290. Alex Neil on his “Word on the Street” 2023 Coworking Trends

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290. Alex Neil on his “Word on the Street” 2023 Coworking Trends

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.

00:00:45 Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo. Thank you for joining me today. I hope all is well. We are almost in February. Is that not totally crazy? Actually by the time you listen to this it it will be February, at least February, it might be later for some of you. So I wanted to mention if you are working on starting a Coworking space in 2023,

00:01:14 we are here to help you. So we have our Coworking Startup School that we've been running for years now and hopefully y'all know we have that option. If you are looking for support on your Coworking journey, you could go through our Coworking Startup School, which is self-study mostly with a little bit of group call. And we also just launched kind of an upgraded version of our Coworking Startup School Accelerator program.

00:01:41 We have some folks who have been in that program for 2022 and some of them are getting close to launching and we just kind of shifted it. It's really kind of a done with you program but with the advantage of some group work so that you learn from other operators and personal coaching and one-on-one so that you get the individualized support that you need. And it's basically support for a year because let's be honest,

00:02:13 it can take a long time from vision to launch. So we wanna be there for all of that. So we've created a support approach that is with you every step of the way holding your hand. And I think most importantly, the thing to remember about starting a co-working space, whether you get support from our team or not, is that you basically have one shot to get this right,

00:02:43 which is really challenging about this business model. It is not a service business where you can shift your offerings or change your marketing approach. You have to get a lot of things right that are expensive to fix after the fact. Not impossible to fix, but expensive to fix. You have to have really high occupancy in order to be profitable, usually above 80%.

00:03:10 To have high occupancy, you have to be really good at customer acquisition to acquire customers. You need the right product, market fit and the right pricing and the right sales funnel and the right team delivering on that sales funnel. But what you really need is to make sure that you get your deal right. So you have to have the right deal structure,

00:03:33 meaning the right lease term, the right rental rate, the right location, the right product mix, the right density of offices, the right sizes of offices, the right layout, a lot of things that you have to figure out upfront. And by the time you open your doors, you cannot change any of those decisions. You've signed your lease, you have your rental rate,

00:03:56 you have the free rent that you're gonna get, you've got your tenant improvement allowance, your build out allowance, and you've built your offices and they are the size they are and you have the number of them that you have. And those things really drive your ability to be successful and profitable. On top of that, you need to be really great hospitality and customer acquisition.

00:04:19 Those things you can get better at over time, although you gotta hustle it out and get better at those pretty quickly because you need to fill your space when you open because you're gonna start paying rent. Hopefully you've got a some free rent period to give you time to ramp up on that. But I think the challenge is there's a lot of things that you need to get right that you only get one chance at getting right.

00:04:40 And so you wanna make sure you get support when you make those decisions so that the business that you design aligns with your financial goals and your lifestyle goals. So it's a pretty simple business on the outside, it looks very easy to reverse engineer, it is not. And also don't assume that the beautiful space that is your favorite space that you've seen is profitable a lot of times.

00:05:05 Either they're not or there's something about it that is not really repeatable. And I'll tell you that real estate deal means everything. I work with a lot of operators and go through pro formas every month. I dive into numbers with the operators that I'm working with. And the deal structure makes a really huge difference. You can have a really great deal structure on a smaller space that will make it as profitable as a bigger space.

00:05:30 Usually bigger spaces are more profitable. So it just really depends and you gotta get it right before you even open. So don't open and then look for help because it's very hard to fix a business unless you're marketing and sales funnel is just a total disaster, then we can work on that. But there's a lot of stuff upfront. So if you are looking for some support,

00:05:55 you can go to our website, Everything Coworking dot com, and there is a tab at the top called Work with Us in our accelerator program and all the details are under that. Speaking of starting a Coworking space today, my guest is someone that many of you may have spoken to before because he spends his days talking to operators on Zoom, learning about their challenges and trying to help them problem solve.

00:06:21 And sometimes these folks are starting brand new spaces and sometimes they have spaces and they figured out kind of what's what and they want to automate or there's some challenge that they're having and they're looking for technology solutions to solve those challenges. So Alex Neil is on the team at Proximity. Proximity is a space management platform and they have lots of technology that supports their platform,

00:06:46 that supports your ability to run a space. Brian Watson is one of the co-founders, I can't remember his episode number. It's one of my most popular episodes. So go back and listen to that one if you're interested in what Proximity can do. And he talks a lot about automation. So Alex, I wanted to chat with Alex because, well, I met him at the Global Workspace Association conference in the fall,

00:07:10 which is awesome and it's so fun to meet people in person. And we were chatting about kind of all the trends that he sees because he's constantly, constantly talking about talking to operators. So we talked today, not about like predictions, but about things that he's seeing bubble up in the marketplace. So types of spaces, niches that are popping up, things that that operators are thinking about.

