291. A Serial Entrepreneur Runs Automated Coworking Model + Coffee Kiosk

Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:

Everything Coworking Featured Resources:

TRANSCRIPTION

291. A Serial Entrepreneur Runs Automated Coworking Model + Coffee Kiosk

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,

00:00:29 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. Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo. Thank you for joining me today. It's great to be with you. We are almost hitting episode 300. I did a recording today with a repeat guest who was on episode 134,

00:01:05 which is so long ago now. So we're just rocking and rolling and I am always excited about my new guest today. My guest is David Andras and you are gonna really enjoy my conversation with David. He is super accomplished, but the nicest guy, when he joined my Coworking Startup School, I thought this guy already knows a lot about business and yet he is probably one of my best students.

00:01:32 He went through all the content, he showed up at the calls and he wanted to know all the things about how to launch a successful Coworking space because his perspective is, well, I know a lot about business, but I've never opened a Coworking space before. He very quickly opened two, which I don't recommend that everyone does, but is working for him and he shares that on the episode.

00:01:54 So I would have to look at the dates to see when he went through the Startup school, but he's been open for I think almost a year now. He also operates gyms and he's got a few things going on. So you're gonna be interested to hear kinda how does he do it all? How does he manage multiple businesses? What does his co-working business look like?

00:02:16 He is outside of Cleveland, Ohio and he talks about a new revenue generating source that he has launched in his Coworking spaces. And I think it's super smart. I think there are a lot of Coworking spaces that start to max out in terms of their revenue. And this is not maybe for every location, but David's in a suburban location and he is providing in an amenity with a public facing coffee kiosk to his members.

00:02:45 Now he has two retail level locations, so I suspect that matters, but he does some pretty significant business through delivery. He has coffee and smoothies delivery through DoorDash. And the first time he mentioned this, I was like, what? What are you talking about? Who orders coffee through DoorDash? Everyone does. I went into my local Starbucks one time and they were just like lined up on the counter and I was like,

00:03:09 what is this? And they were like the DoorDash deliveries. So I had no idea I would never, I'm super frugal about some things and that is one of them. I hate paying for food deliveries. I used to hate paying for taxis because they were so awful and now I don't mind paying for Uber. But you know, you have those things that you just don't like to pay for.

00:03:29 I am not paying for coffee to get delivered and then it's gonna be cold. I also hate cold coffee. My favorite, favorite thing is my double walled. Is it bodom bodom like tall, like 12 ounce cappuccino glass mug and my almond milk cappuccino with my espresso machine in the morning. It makes me so happy and it stays hot and does not create my Starbucks bill.

00:03:57 Anyway, David just has a great story and you're gonna be interested in hearing about his revenue stream with his coffee kiosk. What else do we need? David has his own podcast so that we link to in the show notes and we link to info about his coffee kiosk. This is not a sales pitch for his coffee kiosk. I am just always interested in what different co-working space owners are testing in implementing with success.

00:04:26 And it's my job to help make you aware of these opportunities because at some point there's a cap on revenue for a co-working space on physical space. So what else can you do and how else can you serve your members? And if you're paying rent anyway, how else can you leverage that space? So I love this idea. It's very simple and David is all about simplifying things and any of my,

00:04:51 probably he's probably in any agram three is my guess. So any of my like, you know, super achieving can't turn the brain off or gonna relate to David. So before we jump in, David did go through our Coworking, Startup School, one of our best students. I think his testimonial is on our info page. If you are working on opening a Coworking space in 2023,

00:05:12 come to the website and check out our programs. We have the Coworking, Startup School, and then we have an accelerator program so you can decide which one is best for you at Everything Coworking dot com and our info is under work with us. So if you have any questions, of course, feel free to reach out now onto my interview with David.

00:05:34 Good morning David. It's not morning for you. Morning, afternoon, east Coast time, right? One o'clock. Yep. Yep. One o'clock. It's 10 o'clock for me. And I was just telling David, it's been a busy morning. My hot water heater started leaking and David, since you're a fitness guy, I was like, should I stop my workout?

00:05:49 And then I was like, no, I should finish my workout and then do a hot water heater. I was doing my workout in the garage when I saw, saw that the hot water heater was leaking and then I was like, well how fast is it gonna leak? Like is this, you know, that's right. No, I'm gonna finish my workout,

00:06:03 right And then, and then call all the people that need to be called and figure out. Yeah. Anyway, so this is gonna be super fun cause I have lots of questions for you. Cool. Yeah, I'm excited. Okay, so you're near Cleveland, Ohio. Correct. So I'm a little on the west side and the businesses go from the west side to the south side of Cleveland.

00:06:24 Okay. Right. So we're gonna talk about some of your, well focus mostly on your Coworking business, but I just asked David like, what, how should I introduce you? And you said serial entrepreneur and I was like, that's exactly what I would call you. And I was thinking this morning, I often think about my interviews and conversations I'm gonna have like in the shower or whatever,

00:06:42 you know. And I was laughing at myself because I went to business school in my twenties and I didn't really know what I wanted to do, which you have to make something up on your essay. And I remember having this conversation with one of the professors who was kind of a mentor and I was like, I just wanna be a serial entrepreneur. And he was like,

00:07:03 okay, well that's awesome. Trying to give me a path for this. Which I was thinking, I was like, if I just met someone like you, then I probably would've been the person who's like, I'll just work for you and watch all the things you do and you know, be like your sidekick. And I wouldn't have needed business school.

00:07:20 That's Awesome. I never knew something like that existed. You know, growing up I thought someone owns a business and that's it, not multiple. By never means did I even think I was gonna do that. It just kind of rolled into it. But now here I am. I, I guess it's a thing, right? I feel like every time I talk to you,

00:07:36 you've started something new. So, okay. But I am curious, so you, you now own two Coworking spaces, but let's, so everybody knows like we're having a relevant conversation with with and David went through our Coworking Startup School, which is how I got to know you a little bit. So that's why I'm happy to like dive into your, okay.

