295. Ryan Simonetti, CEO of Convene, on Activating Buildings for Landlords

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TRANSCRIPTION

295. Ryan Simonetti, CEO of Convene, on Activating Buildings for Landlords

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. I'm running an episode this week that we recorded for the Flex Uncensored Podcast, which is a podcast that I started with Giovanni Palavicini in March of 2022. So if you are not yet a listener, open your podcast app and subscribe and join us every week. So I like to think of that podcast as maybe being kind of a little bit more macro,

00:01:14 bigger picture and this podcast being a little more kind of case study and you know, kind of diving into what operators are really thinking about and as we say in our tagline, you know, co-working trends and, and how-tos. So I would also say that the other podcast is just different because I'm co-hosting it with Giovanni. Giovanni is a commercial office broker focusing exclusively on the flex market.

00:01:42 So he works with operators that are looking to expand or open their first location. He has been in the industry for some time. He worked with Regis a while ago and he is just super fun and different from me, which I love. He is also the new co-president of the Global Workspace Association, so you'll be seeing more of him out and about if you are a member of the gwa.

00:02:09 And if you go to the conference, he MCed the conference last year and did a fantastic job. There are a lot of reasons I love recording that podcast with Giovanni. One of them is that he just asks questions that I usually don't get into. He is not afraid to sort of get a little bit personal. He thinks those are the most fun questions to ask and I love that.

00:02:30 So he's a great influence on me. I love his style and I think we're kind of a great yin and yang. So we've been doing this live session, we try to do it once a month. We interviewed Ryan Simonetti in February and that's the interview we're gonna play today. And again, the thing I love about this interview is we get into questions with Ryan,

00:02:54 of course, about convene's business model. Ryan's the CEO of Convene. Convene's been around now for about 10 years. They just made a big acquisition of a company in an events company in London that they're really excited about. And Ryan talks about kinda their evolution post covid and, you know, got a lot of good like macro industry trends and good perspective.

00:03:17 And Gio also just gets into some great personal questions with Ryan about what's influenced him and you know, what do his parents think about him and what do his parents do when he was growing up? And just some really great discussion that I'm sure you know, you've never read in a Biznow article about Ryan. And I love that. And I think everybody loves kind of understanding and learning more about people personally.

00:03:41 So anyway, we're gonna play that episode for you here and if you enjoy it, you can get more like that on the Flex Uncensored podcast. So open your podcast player and do a quick search for that. Find it and subscribe and leave us a review. We're always looking for reviews that helps folks find the podcast. So if you enjoy it and get value out of it,

00:04:02 same for this one. I know it's kind of a pain to get to the review section on the podcast, but it's super helpful and we super appreciate it. So please enjoy this interview with Ryan Simonetti. We are here with Ryan Simonetti, who's the, aside from being fun to chat with about football teams is the CEO of Convene. And Ryan,

00:04:24 it's been a, a wild ride since your inception in 2009 and you just made a big acquisition, so thank you for taking the time to do this. We super appreciate it. I'm sure you're on the road all the time and have lots on your plate right now. More, more, more than my wife would like. That is for darn sure.

00:04:43 Yeah. Yes. What, What percentage of time do you spend on the road? You know, it's, it's interesting and, and you know, I think Covid for all of us was an opportunity I think to reflect. And you know, one of the things I reflected on was just how, as much as I thought I was present, how not present I really was,

00:04:59 especially for my kids and, and my family. I mean, I was traveling pre Covid 130 to 140 days a year, right. So, you know, pretty much every week I was gone. And so I've made a conscious effort, you know, coming outta Covid to be much more, I'd say thoughtful and disciplined about how I travel. So now I'd say I'm traveling at least once a month,

00:05:20 but nowhere near what I was doing. So then where do you work when you're not on the road? Well, so we have a lot of locations and so I tend to float a lot. We've got a corporate headquarters in New York City downtown, you know, which, you know, we're, we've kind of shifted to, I would say truly remote first,

00:05:38 but there is a hybrid component to that. So I'll spend time there and then, you know, wherever the meetings are, you know, I end up, so I'll spend time working you in Midtown from different locations. And then obviously when I'm on the road, you know, we've got lots of nice, beautiful spaces like geo's in right now in Chicago to,

00:05:57 to hunker down in. But yeah, I would say I'm living the hybrid life fully right now. Yeah. And so it's, it's so interesting how this changed the dynamics for all of us, right? I mean, no longer is it, we have to be stagnant from any one given place. It's funny, one of your counterparts when we, when we did ours with Jamie,