00:07:34 So he has this fun macro perspective cuz he talks to lots of operators and he kind of gets under the hood of people's businesses. He also held a whole bunch of roles on the operator side. He worked for a Coworking space in Denver called Thrive and was in it, he was in marketing, I think he operated, he's in an operations role so he's kind of done it all and then joined Proximity and those years on the operator side gave him great perspective to be able to support you guys and he gave us his email address.

00:08:08 So if you wanna talk to Alex, you can reach out directly. His email address is in the show notes, which you can find on the Everything Coworking website. Or you can just scroll down onto your podcast player and you should see the notes for the show. And his link is in there, alex bn proximity.com. So it was really fun to spend some time with Alex just talking about what he sees in the marketplace.

00:08:32 You are going to enjoy our conversation. Welcome Alex. It's awesome to have you on the podcast. We get to meet in person in September. That was a good time at jwa. It was a good time. I know, it was so fun to see you guys there and to meet you in person. And I was gonna have my gorgeous travel mug out,

00:08:52 which I use all the time. I think my daughter tried to use it and I was like, like, Hey, that's mine. Don't touch. It's so Well, if you lose it, we can get you another one. They're gorgeous. I think somebody said they had, you had them like, like an artist do the artwork and then get them,

00:09:05 had them produced. Yeah. Yeah, they're neat. I, I haven't even gotten one myself like, Oh, there you go. You better talk to marketing about, oh I know about the swag distribution. Okay, so I wanna make sure I properly introduce you. So Alex Neil, your LinkedIn says you're a product specialist at Proximity, but I suspect you're a little bit of a,

00:09:25 a man of many hats and you're located in Denver, Colorado. Tell me you have actually been in co-working for kind of a long time. This like makes you almost like an an OG since 20 20 15. So yeah, give us a little bit about your background and tell us your Coworking story and then we're gonna dive into Alex. You have this very cool role where you talk to lots of operators and I love talking to folks that work for companies like Proximity because you get this like macro micro view of what's happening in the industry.

00:09:59 It's like you see the trends and then you get like the word on the street. So we're gonna talk about some trends that you're seeing, you know, based on folks that you get to interact with. So tell us a little bit about you. Sure. So I guess I'll back up to the very beginning 2013 roll around when I graduated from IU and I wanted to move to Denver as with,

00:10:19 I mean, you can See as we all do. Yeah, Exactly. And at the time, you know, I, I had an offer on the table from the internship I previously had, but I mean, fresh outta college, I want to go somewhere cool, right? I'm born in Indianapolis and great place to grow up, but I needed to explore the world a little bit.

00:10:37 And then, you know, I just started doing some research about some options out there and I, you know, I discovered this whole Coworking like thing going on. I, it was new to me and in fact I read about a developer that was traveling all over southeast Asia, hop into different countries weeks at a time and whatnot. And I was like,

00:10:55 oh, this is really cool. So I started doing a little bit of research and made a pitch to my boss at the time that, hey, you know, what about me working remote and at least I can go into an office still. And then that's kind of the, the start of my whole Coworking career. You could say. By the year later I ended up joining the Coworking space that I stayed with for what,

00:11:18 almost seven years afterwards. And then, you know, wore a lot of hats from, let's say 2014 or 2015 until the end of last year and finally joined Proximity. Just figured I wanted to switch gears a little bit, get from an operator side into more of the, I don't know that the management portion and it just made sense being based in Colorado.

00:11:40 Proximity was a company that I, I've always, you know, met a few people kind of here and there through just the grapevine and whatnot and inside the join then Super fun team. So I can see why that would, would be compelling. Okay. You had, you did wear a lot of hats. I don't think I looked at that very clearly the last time we chatted.

00:11:59 So site manager, is that like Community Manager type of role, like ops Manager, right? And then market manager and then it like literally a little bit of everything. You become an expert at literally everything more than you want to know. I can fix a coffee maker, I can do door access wifi printers. That is still, I still have nightmares about that one.

00:12:19 I think that's the hardest thing to solve from an operator standpoint. But yeah, I think I've done it all and yeah, you just, you don't get afraid to roll up your sleeves and get dirty. This probably makes you dangerous when you talk to operators on the phone because you can relate so well that probably you can go down some rabbit holes of Totally.