00:07:54 So yeah, tell us about like how did you start your first bus? So you've started over 20 maybe, you know, pick a couple, but Oh yeah. Gosh, you also own a couple of gyms. Like how did you get into being a business owner? And then I want to talk about like yeah. This mindset of yeah I can do multiple businesses at once.

00:08:12 Yeah, Sure. Yeah. So I started years ago. I'll just give you like a snapshot really quick. Ultimately I started in sales years ago after I did a little bit of food and beverage, went into network marketing, kind of considered like your own business. But I took away from that so many incredible principles. Wait, will you tell us which one?

00:08:35 Well, one dedication, persistence. Yeah. Oh no, which, what was the company? Oh, years ago it was called Equinox International. It was a fastest growing network marketing company. Actually privately held company back in 1995. It was on the cover of Ink Magazine. It was pretty incredible. What was the product? What were you selling? Environmental products.

00:08:54 Oh, okay. So environmental makeup, face wash, you name it. Air purifiers, water filtration. Okay. Nutritionals. So quite a bit. I learned a lot. Yeah. And it was, it was pretty incredible. But then going through, you know, my experience in on my careers, it landed me to own a couple cafes and a sports bar.

00:09:17 Do some consulting, got back into the fitness field and doing some more consulting on that side. And it landed me into my first location where I partnered up with a gentleman and after a couple years, probably about three years, we actually just decided to split ways and I took over that business. So about, this was the Gym? The gym. About the gym.

00:09:40 Okay. Seven years ago. Okay. And then I had an opportunity a few years later to purchase two other facilities. There was a, a corporate company that was leaving the area and they contacted me to take that over. So purchased that too. You know, so many people think it's a gym, it's not like really a business. Oh, you must just like to work out.

00:10:01 Oh, I think gyms are totally a business. Yeah, Right. It's truly a business. There's so much back, there's so much backend work to it. And member acquisition, it's like Coworking, you gotta get members, you gotta keep the me I mean, and billing. Yeah. All the things. A hundred percent. Actually I was just telling,

00:10:16 I was telling, so the plumber that came to deal with the hot water heater to all my workout equipment and he's like, did you do CrossFit and you wanna talk about CrossFit? And somehow we, he was like, where'd you go? And I was telling him I belonged to this CrossFit gym that closed and I said they had 250 members, which I think should have made them completely profitable and they just didn't run it like a business.

00:10:40 You know, the guy who owned it had another job, like a W2 kind of thing. Like he just, so they closed when Covid hit. And I think if I'd known, well if I'd known you and if would've Been yours, If I'd known like Yeah, I mean cuz they had the customers right? And they had the community and people loved it and they had great coaches,

00:10:59 they had all those ingredients at the backend. Yeah. They were, you know, something they weren't running. Right. It's totally a business. Yeah. Yeah. And you see that people in this industry so much because Hmm. Again, they like working out but they don't have that business mindset. Yeah. To how do I adapt, how do I overcome,

00:11:17 how do I keep going in the industry? How do I, you know, work off of trends, how do I do my projections? I mean, you name it. Yeah. So yeah, it's definitely a business. But, so I was working outta one club and I had so much backend business to do. I was always the type of person to have it open door policy.

00:11:33 So I'd always talk to my obviously staff, I'd always talk to my members and sometimes get in conversations with some of my members for over an hour and I'm like, oh my gosh, there's, you know, part of my day's gone. Yeah. And that would happen continuously. So it was hard for me to work out of, of the gym.

00:11:49 And then I purchased two more gyms. Well I have three times the amount of work, right. I still couldn't get anything done even though I go to their gym, I'd still wanna be with my members, I'd still wanna be with my staff. So it was really difficult. So I took my business at home. So I did all my backend work out of,

00:12:05 out of the house, but then Covid hit and then my wife And you Have how many kids? Right? Four kids. Right. And at that time, I wanna say all four were with Us. Were at home. Yeah. I gotta think about the ages. Maybe one was kind of on his own, but you know, code one was on his own.

00:12:22 So I had three there. So you know, the kids are home, my wife is home and we can't work together. The dogs are, you know, barking constantly cuz the kids are home and they're playing. And now kids are coming in and outta the house. And I know we're supposed to like separate, but we took a few families that,

00:12:39 you know, were close to us and we would obviously stay in contact with them. And The bubble. Yeah. The door was an open door, so we nonstop. So I said, I, I gotta get out of this. I have to just find an office, even if it's a closet, I don't need this grand two, 3000, 5,000 square foot office.

00:12:58 I just need a place to stay close the door and not be bothered. So I was like, well, where I was with the gym in that center, there was office space, not office, there's commercial property open. And I thought, what an opportunity if I could just have an office there, there has to be other people like me out there.

00:13:16 So why not get a place where I can have an office and have other offices so people can share that space with me. Shark Tank idea thought this is incredible. I have invented this. Yes. Right. I was, I was so Jamie, I was so stoked. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Yeah. And then I started doing the research and here to find out this has been done for decades.

00:13:37 Right. I'm like, ah, I missed the boat on it. Right. But where I am be The big idea. Right. A hundred. That's how I was. A hundred percent. But you know, my area in, in Cleveland, Ohio and around the suburbs, there's nothing like, yeah. I mean, which is so interesting about this business model is still,

00:13:55 you can go to a lot of places where there's not, even where I live, there's not something super close. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So now it's just the education of educating people that we do exist. But yeah, so I thought, you know, when an opportunity and I ran with it and the more I researched, the more I understood what should go into a center.

00:14:12 And one thing I knew from my background is I would never wanna step into something where I don't know about the industry and know what it's about. So that's where I started looking online and you know, so fortunate to have met you and, and the opportunity, opportunity you created for individuals like me to really have a step-by step plug in and play program.

