling of being part of something.
01:04:02 It's very, it's like, it's philosophical, but it's really resonating with me. I agree with you. I've gotten, I've gotten a lot more philosophical certainly in the past couple years with what we've all gone through. And I hate to put the, you know, the, the label on what we've gone through. Cause it's time. I feel like it's time to,
01:04:20 to move on from that. But, you know, a lot of the programming I bring into the coop now is more geared towards health and wellness and, you know, mental health where it's like we're talking about, you know, before it's like, how's your QuickBooks, how are your numbers? What's the Facebook algorithm? What search terms are you putting in?
01:04:45 And at the end of the day, it's just like, how are you? Yeah. Right. Are you okay? And at the end of the day, a lot of us aren't, or maybe we are one day and we're not the next day. So I have an event this past Saturday at the CO and Summerland, which I like. Saturdays I my weekends,
01:05:08 to me, that's when I can turn everything off and it's just, you don't have to answer every phone call and all of that stuff. But I like weekends in that, you know, I can show up to an event in my comfy pants and, you know, just relax and be, and be Present. Yeah. Not have the distractions that are constantly like something moving outside of,
01:05:31 you know, the office or something. So, but this was, this event was called Showing Up as your authentic Self. And at first we were gonna, you know, showing up as your best self. And it's like, well wait, what if I'm not feeling can still show up and hope that other people give me, you know, that deference to say,
01:05:54 well, you know, maybe not functioning at the peak, but you know, we're all just, we're all going through it. And that's, that's part of the, you know, the Coworking the Coworking movement is that Yeah, absolutely. It's about dollars and cents and price per square foot and, you know, does it make financial sense and, and demographics and stuff,
01:06:17 but it's also, it's people and they gravitate towards you for a space. I mean, I've, I've had people approach me and, well, you know, what makes you better than, you know, one of the other operators in town? Why would you, we choose you, You know, And it's like, there's, there's nothing that I can say that would make me better.
01:06:38 I would never, you know, talk negatively about, you know, competition out there. Where do you belong? Yeah. You know, where do you feel that you belong? Hopefully it's with us because that, there's nothing that makes me happier than, you know, people creating relationships at the, and, you know, business, relationships, friendships.
01:07:00 We had a coop wedding, Two of our members. I always love those stories. Two of our members. Yes. Two of our members met and they got married and I signed the marriage license. That's amazing. And that's, I mean, does it, does it get any more Useful? No. You know, it's just all the, all the hard work that we go through in running the spaces and,
01:07:26 and, and all of that, because it is, you, you operated Coworking spaces too. I mean, it's, it's all in No weddings, Dana. We didn't get, we didn't get to weddings. Eventually There's still time for you. Yep. So yeah, it's really, you know, it's such a, it's a multifaceted, you know,
01:07:48 with, with Coworking it's really, you know, you have the nice space and the financials hopefully work for people. The numbers work for people, but what, what gets them to stay? And that's the part that, that I'm trying to work hard on is the what, what makes people belong. So I think that's the perfect ending. I have more questions to ask you.
01:08:11 We might have to do around two, but I realize I have now kept you over our time, so you might have a kid to pick up or something to do. Yeah. Yeah. It was great to hear your story and thank you for sharing your experience and your insight and for taking the time to do that. Thank you so much for having me.
01:08:28 This is such an honor to be asked to be a part of your podcast. Yeah. Well, The Honor is all mine. Thank you, Dana. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you like what you heard, tell a friend, hit that subscribe button and leave us a rating and review. It makes a huge difference in helping others like you find us.
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