00:12:38 And I always have to to to like mention like, you know, Proximity aside my personal experience, this is what we've seen, this is what we recognize, you know, people tend to appreciate that. I think they like just hearing my background and really to, at the end of the day I'm trying to solve problems for them and not necessarily sell them on,

00:12:58 you know, something. Yeah, no, I totally love that. I think there's a little bit that happens in this industry. I see it happen in our Facebook group. Like, you know, you get an N of one answer like do this, it worked for me and you have this great perspective of like, here's what you know, here's what's working for a lot of the operators we work with,

00:13:16 not just Right Across the board here's kind of what what we see. So tell me, are you skier? Yes, of course. Actually that is the main reason why I moved to Colorado. I wanted to ski every weekend. Yeah. Then Pain Manning happened to, to move over to the Broncos like a year prior. So it just, just made sense for me to all The stars Lined up.

00:13:37 This was my, it was my destiny. So I can't remember if I told you this when we chatted, but when I was in business school I had a friend, a non-business school friend who was doing an internship or school or something in Denver. So for Thanksgiving first year, I guess it must have been the first year of business school, I went to Denver for Thanksgiving and I was like,

00:13:59 I'm going to move here, this is amazing and I'm gonna date myself a little bit. This was like early internet, like 2003 or four, three probably maybe two, you know, so like some Good times. Yeah. But Denver at that time I was like, so I started to kind of poke around like what would I do there? Unclear.

00:14:21 It was unclear at the time. Lots of like telecom. Yeah. I now have my husband's sister and parents live there and the sister and the husband both work for Comcast and whatever the other big one is there charter. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I don't wanna do that. So at the time I was like, well that's not gonna work cuz where,

00:14:39 where would I work? But yeah, I wanted to live the dream just like you are. So I stayed in Chicago but now I mean, you know, somewhere in there things like totally flipped over and Denver has so much happening and it's such an exciting place to be. So always in lots of Coworking spaces and yeah. Okay, so Proximity. Tell us a little before we dive into kind of trends and whatnot,

00:15:01 tell us a little bit about what Proximity does and what you, what your role is. How do you spend? Sure. At the end of the day, the goal of Proximity is to make things as automated as possible. So we like to take any of the existing tools that you might be using today so we can tie my system, your Door X control,

00:15:20 things like that. And really at the end of the day is we want to try to make things as seamless as possible. Not only for the operator but like the members themselves. So we try to focus on what's gonna be the most intuitive things, the usage, but also making sure things are accurate. Because I think there's one thing to automate things,

00:15:39 but if you're not able to necessarily report accurate data, it becomes very difficult for you as an operator or you know, someone in the decision making role to figure out, okay, what do I need to do to grow my business? Yeah, I love that. And how do you spend your day? It's talking to tons of operators, new old veterans and you know,

00:16:01 it's fascinating. I mean I think that's what continues to drive me in a Coworking industry is cuz every person you meet, they have a, just an interesting background really how they got to where they're at. I think I'm like, I, I like to be a connector so even if I can't help you right in the moment, I know someone that can and that's really what excites me at the end of the day.

00:16:21 So it's just, yeah, it's just, I, I love talking to people, Which is good. That must be what you do literally all day long. Literally. Yeah. Okay. Well I'm glad it's a good fit and that you find it so interesting. Speaking of automation, so maybe I'm gonna sneak this in on you cuz we, we didn't have this on our list of trends,

00:16:40 but I'm curious like, you know, how many people sort of talk like lead with that to some extent. Like I want a really automated space. So Brian Watson is one of the co-founders Yeah. Of Proximity. Right after he talked, I happened to, I can't remember why I was in there. I was looking, I'm fairly new to posting to YouTube.

00:16:59 We put the podcast up, I have some videos up, so it is a big opportunity for Everything Coworking on YouTube. But I went in and I was, I sorted most, you know, popular post. And I've mentioned Brian's is by far the most popular, like by multiples and multiples. He, we get like not a lot of views on all the,

00:17:19 I would encourage every, anybody listening can watch us on YouTube if they wanna check out the YouTube channel. But I have to think it's the topic cuz he's talking about automation and how he auto automated, he's automating the brand alt space that he's working on and just a ton of interest. So if anybody out there is interested in automation, go check out the Brian Watson video on our YouTube channel.

00:17:40 I can't even remember where it's from, but just type in Brian Watson, Everything Coworking and you'll see it come up. So yeah, I'll sneak that in as a topic. Like what are people thinking about these days around automation? You know, people don't actually realize sometimes what their real problem is. And I think that's part of my job is, yeah,

00:17:57 I ask a lot of questions at the beginning and it's like, okay, like we really, you come to me for one thing, they think they need some sort of management platform. They don't really know why. Oftentimes like, yeah, we just need something to, to build better. Like right now we're using Venmo or Zelle, you know, things a little more manual and of course things get lost and then once you start having potential investors,

00:18:18 they're gonna wanna see the numbers. So it kind of starts there. But eventually, you know, I ask all these right questions, oftentimes they're a very lean team, so they don't have necessarily all the resources to, you know, manage all these aspects of it, which kind of leads into, well, what if I can, you know, eliminate some of those headaches.