00:06:16 he texts us and he's like, is it okay if I do this from home? We're like, bro, you do it for whatever you want. Right, Exactly. But it's given us permission to really allow a work-life balance. Like I tell people we've never had in the US before. Right? I mean, I think you go other parts of the world and there is a,

00:06:33 a work-life balance, but we haven't had it here in the US to the level we have it Today. Yeah, no, and, and look, I, you know, I think that's one of hopefully the healthy things that, you know, comes out of this. And you know, I think pendulums can always swing too far. And I think you're starting to see right now,

00:06:47 depending on industry, a lot of pushback and you know, kind of forcing people back and you know, maybe in certain businesses and industries you can do that, but I think more broadly speaking, you know, hopefully this is actually a healthy shift where, you know, to your point, you know, people can find balance, especially, you know,

00:07:04 as working parents. It's hard. And you know, I see it with my wife being a working mom. Your Wife's a working mom and puts up with your schedule. Yeah. And she's, you know, she was a man, she was a managing director at Deutsche Bank in the real estate finance group, and she's now building a real estate investment platform for a big hedge fund in New York.

00:07:25 And, you know, so she has a very, you know, she's a very aspirational, she works really hard and cares deeply about her career, but at the same time, she wants to be a great mom and there's only so many hours in the day and you can only be in one place at one time. And, you know, I think that type of flexibility in particular for her as a working mom is like,

00:07:44 it's Critical. Ryan, do you think that's influenced your approach to how you, the expectations that you have of your own team? You know, we've always been a return on work environment. You know, even since Chris and I, you know, we first co-founded the business back in 2009, you know, we wanted to do things a little bit differently.

00:08:03 And you know, even then we were, we were calling it like return on work, which was, you know, we know if you're performing or not, but you know, if you want to take a long vacation or travel or work remotely, you know, now obviously for our on-site teams, just given the nature of the service delivery model, you know,

00:08:21 they don't have as much of that flexibility, which we're trying to create ways for them to get it as well. But we've always, I think we've always been pretty progressive and ahead of the curve at least on, on that stuff. Well, not just that stuff. I think all of it, I still remember the first time I walked into your space for an event,

00:08:35 I forgot what event it was, but I was just like, oh my gosh, this is absolutely gorgeous. I mean, the, the tension to detail that you have in your spaces, everything from the woodwork, I'm looking at the, at the conference room wall right now, if anyone's watching. I mean, it is, I mean, it's just crazy.

00:08:51 The curtains, the wallpaper, I mean, it's just all so well thought out that it's first of all the space, but then the hospitality is the other part, right? Is, and so I think it's, it's really interesting to talk about your background because you don't come from the hospitality industry, right? But yet hospitality is such a major part of your overall drive for the company.

00:09:14 So Yeah. And, and, and so one thing I wanna shout is we've got a incredibly talented design team and product team internally and you know, we're very fortunate to work with world-class partners. I think that constantly push us and you know, one of the things we talk about and you know, I think it, it's a little bit about especially being successful in hospitalities,

00:09:31 but like God is in the details and you know, whether that's in the details of service delivery or the details of menu design or the details of producing the technology for a high profile event, which we do a lot of, or the details of a space, you know, it is something that, you know, I think we obsess over probably to a fault.

00:09:50 But it is one of the things that, you know, we feel does, you know, ultimately differentiate us amongst other things. And you know, but I do want to say I, you know, my career was in real estate finance and investing, but I grew up in the food business. So my dad, who's had obviously a major influence in my life,

00:10:10 was actually an entrepreneur he owns, I don't know, has anyone ever had a, you ever Shake Shack Burger? Oh yeah. Well, the bun that is on that Shake Shack burger, my dad bought one of the first delivery routes in New Jersey for that company. And so when I was a young kid, I'm talking like 9, 10, 11 in the summers, I'd get on the back of a bread truck with him at three o'clock in the morning and we would go deliver to supermarkets,

00:10:36 restaurants and shake shacks. Now, customers, they weren't around back then. So I've actually been in and around the food business and the hospitality my whole life. All my jobs in high school, my first job was doing Dish at a restaurant in town. I, I worked at Friendly's, like I delivered pizzas. So I would say as much as my professional post-college career wasn't in hospitality,

00:10:59 most of my best early professional experiences were actually working in the industry. Wow, that's amazing. I didn't, that's what I get for jumping to conclusions. Right. That being said, you know, most people who would kind of take the leap and, you know, leave a high profile, well paying, you know, real estate investment job and take the risk to be an entrepreneur.