00:14:33 Yeah. You're like my ideal student. Usually like did you know you like follow all the content, you show up to the calls, you're right, You hire a coach. Right. If I just like in training, just like in, you know, for fitness or whatnot or any other student, you have a coach. Yeah. So I needed that coach and I thought you were,

00:14:51 were the best candidate and one I appreciate it, but you taught me so much to where we opened that location and just kind of randomly people started to hear about me and I was looking, not really looking for opportunity, but something kind of fell in my lap. Well it was another office space and it was like a no-brainer to do it. So eight months,

00:15:10 You're talking about the second location. I know. I was like, wait, Eight months later We're not even open. Were you even open? You signed the lease for the second location We just opened. Okay. And yeah, well no, I'm sorry everyone listening at home. Don't, don't, this is not recommended. You're Right. Jamie, you're right.

00:15:28 I, so I was not open yet. Right. And I already had that place. You're, I'm, I'm getting the Place I recommend see how it goes. Do you like it? You know, what can you learn from the first Location? I'm an all in kind of guy, right. Really if I'm in, I'm, I'm, you know,

00:15:44 way. So yeah, you're right. I wasn't even open yet and had that place signed up, blocked and loaded. So we opened our first place in August of 21 and then January 22 we opened our second location. Okay. So within, what is that five months apart? Yeah. Which is also just fast for all of it because you found the real estate really quickly.

00:16:07 Like the space that was opened next to the gym because that can take months and months. So you, you were already moving faster than, than most People. This is definitely not something I recommend by any means. So the, no, don't put my story as an Example. Right. So now you have five physical location businesses that you're managing. So do you office out of one of the spaces?

00:16:29 I do. So I office out of both, I use the shared a space, a dedicated desk at one location in a full office at the other. Okay. But you know, fortunately I have such a great team on the gym side where they're almost hands off operational for me. I mean I have the conference calls twice a week. I visit 'em once a week.

00:16:48 But they run themselves. I have a great staff and, and that's what was able to allow me to do what I'm doing currently. So I'm still in the, you know, the Coworking spaces are great. It's not like a retail business as the gyms are gym. Yeah. It's such a different business and I love it. One, I love the networking just like the gyms.

00:17:07 But you know, you're not hustling to sell membership. Well you are, but not, you know, Although, and Serving this right it is is definitely Different. Do you think the customer acquisition process is easier for Coworking? I don't know a lot about the gym except that probably like, is there more churn in the G? Like do have you sort of,

00:17:27 there's more churn doing it enough to compare? There's more churn. But I would say the, the presence of the gym is a little easier. Again, in my area you have to educate people about chore. Everybody knows about the gym and what the options are and so yeah. You have people just funneling through your doors through the gym. Yeah. Coworking in my area is a little bit different.

00:17:48 So yes. It's been nonstop. Well so I'm curious about the mindset around, you know, there's people who open Coworking spaces and they'll, I mean they operate them, some people will open one and like run it themselves, you know. Right. Which is one end of the spectrum. And then there's you who's like, yeah I have you know,

00:18:06 two other, wait, three other three gyms. Three gyms. Yeah. And you've written a book and you have a podcast and you're coaching. I mean you got so many things going on. Well what do you think about the argument around like focus? Like how do you look at like, okay, if I just devoted all my time to the gym,

00:18:26 it would be better or all my time to the, or do you think there's some like synergy to having all of these things into your brain? I think you have to have a great team, you know, again, and communication has to be clear. Expectations have to be clear, communication has to be clear and you have to have the right people in place.

00:18:45 I didn't wanna become an entrepreneur to be an employee of my, of my Business. Yeah. You didn't wanna make yourself a job. Correct. Right. So, you know, now the, now the Coworking center is different because we're a little bit smaller of spaces. We go from about 2,500 to 5,000 square feet. So, you know, I don't necessarily need a huge Community Manager to run everything now.

00:19:07 That is something I'm definitely looking forward to towards, to do more networking programs and things like that. Yeah. More community outreach. But I kind of do the hands-on operations for the Coworking centers. But to keep it all, you know, focused, you, you definitely need to be organized. Unfortunately my brain just does not shut off. Which gets me in trouble at home.

00:19:27 That's Why you have to keep, cause starting new businesses because Yeah, I, I get bored easy too. Right. But again, some of that's, you know, on the home front is tough. But you know, I always stay focused and I always stay my mind running and thinking about new ideas and new things cuz you have to, you have to adapt,

00:19:44 you have to challenge yourself. You have to keep pushing yourself forward in your current businesses. So I'm always thinking about that. You know what, that was one of my questions that I wrote down when I was thinking about like, what do I wanna talk to David about? Is this like, I was like, okay part of some of your business.

00:19:59 Like, or maybe, maybe they're both doing a little bit of each at the same time. Like the idea of operating versus innovating because the serial entrepreneur thing, I actually think when I said that to my, you know, mentor, I think it was because I was like, I just wanna build stuff. I don't wanna operate stuff. You know,

00:20:19 like I just wanna make it and then do the next thing. You operate and have to have lots of systems in place. Like, like you mentioned with your team. Are you an e o s Sky? Yep. Yeah. You know, frameworks and you're starting something new. Like can you just talk like maybe talk about how you manage that or how you grew into that or?

00:20:40 I think our mindset definitely is like that. And mine is as well as a multiple business owner, it is to where you have all these ideas and you kind of just want it to go fall into place because our mind is already onto the next idea. Exactly. And I find that's tough and I've operated for so long. I think that's where I try and pull myself back from is I have to,

00:21:06 I know I have to have this system in place. I know I have to communicate it to my team. I know we need this to move forward. It's still tough though because I just still do have all these ideas. Now again, my team is great because they're probably like, oh my gosh, here we go again. Or something else. Or something else.