00:18:36 Let me take half of your day-to-day. Just things that have to get done off the plate. And when I started painting that picture, I use Brian's example, that's a great one. How, you know, he can sell day passes that's gonna automatically generate a key and then wifi for the day, but then you can't go somewhere else and just piggyback on a wifi for rest of the week.

00:18:55 And when I tell that story, it really paints that picture of like, wow, that's really cool. Like, you know, we wanna hire what's Possible. Yeah. Especially if they're not hiring a Community Manager right away. I think, you know, a lot of Coworking operators start with a, I have a building, I run a full-time business,

00:19:13 but I also want to help either other entrepreneurs or I want to bring other people. Next thing you know, they get two full-time jobs and being able to at least, you know, eliminate some of that day-to-day operational stuff that just, it just has to happen, really goes a long way for them. Yeah. Anybody who's listening who has a space already knows,

00:19:31 like it's a really operational business. Yeah. Until, but you can apply technology to it to make it a lot simpler. You just to your point, have to know what's possible. So you do a lot of listening and then you get excited thinking you might like all the problems that you can solve if you dive in. Yeah. Oh yeah. Anything more unique than what Brian,

00:19:51 you know, I mean Brian's, you know, example seems sort of simple, but he's also layering in a lot of like user experience around it. Yeah. Like he's not just thinking about like, okay, how do I get somebody in the door for the day, but how do I help them feel comfortable, you know, give them the sort of the tour and you know,

00:20:08 all the things that he's thinking through. I would say, and this kind of leads to some of the trends I'm seeing is people are taking almost that Coworking hospitality experience and they're applying it into other like industries or even areas that are, let's say, more archaic or traditional, you could say. I think, you know, the past two years we've gotten so used to like things on demand,

00:20:29 being able to pick up our phones and, and do a lot of these things. Just really easing that whole user experience for everyone. So things like, we've seen, I I recently, I had someone that has a, a batting cage center that came on board and they can take different components that we do do today in Proximity. Yeah. I mean I guess you could think about it,

00:20:49 it's we're solving different problem but with the same solution. So they're applying those kind of like that flex and kind of on demand and really just that easy of user experience to things like that. Yeah, That's a lot of examples, right? If you need to bill reserve things like give people access, like isn't an automated batting cage or were they just looking to kind of apply technology to it?

00:21:11 Things like reservations and then like access so they can access control on the, on the cages themselves. Yeah. So they're not able to get into that batting cage until they have Their reservation Stuff. The reservations. Yeah. And you know, we're adding screens on outside of the rooms or, or even inside the cage themselves that indicate how much time you have available and things like that.

00:21:31 Visual Cues and Exactly. Yeah. And to your point, you just don't see a lot of that applied to, to something like batting cages. Yeah. Yeah. I mean you're taking a very simple kind of like, you know, we've done what always what works and playing it, so we see things in in other gyms as well, you know,

00:21:47 same solution, different problem. Totally. Yeah. I mean, kind of related, we were talking about kind of like the wellness trend and people wanting to do live work and play. You mentioned even kind of a co-op of talk about the, the co-op example, not that they're using Proximity, but just sort of an interesting kind of shared trend. Yeah.

00:22:08 So there's a group in Denver that they all are in the kind of snow sports outdoor industry and you know, at the end of the day, I guess you can look at them as competitors to one another, but we're really what brings 'em together is the fact that they're selling to the same buyer. So if I am a, like a Christie Sports or an REI or someone like that,

00:22:29 and I want to go look at product, you know, I'm more inclined to go to a space that has a number of different vendors and you know, I don't have to spend the next five days looking at products. I can just spend, you know, whole day. It's almost like the gas station effect the same way. Right. People tend to gravitate to where all the actions at.

00:22:47 Yeah, totally. Yeah. In like the 7-Eleven where you can get everything you need all at once. Yeah, Yeah. Exactly. Totally. Yeah, it is interesting. It would be interesting to see if there's some sort of like shared model that makes sense on that. Although probably being in the business we're in, we wanna apply the shared model to everything,

00:23:04 whether it it works or not. Yeah. You know, I think I'm really starting to see that a little bit in like kind of medical offices too, or at least you know, offices that focus in a very, what do you call it? A certain discipline of medicine, so to speak. So they have, you know, therapists or other types of,

00:23:22 you know, people in that discipline and they need either shared medical space maybe because they, they would typically meet their clients on Zoom and they're, they're trying to do it all in, in one day in a more HIPAA compliant area. Or again, maybe their patients are all seeing the same type of people. So you got a therapist and one and you know,

00:23:43 another one in, in, in a different area. So yeah. Kind of aggregating either the niche or aggregating wellness professionals. I've seen that a bunch in my Startup school pretty recently, I would say in the last, yeah, yeah. Maybe year or so. Therapists. And to your point, that stuff's awesome on the weekends. They can give access to people who need to give in.