00:11:26 Can you just talk about that a little bit and sort of what the vision was and, and then we'll get to today? Yeah, so you know, I, I spent the early part of my career in, in real estate finance. I started at Lehman Brothers and then I went to a company called Gramercy Capital, which, you know, when I joined,

00:11:41 I think maybe I was the seventh or or eight hire, and it was a very small business. But talk about growth. I mean, we went from a couple hundred million in assets under management to multiple billions in like the blink of an eye in, in literally like two and a half or or three years. And you know, I think one of the benefits of working in a high growth environment,

00:12:01 especially as a young person that is ambitious, if you put your hand up, a lot of times you just get chosen. And so at a really young age, you know, I was taking on a tremendous amount of responsibility. I mean, I was up for an MD promotion when I was, what, 26 and was running a part of the investment side of that business.

00:12:22 And then when the world started to fall apart, you know, in kind of late oh seven into oh eight, you know, I spent a lot of time doing workouts and restructuring and kind of trying to work with, you know, our different operating partners and you know, developers that we had lent money to on kind of how to navigate outta those situations.

00:12:43 And it just so happened I spent a lot of time doing office and a lot of time doing hospitality. And I think if folks remember back in like 2005, 2006, 2007, that was really the birth of lifestyle as a movement. It's lifestyle in food, right? It's Whole Foods, it's Wegmans, it's the birth of SoulCycle, it's Equinox, it's W Hotel,

00:13:09 it's Ian Schrager. And so I was kind of seeing what was happening within hospitality, both macro, but then within some of the, the investments that we were in. And nobody had thought about bringing that to office yet. And so the thesis was, well what if you kind of ran an office building, like a boutique fully serviced hotel? You know,

00:13:34 could you change the value proposition and experience for the tenants? Could you use that space to bring the community in and kind of monetize it in a different way? And then ultimately the landlord would make more money. And so that was really the thesis back in 2008 when we came up with the idea in 2009 when we launched you kind of mid crisis. And yeah,

00:13:58 I think unfortunately we were just like 10 years ahead of the industry's thinking. I was gonna say, that was a really early thesis, especially with that timing. Yeah. And then you had, I mean that's tough timing and then living through Covid of course. Yeah. I mean, what do they say? Iron sharpens iron? So born in a crisis,

00:14:17 you know, I'd say push deeply in the last one. And then, you know, I think, you know, we learned a lot through I think each of those experiences. And you know, I think the fact that we're able to survive, which obviously was not easy, but kind of navigate our way to where we are today. And you know,

00:14:34 I think as we all know, you know, there's not a landlord on earth not talking about humanizing their building. There's not a company on earth not talking about outsourcing more of their real estate experience, you know? And I think we find ourselves today in a really interesting spot. And, you know, hopefully all, all that we've learned, you know,

00:14:55 over the last 13 plus years, you know, hopefully puts us in a really good position to take advantage of. You know, I think I've been waiting for this moment and preaching from the hilltops for a long time. And you know, I think we finally are at this really exciting inflection point for, for not just us, but I think the industry,

00:15:14 you know, more broadly speaking, Are you about to be an overnight success after 13, 13 painful years? Sure, I'll take it. I'm curious and then I'll let Gio jump in. I mean, you had a really early vision that was probably pretty resisted by your potential clients. Oh, Every one of them. Compare and contrast the conversations you were trying to have with landlords in oh 9, 10, 11 to today.

00:15:42 What are you talking about? Right. And you know, I think for a long time, honestly, I'd say really until 2021, I'd Say not quite 20 18, 20 19. So you're talking nine to 10 years of, you know, spending a lot of our own money proving that we were right. And then, you know, I'd say finally in late 20 18, 20 19,

00:16:10 we started to see a shift. You know, if you look at the buildings we go into, we're tending to work with very institutional owners and operators, very institutional providers of capital. And so to some extent, by default, we were never really gonna work with an early adopter. Yep. And you know, I think unfortunately hindsight 2020, what I probably would've done differently is actually had probably focused more of our time and energy on a different type of owner early on that was more entrepreneurial and probably would've better positioned themselves for a first mover.