00:21:22 And I keep throwing 'em things. Meanwhile we haven't even completed our first task Task, You know, so it's definitely tough. It is definitely a struggle to where I have to tone back and say, okay, let's get this completed first. There are some things that slip through my fingers that I still actually noticed something today. I'm like, oh I totally forgot to do this where I said I do it.

00:21:46 Gotta go back to it. Right, right. Versus moving onto like, It is tough that, that mindset is tough. It is a daily struggle every day to make sure that I'm not going over what I can accomplish. So I need to make sure everything, everything is set before I do the next one. It's hard cuz I still keep doing it but you know,

00:22:04 I write it down and then rifle this in as I think we're close to completion on one. And yeah, keep going forward because so many things have just fell into place. Like the Coworking from the gyms to the Coworking and then like even the coffee. I mean Yeah, let's talk about the coffee. I'm not trying to go out there as you drink yours.

00:22:22 I'm not trying to go out there and absolutely try and get all these businesses. It just kind of fell in my lap. Totally. I should have totally just grabbed a mug with my hair. You totally should be right and Plugged It in. I know. I don't, I had to drink mine cuz I'm like a one cappuccino a day and the Yeah,

00:22:39 my husband will wake up and has to have his coffee right away. And this morning I was like, we have a problem. There's water in the garage. And he was like, I just woke up, which is code four. I have to get my coffee before I deal with our water problem. I was like, oh my god, You need to work out.

00:22:53 He needed his coffee. Totally. Exactly. After that you could take on the world. I mean basically I was like, okay, order of priority, forget the water damage. That's fine. Okay. Yeah. So let's talk about, yeah. The coffee opportunity. Yeah. So I was with my friend and I've, I've known this individual for over a decade now,

00:23:16 probably about 13 years. No, geez. Holy smokes. 14 two since 2006, whatever that time is. Right. When I was in the fitness business and I got out of that, I was a supervisor for a big company on the fitness side and I just wasn't a politic kind of guy and had to play corporate politics. So I got out of that and wanted to get back into food and beverage.

00:23:37 So I wanted to do healthy smoothies and health healthy salads and sandwiches. So there's this individual that had multiple locations in Cleveland and I touched base with him and I bought into his licensing. So this gentleman along along the way became, became partners with a company called Arabica Coffee House. Now Arabica at the time in Cleveland was a Starbucks before Starbucks in Cleveland there were over 40 locations Wow.

00:24:02 Of Arabic coffee houses around. That's gotta be pretty unusual to have that many locations of crazy. Wow. Really crazy. And they started to actually go globally as well. Back then few years forward, this individual Scott, he started developing the menu side for Arabic Coffee House. Implemented that well the owners of Arabic at the time were kind of not putting all hands on deck with the company and growing the company and it kind of started to go down.

00:24:29 So Scott bought everything and he became the owner of Arabic Coffee House. Now it's great cuz they have over a hundred locations worldwide. So they're definitely a globally recognized brand. Wow. Gourmet coffee. But step forward, we were hanging out and he goes, what do you think about putting coffee in your gym? And I said, well I did that prior to Covid because,

00:24:50 but I just have a, you know, an earn full of Folgers. Yes. And let people help themselves. Did you say Folgers? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, good. We're we're evolving Coffee bank. Yep. So obviously after Covid, I, I took that away during Covid. Took that away, never brought it back. So he was talking about why don't we size down the Arabic coffee house menu,

00:25:14 make it like an Arabic Express, maybe some light snack food, whatnot. But focus just on coffee. Run it as a ghost kitchen outta your business out of the gym. So you can have all your delivery service like DoorDash and Grubhubs and Uber Eats come out of there. But also market to your members. I have members walking through the door anyway with Starbucks in their hands or Dunking Donuts.

00:25:35 Right, right. Yeah. They're getting that anyway. Yep. Might as well keep it in house. So we ran with it and we started going with it and it's doing really well. It's exciting. So we were like, why don't we put it in one of the Coworking centers? So the other Coworking center I have is away from the gyms.

00:25:51 Yeah. And it's a little bit bigger size, so no brainer. Let's put it in there. So one thing led into another and then especially on the gym side, I know a lot of other gym owners in the area and I said, guys, this is great. This is an opportunity for you to bring, even if it's a few thousand dollars extra to the bottom line,

00:26:09 very little Startup. It's a great revenue source. And we already have a desk staff on hands anyway. I don't need this big barista. Yeah. We again scaled it to where anybody could do it. Your front desk staff can do it and there you go. You don't need extra labor or anything. So we're like, well if people are interested we might might as well license this out.

00:26:32 So we have four locations currently in Cleveland. We have two more coming on board in the next couple months. We have a location in Florida. Open enough In Florida. Yeah. We have an opportunity now to go globally with my, a franchisee of World Gym. So we are in talks with World Gym to offer that to all the franchises across the world.

00:26:54 So, you know, we have a 230 gyms across the world. So we have the opportunity to reach out to them and be, be a preferred vendor with World Gym and put it in all the locations that they've chosen. So do you think, because I think it used to be, and even with Coworking spaces, this sounds like so basic, but just the little shift of oh you could,

00:27:14 you know, sell the delivery services feels like a very big deal because if you talk, I would assume gyms are kind of like this. Like you have to have a lot of volume to make money on coffee. Like you, you know, it's inexpensive but just to like, if you have, you know, labor, if you have to devote labor to it.

00:27:32 Right. And Coworking spaces, a lot of them will say, yeah, we don't make money on the coffee business unless they're, you know, it's catering and, and they're doing kind of a bigger offering. Do you think it's the, the delivery piece that kind of flips that over and gives you enough volume to make it meaningful? It definitely helps.

00:27:50 I mean that's a good size. As long as you market correctly. It, it's a great opportunity to have extra revenue coming in on the member's side. Plus you could do catering. I mean it's open to where you could do so much Would you, Working out of your shop now and with that, your business alone with the coffee shops, you don't need to pay rent cuz you're already doing that.