00:24:05 So the technology's important there. The tablets, you know, for the one instance, they're doing sort of nothing is dedicated so it's, it's, yeah. Right. Therapy rooms, but they're can be booked by any therapist, so Right. Having all those cues, like this is busy, it's not busy, you know, not related to technology but Right.

00:24:25 Extra soundproofing and Yeah. Even like how the, the data is stored on the back end. I love that. And I think it's maybe part of like the consumerization of like, yeah, I wanna go someplace nice to get my healthcare done. Yeah. And one of the other students I have, I think she's just trying to remember what her professionals are.

00:24:46 She has to have plumbing in every single like treatment room or office space. So that's like kind of a bigger Yeah, yeah, yeah. A bigger buildout. But same thing, she was like, you know, it was like super traditional medical space and then she made it sort of likelike. It's really, yeah. Nice. And if you're right,

00:25:05 a professional who can, you know, license to practice on your own, it's such an amazing way to get started in private practice on, you know, sort of those flexible schedules, which is very cool. But you know, there's a lot of scheduling and just like yeah. Operational stuff that goes along with all of that. So being able to enable that is super important.

00:25:26 Hey, I just wanted to jump in really quickly before we continue with our discussion. If you're working on opening a Coworking space, I 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.

00:25:50 The masterclass is totally free, it's about an hour and includes some q and a. 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 a training and development platform for community managers and it can be for owner operators.

00:26:15 It has content training resources, templates from day one to general manager. The platform includes many courses that cover the major buckets of the Community Manager role from community management operations, sales and marketing, finance and leadership. 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.

00:26:44 We provide a live brand new training every single month for the Community Manager group. We also host a live q and a call every single month so that the Community 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,

00:27:09 you can go to Everything Coworking dot com slash Community Manager. And I think where it really comes into play too is it allows these therapists to expand their business. You know, so traditionally you may have to rent a, you know, a medical office for what, a long term lease, right? And you may be only using it two days a week,

00:27:30 but now it opens up possibilities that, I mean, I'm gonna back up a little bit. You know, with the whole work from home trend, a lot of people are moving towards suburbs here in Colorado. A lot of people are moving to the mountains or you know, more outdoorsy areas and they tend to lack a lot of these, I guess you can call 'em city infrastructures.

00:27:47 That might not be the right word to use. But, you know, now if I'm a therapist, I can practice in Denver, I can be in Leadville, I can go all the way to Steamboat Vale, Aspen, and you know, I don't necessarily have to incur all that overhead to have multiple offices. You know, I'm able to schedule my patients all at a a time slot I have in on one of these.

00:28:07 So I think that's one of the, one of the like contributing factors to this growth is we're having people kind of moving out of city centers into areas that are, you know, I don't know what you wanna call more rural, even remote to an extent. Yeah. Yeah. I have to give a shout out. I mentioned when we talked to David LaSalle,

00:28:25 who's in Estes Park, he's a great example of like on the way to the mountain small town. Yeah. And he's got the Coworking space plus the fitness space, plus the event space. So he's trying to, you know, so, but yeah, he can kind of work from work from anywhere now. Okay. Let's talk about co warehousing. Yeah.

00:28:43 That, that's been a hot topic that I've been hearing a lot lately. And, and you know, really, again, you're, you're kind of taking some of an old school industry or model Yeah. And applying it to this modern approach. And I think, you know, part of that comes from just people at home that's getting into little, their little side hustle.

00:29:01 You know, they, they, during the, the past two years we're so used to ordering literally everything. So people got into businesses where they're, you know, they're making things and shipping it from their home. Now it's become their full-time gig and you can no longer operate outta your own house. And even then, I think some of these individuals,

00:29:19 they have very seasonal items they focus on. So the idea of a cohort house is, is starting to become a hot topic. And in fact, when we were at GWA in September, there are a few, you know, individuals that are all getting together to talk about that. A again, I think we're applying that flexibility model almost that space on demand or being able to scale in as you need,

00:29:40 especially if it's a seasonal type thing. Yeah. We did a session on this recently and the founder of the loading dock in Raleigh, he said he thinks like every market could handle, should have a cowork warehousing space, even more so than a Coworking space. Because Yeah, I think his perception was like, there are people doing these businesses even in smaller markets.