00:16:42 But the type of brand that we were building, the locations we need to be in, the assets we need to be in, you know, I think that kind of always forced us to work with, you know, I'd say, which just tend to be later adopters and, and it's okay. I mean we made it here. But yeah, I'd say a huge shift in the conversation today versus even,

00:17:03 you know, 36 months ago. Yeah. And I think, you know, so part of where Jamie and I are different, it's always fun. Jamie's all about business and sometimes I just love the personal side of people. So I saw your post in which you talked about going to antique shops with your mom and you hated it, but yet Tortured me.

00:17:21 She tortured me. What do you mean? I've been in therapy for 20 years because of that, About all your Saturdays that, And now you have these beautiful spaces that are full of incredible furniture. Right? So it was for something. Oh no, look, you know, it's amazing, you know, our, especially as I'm getting older and now that I'm a parent,

00:17:42 I'm appreciating this more. But you know, our experiences is what shapes us, us. And you know, I think especially in our formidable younger years, both the good things we go through and the traumatic things that we go through shape ultimately who we are. And you know, you, thankfully I had a great influence in my dad that always pushed me to,

00:18:05 you know, dream big and be your own boss and you can be an entrepreneur and you know, his big thing was just don't ever let anyone outwork you. That's the only thing that you control. And then I had a mom who, you know, was pushing me at a young age, even though hindsight 2020, I had no idea was to start to appreciate some of these other things in life,

00:18:24 like design. And so, you know, thankfully I had both of those influences. So what would you say your mom's favorite characteristic about you is? You know, my mom's always had an adventurous spirit, you know, she grew up very, very poor. And so I think by that experience, her world by design was so small, right? Like her life and was never bigger than like probably the,

00:18:47 the town that she had grown up in. But she always aspired and dreamt to, to travel and do other things. And, and I'd say I got a lot of that from her. And you know, I'd say she's probably most proud that, you know, I've, I've had an opportunity to see and do and to travel as as much as I have.

00:19:05 And so much of that was due to their hard work and the opportunities they gave. Oh, of, of amazing, oh, it takes a village. Yeah, for sure. And you brought up traumatic experiences and this is gonna take you back. So I was in the, in our aey office in DC talking to Josh Peyton, and suddenly, Oh my boy Josh,

00:19:25 I love that guy. Yeah, we, we started talking about you and this bud, this podcast that we hadn't scheduled. And he's like, ask him about the Uber driver that kidnapped him. So I kind of forgot about this and I was actually, gosh, blocked it out. No, probably a little bit of that, a little bit of that too.

00:19:46 But I was, we were in, we obviously we announced a huge acquisition, which I know we'll probably talk about at some point, but I was in London last week, you know, with the teams and we, we went out to dinner, a small group of us, including some of the senior team, et cetera, venues. And I guess what came up was the first day of onboarding for a new hire.

00:20:09 And so it just so happened that I wasn't the only person in the car that day. That was our new head of sales first day on the job. And so we were going to tour a potential new location with the landlord. We got out and then we had had a lo location in Tyson's Corner and you know, from downtown, you know, out to Tyson's probably 25, 30 minutes.

00:20:32 So we're gonna take an Uber. So we're walking outta the building, the Uber's there, we're getting into the car and then there was a police car behind us with lights on, but we, I wasn't paying attention to, cause we're having a conversation. We get in the car, I sit in the front seat, they get in the back seat to the guys that work with me and the driver gets outta the car and goes to then talk to the officer,

00:20:51 comes back in the car, we're still talking. I said, oh, is everything okay? He's like, oh yeah, no, we're fine. It was just a traffic cop. We start taking off, well the next block is a traffic light and the light is clearly yellow, about to be red and this guy guns it. And like I'm like,

00:21:11 whoa, that was aggressive. And then I look in the side view mirror, that cop is also gunning it through the red light. Next thing you know, we are in a 20 minute, I'm talking out of cops, police cars, hell, I mean the whole thing doing a hundred miles an hour heading on our way out to Tyson's Corner. And then finally after some very aggressive convincing,

00:21:39 which included me taking my seatbelt off and wrestling with the guy to try and get control of the car. He finally like took an exit ramp and we pretty much jumped outta the car while it was still moving. And then he proceeded to go up the wrong way of the highway. So yeah, that happened. That was, So for those of you that,

00:21:57 dunno, Ryan, you're what, six, five and an athlete? 6, 6 4. I'm a little lighter now. Two 15 and yeah, I used to be an athlete. Well, and I, and I also trained like Moai and Box. I was about to say I've had, I've had a few amateur fights in my day. So yeah, he was telling me that and I was like,

00:22:18 that is crazy. What did the guy do? So it turned out was what some of the Uber cars were doing is they don't want the car sitting. So I would have the license under my name and then what would they would do is have other people drive under that license to keep the car going 24 hours a day. Okay. Entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial so far.