00:28:08 Right. Right Now I set up my businesses to where that does pay my gym rent for another extra revenue source. But just tax per versus and whatnot. But it's such a little cost, so you don't need a huge volume to even make a profit there. So again, even if it's, you know, you don't have such high volume Yeah. It's no money to the bottom line.

00:28:28 Yep. And you know, and your gym staff, that's fine. You don't, you're not overwhelming them by having to service what comes in. No. No. Okay. It's pretty Easy. And do you make like lattes? We do, we do make lattes. So I don't personally, I don't do like hot espressos, but there's a thing called Cotti Mix that's,

00:28:46 it's a, it's concentrated coffee that you make. So it's just like an espresso. Okay. But it's not hard for the front desk. Doesn't have, they're not stressed about like whether they got the heart in the milk the right way. No, no coffee drinks. But it's Correct. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And so sized down we try and do,

00:29:04 Scott is great too cause we've both been operators for so long. Yeah. So as easy as we can keep it Right. You're, you're really focused, laser focused on make it simple. Correct. Yeah. Percent. Hey, I just wanted to jump in really quickly before we continue with our discussion. If you're working on opening a co-working space, I wanna invite you to join me for my free masterclass.

00:29:28 Three behind the Scenes 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. If you'd like to join me, you can register at Everything Coworking dot com slash masterclass.

00:29:52 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. 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,

00:30:20 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. 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,

00:30:52 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. So, but not only that with the members then too as, as far as the revenue, there's so much you could do. We do a thing where if you pre-order before the,

00:31:13 our group exercise class, I go into a class, you pre-order drink will be ready for you at the end of class. I love that. It's also, that's also, I keep struggling with this like the difference between hospitality and service. Like service is like I have something you can buy, but I, I like that you're still, they're still buying something from you.

00:31:33 But like David, you're gonna have my drink ready when I'm done with class. Right. That's lovely. It's lovely. And for you it's like maybe operationally easier to like hundred percent match them. But for me I'm like, wait, you're just gonna hand me a drink when I come out of class. Thank you. Like hospitality, you know? Right.

00:31:51 Love. There's, there's so many opportunities. It's great. And that does, it does show your members a little extra. And same thing in the Coworking Center too. We could do the same thing when someone has a conference here and put your Georgias in prior and we'll have it ready to you. We'll deliver it to you. We have it in the Coworking center as well where it's on our website.

00:32:09 You can order online. So it's curbside service. So you tell us when you're here or what time you expect it, text us when you get here and we deliver the coffee right to you. Right. So again, you're getting either delivery service or anybody which is you're marketing like to a different audience. But I was thinking about that too because people are,

00:32:28 well it was on our call, I think it came up like our, our group call with the operator. Somebody was like, what else can I sell to my members? And sometimes it's not just what else can I sell to my members cuz that's a portion of your revenue. But it's like what else can I sell in this physical space that I'm paying rent on?

00:32:44 A hundred percent. A Hundred percent. There's overlap. It's not like you're selling something totally ridiculous that doesn't fit at all because you have to do coffee. You know, you wanna provide a nice coffee set up anyway. Right. And it's a great way to give people snacks. People are always trying to figure out like, how do I run like a snack system in the space?

00:33:01 And a lot of people do like honor system, but like people can get smooth. Do you do light food or just smoothie? Like a smoothie? We do. We're just starting in the Coworking Center. I had many people here as like if you do breakfast sandwiches, oh my God. I said, well I'm not set up to do like full cooking.

00:33:18 Yeah. I get a little convention oven and I can just put in a frozen breakfast app. That's all we'll take it. So yeah. You know again, people are spending that anyway outside of our doors. Right, right. We might as well keep it inside for us. You're Making it easy for them because they can get it there. Yeah.

00:33:34 Convenience, It's service we're giving. And that's also a, a draw for the Coworking center to hey you have a cafe right in here for you. Right. And it's great. Literally MySpace there is not even an eight by 10 space. Probably seven and a half by nine. Wow. And that has a three compartment sink in there. That's Crazy.

00:33:53 I mean we Like the size of a small office a very, We designed it to where you can have little space and the least amount of effort to Do, but you have to plummet. So you have to have plumbing in the front of the space. You do so and well not necessarily because if you have it somewhere else, as long as you it's accessible,

00:34:12 you have to have it right there. Okay, good point. Okay. But you have to have plumbing wherever you're putting this. Right. Got it. Okay. Yeah, it's super simple. So back to everything, it just kind of fell into place. It's crazy again, as a kid I never thought I wanna be a serial entrepreneur. Never even knew That.

00:34:30 You're just kind of like following the breadcrumbs and things that overlap and fit. Makes sense. Correct. So I'm curious at this point, like how much like spreadsheet analysis do you do on these opportunities versus like, I think that's a fit let's, you know, let's run, run some numbers and do it. But like do you get like super analytical or do you just kinda let's try it?

00:34:54 A little bit of both to be honest with you. Okay. I mean, again, I'm all an all hands in kind of guy. Sometimes I do those spreadsheets after I get in analysis. But it's funny, I'll create my own spreadsheets and my wife actually last week she looked over my shoulder and she saw what I was doing. She goes, who made them?

00:35:11 I'm like, I did. It was a full like spreadsheet of all the breakdowns and percentages for the day, for the month. And she's like, oh my, I didn't even know you could do that. I'm like, well, you know, self-talk. But Yeah, To know your numbers is almost everything. You do have to plan. You do have to go in,

00:35:28 you do have to know what you're looking for, what your projection, your performance. You have to know all that. You're big on that, right. I Mean, yes, I'm very big on the Yeah. Numbers. Yeah. So you do. And in all honestly, you've taught me a lot of that even more than what I did in my gyms prior.

00:35:45 I think I mentioned to you before, man, you, you've helped me not only in the Coworking space but also business tools that I can use in the gyms as well. One of those was that also really focus on, I did a little bit, but now I really focus on a lot More. Yeah. Well and now you probably also, some of that is natural.