00:30:07 Oh yeah. Who don't Yeah. Don't have a way to like get into like fulfillment and distribution. Yeah. Do you have people who, have you started to have conversations with people who are calling in talking about that model or Not yet? Yeah, I mean, cuz I'm gonna, I'm gonna go back to using in Colorado as an example. I mean,

00:30:24 there's a lot of like cool innovative outdoor products that come out of Colorado, right? And a lot of, lot of these companies now are trying to exist in the areas that they play in. So of course if I am building something for the ski industry, right, yeah, I'm probably gonna be closer to the mountains. But that also puts me a lot further away from distribution,

00:30:45 packaging and, and all those things. So now we're able to have these like, you know, shared spaces in, you know, again, traditionally smaller markets or areas that are not traditionally served. I mean, it attracts more talent, more entrepreneurs that again, they want to build a product in the area, they want build it and test it in the area that they're,

00:31:06 you know, they're, they're they're in. Totally. So I think that's a good example there. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. We talked about niche spaces, which I see a lot too. Any specific like cool niches that you see coming through? We've got the wellness, like the medical thing. I have some fo oh I have some doing,

00:31:26 we have one doing a space for attorneys. I won't share all their secrets. They have some really good, I know I have to be careful sometimes like, oh I don't wanna, you know, there are lots of needs that niches have that other people don't. So even like the spreading out like, oh we'll get licenses to this or licenses to that and we can get a cheaper like per seat rate or just access to it.

00:31:48 I see people just thinking creatively about yeah. What can we share and what makes sense for us to be together. And then we won't share too many secrets. But we had somebody doing like a golf theme that Oh yeah. That I'm working with that you said, you know, oh I talked to so-and-so. And that's, so that's a little bit of a,

00:32:07 the work and play model like, you know, it's kinda like, I think one of the ways of trying to getting people back into the office, or at least when it comes to, especially when it comes to like corporate customers, is they're trying to bring the comforts of home to the office. I mean, I think it's, it might sound silly,

00:32:22 but we're still used to dual monitors. If I gotta go back to my office and I only have a single one, forget it. I'm, I'm not gonna come in. I'm gonna, I'm gonna stay home. Oh my gosh. It's, you know what? That is the silliest, it's not silly. It sounds silly like when you think about it,

00:32:35 but I think that people care. I ha my husband is like that. He kind of drives me nuts about it. But yeah, he's got this giant monitor and he's like, yeah, I wanna go to a Coworking space. I would need to take my monitor. Oh yeah. And so if he knew like he could roll in and just plug in and you know,

00:32:50 have his big monitor, that would make a big difference. Cuz we have dogs and they bark all the time and I'm always just leave. Oh yeah, go somewhere. Yeah. And he's like, no, I can't go. I need the monitor. I like to stack my calls when I'm able to get outta the house that way I'm just in a hundred percent pure focus mode and you know,

00:33:07 get all I'm, I'm just super productive that way. Yeah. But yeah, going back to the whole like niche spaces, you know, I think we're seeing, I've actually been talking handful of like art studios or you know, spaces that either give like some sort of stipend or like a year long program where they're, I mean I guess you almost say it's almost like an incubator in a way.

00:33:29 But they, you know, let's just go back to the art example, right? They need certain things that you can either afford on your own or you're not gonna find it anywhere else. Like things like a say called like a, A plotter for example. Yeah. Like a big format type of hunter. Yeah. A kiln for ceramics, things like that.

00:33:47 So fun. Yep. You're not gonna be able to afford one on your own nor you're gonna have the space. So that's actually a handful of people that we've talked to that are, you know, opening these spaces that are focused in, in one area. And again, we're solving the same problem in the sense of, you know, rather than reserving conference rooms now we're reserving that plotter,

00:34:06 that large format printer or even the Just like an asset. It's just a different kind of a Yeah. Yeah. It's, and and that's what all we're doing. At the end of the day, it's managing an asset. Yeah. Tend to be more physical. But yeah. It could be really anything at the end of the day. Yeah, I love that.

00:34:21 I'm trying to think about other niches that I see come through. Oh, I have one that's working on, and this exists in a couple of other markets, but lobbyists, like political lobbyists, which they don't really have specific equipment but they call, they called me the other day and they were like, they're like, we're in session and they're in like whatever the legislative building and there's no place to like do your stuff and talk to your clients in between calls.

00:34:49 It was so loud. It was like, it was like non-functioning and they're like, see this is why we're doing the space. It's gonna be amazing. And it's within walking distance. They had really specific real estate requirements for it. Yeah. But that one I love too. It almost sounds like trying to get to our Starbucks and you just never know what to expect.