00:22:40 Yeah. And what it turned out was that the driver was actually illegal in the country and he was so afraid of getting caught and ultimately getting deported that he freaked out. Literally freaked out. So did they, did Uber charge you for that Ride? No, I got a full refund. That's Hilarious. And, and, and by the way, yes,

00:23:00 I saw a question, Gunther, I did take an Uber car from there to two Tyson's corner cuz the cops wouldn't drop us off. That's awesome. Okay, back, back on track. Jamie, let's talk about the acquisition. Okay, let's, yeah, so let's talk, but that, that was a great story and I, I have lots of,

00:23:16 but also G and I are very big on, we just had this the other day, like I empathize with that guy kinda, or after living through it, maybe Now imagine being so afraid, Right? To go back to where you came from that you would be willing to risk not just your own life but the lives of three other people in your car.

00:23:35 I mean, yeah. So that says a lot right there. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, okay To flex, come on, let's go. Are We get back to flex acquisition, let's talk about it. So how'd that acquisition come about? Kind of what's the goal? Eight years it took, what? How about that? So I met, I love all these confessions I met,

00:23:57 I met the c I met the CEO who became a friend and mentor and you know, I learned, I've learned a lot from him personally over the last, you know, eight or nine years since we met. But yeah, no they were, this was probably 2000 and maybe 11 or 12 was when we probably first met. So it's almost a decade ago.

00:24:15 And you know, they were operating, you know, meeting and event facilities in London and obviously we had just started to expand in New York and you know, we looked at putting the businesses together I'd say would they say the third time's a charm. We actually had an offer to acquire the company signed LOI the day before Brexit happened and then Brexit happened and obviously we couldn't finance the deal.

00:24:39 So it was a long time in the making and you know, an incredible organization, extremely well run. And I think obviously a great compliment, you know, to our platform. You know, it gets us a, a tremendous amount more, you know, not just quality locations in the UK and a few in New York, but it gives us a real team and an infrastructure that we can build around and grow around.

00:25:02 And you know, we'll have that team not just continuing to focus on, you know, growing in the UK and London, but starting to look into Europe where we think there's some really interesting opportunities for us and, and scale's. Nice. You know, I had it in 2020 when we were going into Covid and was finally getting the benefit of it.

00:25:22 And you know, I think to have it now, especially at this moment in time, you know, we think it's a huge competitive advantage. You know, combined business has 41 locations, hundreds of millions in revenue, significant profitability. We can self fund our business without being dependent on the capital markets. So I think for a lot of reasons, you know,

00:25:44 we definitely feel like this is gonna be a a one plus one equals three for us. That's awesome. So lemme ask a question. Do you step back and someone ask you what conven is today? What is your quick elevator spiel? Because I know it's obviously shifted over the last 13 years. Hey, I just wanted to jump in really quickly before we continue with our discussion.

00:26:06 If you're working on opening a Coworking space, I wanna invite you to join me for my free masterclass. Three behind the scene secrets to opening a Coworking space. If you're working on opening a Coworking space, I wanna share the three decisions that I've seen successful operators make when they're creating their Coworking business. The masterclass is totally free, it's about an hour and include some q and a.

00:26:30 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. 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,

00:27:04 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,

00:27:37 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. Yeah, look, I'd say at our core we're still the same, right? We're a hospitality company that, you know, ideally gets to partner with, you know,

00:27:58 class A landlords and developers to, you know, create a differentiated workday experience. You know, and to us that workday or that workplace is not just about desks, it's not just about meeting, you know, small meeting spaces, it's also about all that other stuff that happens and you know, whether it's large scale meetings and corporate events, you know,

00:28:18 we see ourselves really as being, you know, probably the only true one-stop solution where, you know, kind of anything you would need to power a modern experience, you know, we can do it. So I'd say that's probably my elevator pitch today. I'm curious, I think in running a business one of the biggest challenges is like lack of clarity and uncertainty,

00:28:40 right? You just like not being able to just go full speed ahead. Do you feel like there's still some uncertainty or do you feel like we got it, this Is running? I would say the world is as dynamic and as uncertain as it's ever been. So no matter how much clarity you have, you never have as much business know When there's gonna be a Brexit.