00:36:01 Like you just have to, because you can't, you're not in the gym. You, you're, you're spread spread across a little bit. So is there any staff, the location that's next to the gym, is there a staff person that's in there that's shared with the gym or that's like self-serve? It's self-serve. I have someone that comes in and cleans it every so often.

00:36:20 I'm in there probably three times a week. So if something needs stocked or if anything needs changed out or whatnot, I do, I have a maintenance gentleman that comes throughout the gym. So he targets those as well. Perfect. So that was kind of nice. Yep. The little small. And actually both of 'em, I set it up where it's really hands off so the,

00:36:39 once you sign up, everything's sent you in an email and then everything's digitally from the door access to scheduling to, you know, everything's pretty hands off. Yep. So it makes it a lot easier on my end. But I definitely like to show my face and talk to everybody and build that kind of community as well. But there's somebody in the,

00:36:58 the bigger location because they're making coffee. There is on the coffee side. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But they're not necessary. Are they cross-trained on the Coworking space? Like can they give a tour? It's my son, so I cross-train him on every day. Shut up. I love it. Okay, So, so this one I couldn't do it and I don't want to be here at five in the morning doing coffee.

00:37:18 So him, I said, listen, we'll split the business. You run an Operation, get him started on the entrepreneurial side. Yeah. Okay. He already has that mindset. He's a big musician and he runs his, his band like a business, which I love. Wow. Yeah. So I gave him a little more of an opportunity. Very nice.

00:37:35 Okay. So does he do tours or like Yeah. Oh yeah. He, he has not as much. I obviously like to be that first person. There's a time went on vacation or out of town. Yeah. And I tell him, Hey, you gotta look at this and you gotta show the space and yeah. You know, I'm behind the scenes and you gotta make sure you ask this question.

00:37:52 Gotta you gotta get to know them, you know, so I, I probably don't teach 'em in the traditional manner, but, and then I'm on cameras watching them. What are you doing? Why didn't you ask this? You know? No poor guy. I know. Yeah. That's Funny. So yeah, it's interesting that you give the tours.

00:38:10 People probably relate to you very well. I try To, yeah. I think owners struggle with letting the tours go because other business owners in particular, like if they know you're the owner, like they should love that. Right. And I'm sure you mentioned, you're like, well I think I'm gonna do some business coaching cuz people keep asking me questions.

00:38:29 Right. Yeah, we did talk About that. So I yeah, I'm sure there's some of that that happens and people like, oh I, I wanna be in a place like with a, with someone like me, you know, that's like gets me so I can see the value. Yeah. I'm sure at some point you'll stop because, well,

00:38:43 I don't know what's the vi, what's the Coworking vision? Is it more locations or what are you thinking? I'm always open to the right opportunity at this point. I cannot put on anymore on my plate simply because my wife would, Would Possibly have a coronary. So We were out of town this weekend and there was a guy down the street that we met and,

00:39:06 and it's like, oh see, it's like three kids at home. He's like, it's so nice to be here by myself. And then he is like, but I gotta go back cuz I have twins and it's their birthday. And I was like, that guy's getting some divorce papers. Oh Yeah. No kidding. What he in doing buddy? Oh my god.

00:39:23 Everybody likes little me time, but not on your twins Birthday. My gosh. Yeah. I almost said it to him. My husband would've like been mortified. My papers would've been served quick. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Wait, okay, so let's flip back to the coffee business. So you license, like if I'm a co-working space owner, I can set up this like licensed kiosk.

00:39:46 So I'm licensing the brand and like the how-to. Yeah, so we really, again, because we're operators, we wanted to set this up almost like a franchise, but without all the franchise fees, because we're an operator, we, and The legal requirements for franchises are like so crazy. Yeah. Right. So we'll train, we'll set up, we'll design the space,

00:40:09 we will take all the work off of it for you in the beginning obviously, and set everything up. And then we have the ongoing promotions monthly, we'll do the ongoing training. If there's someone else that needs onboarding, we'll try and fit in on our schedule, but we'll do it, we'll get it done for you. But yeah, so we want to put the whole support system in place like a franchise would without paying all those crazy royalties.

00:40:31 So for a couple hundred bucks a month you get a globally branded coffee. Gourmet coffee, right near business. And you're sending me like the Canva files for whatever the pumpkin spice special is for the month or Yeah, yeah, You're right. Yep. Yeah, all the recipes. All the promotions. Yeah. Everything is right there for You. Is there a website for this?

00:40:52 How do people find out more about this? Sure. Here beka express.com Express. I like it. Got it. I'm gonna put that in the show notes Com. Not like spelled out dash, the little dash, you Know. Got it. Yep. Perfect. Yeah, I love that. I think it's super interesting. And the Coworking model, I don't know,

00:41:11 what do you think about the business model compared to like a gym, like margins? Like what's your kind of takeaway to date? I wish I would've listened to you a little bit more. You know, well it, it was, it's kind of been a shift in the last couple years. Yeah, That's For sure. Going into Covid, there was more,

00:41:33 more open space, more need for an open space. I think people liked it a little bit more. It was more kind of out there and the networking obviously. And then covid hit and that shift changed a little bit. Yep. And I think everybody wants that privacy more than kind of that open space work. Now that might be in my area,

00:41:53 but I've designed my place as to where we have private offices, we have an area for dedicated desk. So you have four or five individuals sharing an office that are kind of set up as cubicles. And then you have the open space where I thought the open space and the shared space, because it's more budget friendly, affordable. Right. Very approachable Opportunity.

00:42:13 And that's just not the case. Everybody goes for the private offices right now. Yeah. So you were actually talking about this at one point and I don't know, I forget if it was on a conference call or we were talking about it through the group site, but it was about the shared office space. And at this point I should have just went with more private offices.