00:35:07 Totally. Customer might be cool or it might be just mayhem. Yeah, yeah. Loud. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But also a fun niche. I think they'll, I love niches from a marketing, cause you played a marketing role for a while. Like when you can speak specifically, you know, to a very specific audience member cuz you know the market they're in definitely has other Coworking spaces,

00:35:28 but yeah, nobody is for the lobbyists and you know, they'll do some pretty specific things to solve their pain points and they'll have event space that, you know, they do a, a lot of fundraisers. So anyway, that's a fun one. Yeah. I really enjoy the, the niche locations. Yeah. I'm trying to think of other live,

00:35:45 live work examples we were talking about like why aren't there more co-working spaces at the mountains? So if anybody's listening, Brian, Brian is just open When I saw in Durango the resort that's down there. Nice. Okay. I saw he had a new location online. I I would've had to Google. I didn't know where it was. Yeah. And I got a,

00:36:05 I got a couple guys that are opening a space in Steamboats at the old distillery there if anyone knows where that's at. So I'm gonna go, you know, just do some work over there. Totally. You need to do some customer site visits. Right, right. And and the past is closed so I gotta stay for a couple days. Yeah,

00:36:20 exactly. But yeah. Yeah. It, it's that work play kind of model and I think you're, when you're tying into some of the niches again they're, it's a mix. Yeah, totally. I think we'll start to see more of that into your point. Like how do you get people to get out of their house and to Yeah. Experience something kind of bigger than just work and certainly weaving in the working and playing side note,

00:36:47 we were in Tahoe this weekend and spent one hour trying to get to the mountain on Saturday and we had gone, I don't know how many miles call it three. Geez, that's insane. We turned around. We've never done that before. We were sitting there we're like, okay, if we're not, you know, at this point, but it's one of those like where the Google map says 46 minutes but every time you look at it,

00:37:13 oh yeah. Oh Yeah, Oh yeah. Is like 10 minutes more And you're like, oh could this be, the algorithm is broken. What's happening? I'm one of those people that gets Google maps, I get apple map, I even throw ways in the mix and Yeah, no I know my husband is like check ways. What does ways say?

00:37:27 I'm like, same thing, it's broken, it's so busy there now and I think it's because people can, you know, work wherever and yeah. More people come to town and stay and, but yeah. So we had to bail. But the problem is, is you have to go so early now you know that anyway in Tahoe anyway, you have to go really early in order to get,

00:37:50 to avoid the traffic and then you have to like hang out cause the lifts don't open until eight 30 or nine. So Same here in Colorado. And you know, you a, you actually kind of, you said something that just sparked a reminder. Everything I saw the other day. So talk about getting outta the house now. One of those large fancy bikes that were very popular when we're all working from home during Covid.

00:38:13 Yeah. Apparently they are, they have been downgraded by investors because there's a surge of people going back into the gyms now. Okay. And now we're seeing gyms too, also competing with the work from home crowd or even, you know, traditional offices. Cuz there's, I know a couple large, you know, gym brands out there that are incorporating some sort of workspace.

00:38:34 Yeah. Within the gym itself. I know E Equinox is one, I have not been to one of their locations. I'm super interested to see that in action. Yeah. And I think that the need to really break up your day is, is huge. So it's things like having a, a gym to go to or you these other work play environments.

00:38:52 You know, we've gotten so used to just logging in at eight, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM and now we feel guilty if our phone buzzes in the middle of the night. You know, it's, it's, we gotta break up our day somehow and easier said and done for some, but I think that's why we're starting to see some of these places too that are adding us some sort of flex component to it.

00:39:13 Yep, totally. Yeah. Okay. So who are your favorite, like when you talk to somebody, I know you love to talk to everyone whether you can solve their problem or not, but what are the types of operators that you talk to that you're like, yeah this is like a perfect fit. We can, you know, we're a great technology partner for these guys.

00:39:32 Like is there like a profile or like a mindset or a certain thing they're trying to achieve? Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't know if I, I necessarily want to target or like say there's one specific type. I, I think it really comes down to someone that's kind of open to, you know, going against the grain in a sense.

00:39:49 Being able to adapt their processes to, to different things. I think it's easier to think you have a great idea in your head but then you don't realize some of the things once you start factoring all the pieces of the puzzle together. So kind of being open-minded to an extent and willing to experiment with something that might be out of the norm. I think those are the people I like to work with.