00:29:02 Well, you, You as much clarity as you have, you never have as much visibility you want. Yeah. Right. And I would say that as a, as a human as much as I would as a, as a ceo. Yeah. I would say for convene though, as it relates to our business and what we need to do to go be successful and what our strategy is,

00:29:20 this is as crystal clear as it's ever been to me personally and 14 years since I've been doing this. And I think part of that is because of what we were talking about a little bit earlier is that finally the market has acknowledged the need. And so I think that has now allowed us to be crystal, crystal clear as it relates to what we need to do do and why we need to do it and for who we need to do it for.

00:29:43 So I'd say minus the world's uncertainty, I feel pretty confident in, you know, what we're doing and you know, ultimately it's gonna come down to our team. You know, you can only push so much as a CEO and then it comes down to how bad does your team want it and and ultimately they're the ones that have to go out and execute every day,

00:30:02 right? They gotta deliver an incredible experience to each one of our clients day in and day out. And then, you know, they're gonna have to kind of carry us and execute on the growth strategy. And so the acquisition, how many locations, venues does that bring you up to? 41. Wow. And then we've got another probably dozen in some form of development.

00:30:24 And then we've got another three to four m and a conversations that we're actively having right now. I'd see Jamie's eyebrows go up, so she's got she's got more to say about that. No, I was just curious about the ongoing m and a if there were more opportunities. So I mean I've been saying this forever, the industry needs to consolidate. No,

00:30:43 I've seen, I that was kind of in your 2023 predictions and I, I've been making the prediction for five straight years. Eventually it comes true, right? So yeah, I, I believe for lots of reasons the industry's gonna consolidate and a lot of it today has to do with the capital markets. You know, if you are a private company today,

00:31:01 it is incredibly challenging to raise capital multiples, have Anything to do with office, Honestly, anything to do with anything. You know, I've been a very active early stage investor myself and it's not just in office, it's really across every asset class and every industry and sector. Right now you're seeing massive multiple compression, a holistic repricing of risk and value across everything.

00:31:27 Our industry being no different. And then you've got a lot of businesses I think that have not just founders and management teams that are tired, but they have shareholders that are tired and the only path to liquidity is with scale. With Scale, yeah. Yep. It's just, no, it's scale. And so, oh, it's scale. Yeah, scale.

00:31:46 And so, you know, I think we feel that not only do we have a platform with a tremendous amount of infrastructure where we can make these platforms way more efficient, way more profitable, literally the day the deal happens. But we also see an opportunity where we can provide a path to liquidity. And so yeah, I think m and a for us right now,

00:32:09 we've always done it opportunistically right now we're doing it strategically and deliberately, which is different. So we've got a couple questions. So someone said, how do you begin the conversation with class A landlords to take over management aspect of the commercial real estate properties? So first and foremost I think is acknowledge the challenge, which is, being an office landlord today is really hard.

00:32:32 It's more complicated than it's ever been. It's more CapEx intensive than it's ever been. And they've got a whole lot of things that they're great at that they need to focus on. And I would say monetizing and monetizing amenities, cuz to me, whether it's Coworking space or meeting an event space or the tenant lounge or the wellness facility, it's not ju it's all about the amenity,

00:32:55 but it's also how do I make that amenity make money? And I think that's where convene is really, really good, right? We have a sales and marketing machine, we have a reservation system, we know how to operate, we know how to do it profitably. And I think for landlords, the decision is do I do it myself or do I partner?

00:33:16 That's it. And you know, I think for the right buildings and the right assets, I mean in the, in the right geographies that, you know, we're, we're a great partner as is industrious, as is a number of other really good operators that I think are approaching this in a very, very similar way. So I'd say Amenitize and monetize is how I lead that pitch today.

00:33:40 Yeah, I mean, it, it is such an interesting conversation because there's so many people out there having this and landlords that know they need to do this, but there's still a lot of landlords that are hesitating, right? Because of whatever reason. So where if, if we were to use the, the, the baseball innings, right? Where do you feel we are with landlords fully understanding and making the transition to understanding that they need to hand some of these things off to an operator like yourself?