00:42:32 Yeah, it's tricky. Says pretty much everyone. It might be a combination of, so you opened it kind of an interesting time, right? Like you had this idea during Covid and then you executed without sort of seeing like, how's this all gonna fall out and you're in a suburb And so Yeah. Hard to know. That's, you know, the thing about the suburbs in my town is a lot of people don't want to drive into downtown.

00:42:57 Now our downtown is very, it's not a big metropolis. Yep. It's easy to get in and park and people just don't, If you're in a traffic jam, you could still get into downtown in 30 minutes, 30, 45 minutes. You know, not like Atlanta works five hours to get into downtown. Yeah. So, but people, that mindset, they still don't like driving into downtown.

00:43:15 So that was my thought is building in the suburbs. Yeah. 10 minutes from my house, I can get in, do my stuff and that's it. Yeah. So I wanted to avoid kind of that, I think it'll turn out to be smart. Any sort of s you know, slower ramp up for you is probably just like you said, like just people that aren't aware of it yet.

00:43:33 So that's it. But private offices go, I mean all, they Go quickly. People find me, all My private offices are Full. Yep. It didn't take long to get the private offices full. Yeah. And once those go, it's everything else they're trying to build now. Yep. What's as good though, coming out of Covid and it took a little bit as well.

00:43:51 I'm starting to see more now of conference space, rental Meeting room and yeah, Great. Meetings are coming back. Yeah. Businesses are meeting with their teams more. So that has been helpful. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like there's probably someone on your staff somewhere who wants to be the community person and start running your networking events. Okay. So let's talk about the coaching and you know,

00:44:13 could, the coaching piece is interesting. Maybe there's like some office hours or some, what's going on there? Everything pulls me in that direction right now from people asking questions to, I mean, just little things, people online, the podcasting. Oh wait, Yes. Can you have a pod? Wait, can you talk about the podcast? There's,

00:44:32 see I had so many things on the list I, I haven't even talked about. Like your, why don't we use this as an opportunity? You wrote a book, Andy started a podcast. Can you talk about those two things a little bit and segue into the, the coaching? Sure. So few years ago, someone reached out to me, they,

00:44:49 they heard I would, this time I just had the gyms and they wanted to do a podcast of just interviewing me. They wanted to interview entrepreneurs and kind of see what has helped them become successful and blah blah blah. This gentleman's name is Adam Torres. He owns a company called Mission Matters, one of the most humble down to earth individuals. He is incredible.

00:45:10 But he goes out there and helps entrepreneurs tell their stories to help other people kind of gain from that. Yeah. You know, gain from those other individual's experience. He's incredible, incredible person. Incredible company too. So we started doing the podcast and they, you know, we talked beforehand to ask some questions and see how it fit with it. And then they were like,

00:45:31 would you be open to writing a book? And I'm like, right, no, but I'm definitely curious. You know, so his company also has a, it's a full media company. So they do the podcasting, they do obviously the book writing. So there was a few of us that wrote in together. So we have some chapters in the same book.

00:45:53 But it allowed me to discuss some of my success principles going a little bit more deeper than I did the podcasting in this book. And they published it and it came out and it's been great. So him and I have developed a friendship together and, and always still stayed, stayed in contact with each other. So he had an opportunity to start doing podcasting and he was looking for people to be on his podcast network.

00:46:19 So he asked me and I was like, I've never done podcasting before. And if you've never done podcasting, you have to start being so conscious of how you talk, how you articulate your word, your verbiage, everything. And I, that's not me. Like this, this is more me and I probably fumbled so much I wouldn't do that if I was interviewing,

00:46:40 but it's a different entity and I was nervous of it and I, I was kind of scared. I feared it a little bit. So I said, if I'm nervous about it, if I fear for that, that's the reason I should do this. So I said, let's go for it. What I would like to do is something similar to you to where I could talk to individuals who scaled their business Yeah.

00:46:58 Who become successful and help build businesses. Whether if it's someone just as a manager or supervisor or whatnot in any field. Whether it's medical or attorneys or you name it. So that's what we do. So I do a podcast, right. Interview entrepreneurs and wanna talk about how they scaled their, their business. Again, not only entrepreneurs but all walks of life.

00:47:21 How do you find your guests? Are they from your network or does the, does the podcast They had? Back to my network, I had a few people reach out online that would like to be a guest as well. Some people I just talk to here and there randomly. And I think they'd be a great guest. They have an interesting story.

00:47:38 I can communicate well with them. So I always put out there, Hey, would you like to be a guest on our podcast network? So, pretty good. How does doing the podcast fit into every, so maybe this was, is the coaching sec, does it fit or is it just like It fits? Okay. And be honest, it's probably the,

00:47:58 the most fun I have in everything I do because it's, you just sit around, you, you talk to someone, you get to know someone on a more intimate level and you just have a conversation with them and, and you build, I build a relationship within an hour and it's, it's fantastic. I love it. So crazy thing. And this is it,

00:48:16 out of everything I do. So a gentleman reached out to me on LinkedIn and he said, I saw your book with Adam. Adam was a student of mine. And I'm like, get the heck outta here. So Adam is a student of a gentleman called Chris. His name is Christopher Kai. So Christopher Kai is a global speaker. He's incredible.

00:48:34 You ever have a chance to look him up? He's fantastic. And not only speaking, but his interviews, he's interviewed some of the best Elon Musk. I mean it is Wow. Incredible. His network is absolutely incredible. But he has a whole coaching program. Well he'll help teach you and coach you on building your business, guest speaking, things like that.

00:48:55 So again, you know, I'm all about coaching. So I reached out after he reached out to me, I, I said, yeah, I definitely wanna be a part of your team. So that's where coaching came from. And he's like, you have to monetize what you're doing. Your time is of value. You're doing a lot of things and you offer a lot of services that you could Yep.