00:40:11 Mostly because we're solving a problem that it's not like a cookie cutter approach to it. We're we're solving something that, you know, takes a little bit of brain power and and kind of getting creative with it. Those always excite me. Yeah cuz you have a platform that can apply in so many different ways. And you know what, I'll use this chance to say anybody who's listening who is not open to space yet,

00:40:32 look at, do a demo with Proximity first and then write your operating procedures. Yes. Yes. Don't write the procedures first because you know, to your point right, that you get into your mind like, okay, we're gonna do it this way. And then you want the technology to fit your way and prop, maybe it doesn't. And so it's easier to,

00:40:52 to know how, what's possible with the technology, let me kind of fit into this. It's always gonna have a vision but then, you know, figuring out how to do reach that vision, that's where you wanna kinda like keep Intersection that Little open-ended. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it's never too early to do demos. Right? I think No,

00:41:11 It's, I always encourage folks to do them nice and early because maybe you're not gonna like, you know, whatever hit start on your membership button. But to know what's possible, you know, to your point like what problems can I solve? What can I apply technology to? Cuz you may not even be aware or have thought about those things. So just to start your exploration process and you guys are,

00:41:33 you're happy to talk to people early. Oh totally. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's a couple reasons I think it's important to start early is cuz one you kind of wanna know what's out there and two, you know, some of these conversations I have lead into like this light bulb moment like, oh I never even thought about that. That,

00:41:48 that's awesome. That's great. Let me kind of go back and, and you know, sit on in a little bit and we'll get back in a couple weeks or you know, a couple months or so and we'll have another discussion and it really opens up kind of more creative thinking versus like, this is the plan, this is what I'm gonna go with,

00:42:03 I want you to open tomorrow. Right. You know, things Like that. Yeah. Don't call when you're opening tomorrow. Please don't do that. Yeah. Yeah. Probably the, one of the biggest things too is, I mean you and I talked about a little bit about how there's a lot of delays in things. I mean especially with all these chip manufacturers,

00:42:16 if you need a tablet or you need certain door access stuff Yep. You know, it's better to prepare for it now versus I need it in three weeks kind of thing. Totally. Yeah. We right now, right now you should still assume things might be hard to get and so confirm that, know what, right. What, what hardware do you need?

00:42:34 And cuz the, yeah. Door access hardware, something was pretty delayed for a while across the board. It's hard to get. Yeah. It's always changing I feel like too, but I, but to me that's a crucial component into your space and especially a space management thing. Otherwise, you know, you're gonna be having to replace lost keys and stuff like that and that becomes a big pain for an operator I would say.

00:42:59 Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I had one other reason, oh the other reason to start early is because you think it doesn't take Proximity's pretty straightforward. It doesn't take forever to set it up, but no, as you get closer to opening, you got a lot of things you're thinking about. You're, you know, and you wanna be able to sign up members once you start your pre-launch.

00:43:19 So if you're in the bucket of starting a space, not a somebody who's thinking about switching just Right. Never too early to explore, start thinking and then start getting a plan in place for, you know, when you're gonna start Yeah. Configuring it. And then you and I Jamie can speak from experience here as soon as you're ready to pre-sell your membership,

00:43:39 do it. I mean, nothing better than being able to have good amount of occupancy on day one. Especially if you got some, you know, some leeway on your, before you start paying rent as long as Exactly. Exactly. You wanna ramp up as much as possible as quickly as possible. And yes, Proximity is some great content. We've been doing some partnering like in the newsletter we have some good content.

00:44:02 I think that's, we were running pre-sales, a pre-sales link, but Proximity is some great, you have some great marketing content on the website, which is probably a good transition for Yeah. If people are interested in chatting and learning more about the platform or just talking industry talk with, with Alex. Oh totally. I love that. Should they go to the website and schedule a chat or what's the best approach?

00:44:28 You can e either go to the website, book a book a, a time on, on there, or Jamie maybe if you're gonna include a, a link, No notes, Whatever you wanna do or even even my booking link, I'd be happy to have a conversation with anyone. It's fun to solve problems. That's awesome. Do you miss being on the operator side?

00:44:46 Yes and no. I mean, you know, I, I still go back to the, to thrive in Denver where I, I used to be with and so You'll go work there as a member. Yeah. It's just, I mean there, everyone's like family there. Yeah. It's just like, it's fun to go into there but I don't miss the certain things like,

00:45:04 you know, like I said, I wore a lot of hats. Like if the printers out of paper, I don't miss having to go and track down things, swap out the toner and whatnot. That's why, you know, I thought getting the to the software side of of the industry is an easy transition and it's just I'm able to share what I've learned with others that way.

00:45:22 Totally. Yeah. I love that. Awesome. Thank you for taking time out of your operator chat schedule to do this and kind of share your perspective. We'll have to do it again cuz I love kind of talking to other people about Yeah. What they see happening. So we'll put all your links in the show notes, so anybody looking for those,

00:45:41 the show notes you can find on the website. I also like to remind people they're in your podcast app usually if you kind of open up the detail of the episode, so then, then you don't forget. I usually tend to forget when I listen to podcasts and then have to, you know, look something up later. So. Awesome. Alex,

00:45:57 thank you for taking the time to do this. Thank you Jamie. Until next time. Yeah, it's fun. 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. If you'd like to learn more about our education and coaching programs,

00:46:23 head over to Everything Coworking dot com. We'll see you next week.

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