00:34:09 You know, I'd say it depends on geography and also what type of landlords we're talking about. I'd say generally speaking, we're probably in the fourth inning or fifth inning, you know, I, what I'm seeing is that most landlords are acknowledging it's the capital markets that are still struggling, right? So whether it's the asset manager that's put in the LP capital that now has to put up the capital to do this,

00:34:29 or the lender who needs to finance it, I'm seeing more friction there. Yeah. And less friction as it relates specifically to me as owner operator, developer of an office building. I, most people we're talking to acknowledge that they have to deliver a different level of hospitality in the building that they have to integrate flex and amenities strategically in a different way than they have in the past.

00:34:53 And I'd say most of the people we're talking to today, including some that vertically integrated to start, are realizing that doing what we do is a different business. It is hard. Yeah. And doing it yourself in a capital markets environment, in a macro environment like this, last time I checked most CEOs I'm talking to today from big and small focus on your core and outsource your non-core.

00:35:18 And to me, you know, landlords doing what we do as non-core. No, I I agree with that a hundred percent. And we've been meeting with some larger landlords and that's, they're trying to deploy it themselves, right? And it's tough, right? If if it's not what you, your core business is and you know how to deliver that hospitality,

00:35:38 it, it gets difficult, you know, and we had someone ask basically, how do you build the community's aspect of, of that hospitality component, Hire people that are really passionate about building relationships, doing it systematically and programmatically, and have a really deep understanding of what's gonna resonate with micro communities from a content and programming standpoint. And I feel like if you can nail that,

00:36:09 then a lot of the rest of it happens very organically. And so it's almost like you need to seed it and then the community takes over and almost starts to crowdsource their own content and develops their own relationships. So that's kind of been our, our approach is we want to be a catalyst too, but then ultimately the community drives is when it's working really,

00:36:31 really well. Yeah. Now I, I agree with that a hundred percent. And, and now are conversations we're driving, there's some people that just aren't ready to, right? I mean, I tour spaces sometimes and I look and the landlord's doing a conference facility on the first floor and on the fifth floor they got a town hall with the same type of product offering that's on the first floor.

00:36:50 And I'm like, who is advising you to do this? And their brokers have no idea what's going on, right? I ask 'em, so what do you think flex is? It's crazy. So the first thing I would say is to all the landlords that might be listening in, make sure you bring an operator in right away, even if it's just to advise as you're going through your own design process.

00:37:11 Because you gotta realize most architecture and design firms, they're not operators, right? And so when we design space, we design it as operators first, designers second. And when you're working with most a and d firms, it's the reverse. And we find ourselves all the time getting brought into situations late and we're like, do you know that based on the way you design this,

00:37:36 that you're gonna have to staff it with four more FTEs and that's gonna cost you x hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? Do you know that? And there goes the model, right? They don't know. Yeah. And there goes the model. And so, you know, my recommendation is, you know, make sure you're focused early on operationalizing the design first.

00:37:58 Geo there's a question in the q and a that's addressed to you, but on landlords like Tishman Spire Studio doing in-house versus outsourcing, you and Ryan mentioned that, but I was on a call with somebody, we were looking at the Houston market earlier and she's like, oh, there's this, I won't name names, there's a brand that has a lot of locations.

00:38:15 And I said, oh, I've not heard of that brand and I, you know, look it up and Google listing pops up and it is a flex workspace offered by a landlord. It has two, three star Google reviews, which if you are a, an operator, that is death, right? And so that's my example. Not that Tishman is doing that,

00:38:37 but I think that's the risk in what Ryan is, is pointing to on one level. Well I think such a big part of it is really understanding what the, what the offering is, right? We use hotels as a great example is that you got everything from Motel six to Ritz Carlton, and I'm not staying neither one of 'em, right? But you have everything in between.

00:38:55 So I mean, the landlord you're talking about, and not exactly you're talking about without you saying it. And it might be something about a work style or something like that. But ultimately they are traditionally we're a b, B minus buyer. And so they're serving a totally different community than what Ryan is serving, right? And so really understanding who your audience is and that's,

00:39:17 I think what landlords and operators don't understand is who is our target Audience. Yeah. And, and look, that's where, I mean, great consumer facing brands are experts at customer segmentation. And I think, you know, if you look at the hotel industry as being very mature, you've got many different types of brands with different variations of product offerings that speak to both specific segments,

00:39:41 but then even micro segments within a customer segment. And so I think now, will our part of the world ever be as diverse as the hospitality industry? Probably not. But there'll be some version of that. And that's why candidly, you know, we see a huge opportunity to have multiple brands under one global platform with one global loyalty program, right?