00:49:17 Benefit from. Yeah. So that's where that led. So here we are. Okay. So have you started, have you started taking, taking clients? No, I'm still doing it for free. Yeah, right. I know, but now you have an audience cuz you've written a book and you, you know, those are a lot of things that a lot of coaches don't have.

00:49:33 And that's back to sort of the business part of it, that can be a real challenge for coaches, right? They, they, they don't have a process or they don't have a, like a funnel for clients. And so he was probably like, dude, you got the funnel and oh, you just need to apply a process. And When we started talking about Coworking,

00:49:49 he's like, you have a Coworking center. Right. And a place like, It's incredible because it's just a built-in network. Yeah. And again, with the Coworking Center, it's people who are already looking for that anyway. It's a, it's a natural building. Yeah. Scary thing for me is I don't want to take on clients where I can't commit to,

00:50:06 you know, I have pulled in so many different directions sometimes. So to stick to, we're doing this at 12 o'clock, it's tough cuz a conference call may come up or I need to do this for another business. So I don't want to, you know, I don't want someone to pay for something that I would, they would get upset at me for,

00:50:22 for not following through. Yeah. You know, I'm on the border with that. I would have to let, let something go To be able to really kind of dive into that. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Well you never know what like door might open and Never know. I'm always interested in selling and to open up free time for me. So if anybody's looking for gyms,

00:50:43 for sure. Okay. What's the, I'll put a link to your podcast. What's the podcast called? Podcast is Scaling your Business. Right. And actually it can be found on my website, davidandras.com. Okay. We'll put both in the show notes. Awesome, awesome. Wait, where do you record? Do you record at the space? Yep.

00:51:02 So I built one of the private offices when all this was going on. I still had one small office available and I was like, well, I might as well turn this into a podcast center and then have people rent it out and whatnot. So literally I have a podcast room that has all the styrofoam, you know, sound absorbing thing from there.

00:51:21 I have a green screen in here. Oh wow. Yep. Wait, is that what I'm looking at behind you or is that just a background? That's a background. Okay. But it's on a green screen. Okay. So does anybody else use it? Do you have any other podcasters? Yeah, it's just been mostly members already, but I have members in the other center that will come out here and use a podcast center too.

00:51:43 Nice. Okay. I like it. And you charge for it just like a meeting room Typically? Yes. Okay. For my members, I give them credit towards whether it is the podcast room or the meeting rooms or the conference room. So they use our credits. Yep. How are you billing your members? What system are you using? Archie?

00:52:00 Oh, you did go with Archie. Okay. Happy with Archie? I am. Okay. Yeah, I mean, there's always tweaks you could do, but it works comfortable for me. Yeah. Okay, cool. Equipment. Are you using a microphone? Anything fancier than kind of a Yeah, you get the same microphone. I do. I can't figure out how to get mine like off the,

00:52:17 cause I'm like, I have to talk right into it. So we just did a, I do this series called How I Did This and I had a bunch of our either Coworking Startup School or Flight Group folks who have their own podcasts. And we had so many of them, you would've been on the list, but I had them come on and share their,

00:52:33 you know, how they use it and does it promote their business. And then I had an email from somebody afterwards. He's like, Hey, you didn't really talk about equipment, which I'm sure I promised to talk about like in the advertisement of the session. And I was like, oh my God. I was so into their stories that I never Asked.

00:52:48 That's wild that they would even bring that up. One of 'em shared. She has like the road caster, like $2,500, like mixing board, which is actually, I'll just mention this for anybody listening is the cool thing about it is she doesn't have an editor. She has her intro, she has it recorded into this mixer. Right. She just hits a button and does her in.

00:53:12 So it's like kind of edits it all together. Right. I've seen those. She has a little ad in the middle. It just plays that, so it kind of might be worth it. Do you have an editor or how do you get yours done? I don't, so with the Mission managers network, I record and I do that. Oh,

00:53:26 they do it all Soundboard. So I have like a little mixer. Okay. But I send it right into them. They edit It, they just do it all. Write your show notes, they do everything. Yep. Yep. That's, That's A, that's a fantastic way. They're always looking for good people, you know? So as long as you know they fit,

00:53:41 you gotta kind of fit their mold, which I love. It's genuine people that Yeah. Just truly wanna share their story and serve people. If you fit that mold, they're open to. And his network is huge. And his podcasting is already on Spotify, apple, all the big name. Yep. Podcasting. Yeah, they do it all for you.

00:53:58 That's, yeah, I love that. That's so easy for you. That's why you can fit it in. I was like, podcasting's practically a job. So, but not if you're just sending the file. I have some of that set up, the editing and the, anyway, okay. That's, yeah, that's helpful to, to, to know.

00:54:13 Cool. Okay. We're, I could keep talking to you for hours, but anytime, I'm sure you have. Yes. Lots to do. Yeah. And also I feel like, you know, I think about when I do these episodes, like I should ask like more practical things about, but I just love the stories and I think for you,

00:54:29 for me, the perspective is people who are maybe not open-minded to I can do more than one thing. I can do more than have a co-working space. Yeah. Because for some people like to make the business work. We've, you know, you have smaller ones that are not fully staffed. If you want it to like pay your mortgage, you have to have a larger space.

00:54:50 And so you have to, you know, you have to go hard in that and they're more expensive to start and all the things, it can be one of the things that you do. So I, I just, I love sharing those stories and you have a great all around story, so thank you for taking the time to do this today. One of these times we gotta roll reverse,

00:55:05 so next time I interview you Okay. Maybe. Yes. So, so anyway, if you want more of David's perspective, I'll put the links to his podcast and get more kinda straightforward business talk. But thank you for sharing your story and No, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to today's episode.

00:55:27 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, head over to Everything Coworking dot com. We'll see you next week.

For the full show notes of this episode, click here.

Want to join our coworking conversation in the Everything Coworking Facebook Group? Find us here!

Looking for a specific episode? Go to the episode index here.

Jamie RussoComment