00:40:02 So I'll use, you know, the former CEO of Starwood Hotel Group was our chairman, incredible human, wonderful mentor. I mean, thank God we had him on our team when we were going through Covid. Yeah. But when he left S P G, which was the loyalty program, right, which is think like the app, the rewards was responsible for almost 60% of the entire chains revenue from a distribution standpoint.

00:40:33 Yeah. And so the question is, if you think in our universe at scale, well how do we go replicate S P G at our platform level? And I think to do that though, you have to have scale. And that's the thing that we're very focused on right now. And you gotta have the right scale. But we think that that's a huge opportunity,

00:40:51 you know, if you can get scale to start to think more in that direction. And I think it's just about knowing, you know, that you have different segmentations, like you said, and, and being very conscious of how you're serving those. Right? And I think that that's a big part that people don't know, right? I can't take,

00:41:10 often I walk into spaces, I'm like, so who's your audience? Someone that needs desks? Okay, well what's your competition? Well, I don't know, I think there's a location down the street. Have you ever been in there? Well, no. I'm like, how do you even know? So it's pretty crazy. Here's one for you.

00:41:27 So obviously there's a lot of workforce strategic shifts, right? Currently with making changes on what the strategy of the company is, where you're headed. I know you, you've posted very open about it and you're one of the strongest leaders out there of how difficult it is to let people go. I mean, there's people here listening that are either somewhere and know they need to make a transition or have been part of the layoffs at some of these flex operators,

00:41:57 some of these op you know, vendors and everything else. And so one of the questions is kind of where do you see opportunity for people within the flex sector to be looking for long-term stability, if you will? Well, look, this is a growing sector. And you know, even if maybe you're at a platform that might be struggling, I think if you take a step back and just look at the growth,

00:42:18 even what we're seeing or what's gonna be forecast over the next few years, there's still a tremendous amount of opportunity within the vertical. Every advisory firm now has dedicated teams of specialists, both on the consulting side, on the financial modeling side, on the property management side, that all focus on this. So I would say generally speaking, there's still a tremendous amount of opportunity,

00:42:43 you know, within the sector. The question is, are you in the right seat at the right place? And you know, to me that's, you know, a part of your journey as a professional is, you know, as you navigate your career is making sure, you know, you're in the right seat at the, at the right place.

00:43:01 And I think there's a lot of great places and there's a lot of great seats out there. Speaking of leadership, what, what is your favorite part about being in the role you're in? You know, look, if, if people always ask, like, you know, if, if you had to define yourself, what would you define yourself as?

00:43:17 And I would say, you know, number one is a leader, period. And then number two is a builder. I build things, I build companies, I build people, I build teams. So, you know, for me, anytime I'm in that seat, whether I'm coaching my son's basketball team or running a company or on the board of an organization,

00:43:39 that's what I enjoy doing. That's what gets me up in the morning. That's what continues to make me put in the work, gonna try and get a little bit better each and every day. So for me, any seat that puts me there, I'm, I'm pretty happy. Gia, what's his number? Oh, he's an eight for sure. Oh,

00:43:58 have you ever taken the Enneagram test? No. I'll have to send it, Send it to me. He's A total challenger, right? And he's a leader and inspire and encourager all those things. So yeah, I'll be curious to see how that comes back, but All right, send it over. I'll take it this weekend. So here's another one.

00:44:14 From the standpoint of, we talk about how so many people talk about how the UK is, or London, Europe in general is further ahead of the US as far as the flex curve goes. Would you agree with that? Well, I just think if you think about maturity, right? So if you look at London in the uk, there's more serviced office Coworking per capita than any other city.

00:44:41 If you look at London or country on the meeting and event and conferencing side, same thing. And so that market for lots of reasons, some of which are structural in how the real estate market works there, and also that you're very height restricted in how big of buildings you can build. Yeah. So a lot of companies there by default had to start to outsource.

00:45:01 And clearly even though our industry has evolved and the product's gotten better, and there's all sorts of, you know, new and emerging brands, the industry there is very, very mature. So I would say from a serviced office perspective, very mature market from a amenitize a building as a class, a landlord behind the US and the most progressive country on earth is Australia.

00:45:25 So if I want inspiration, I go to Australia, both from a design standpoint and then from a tenant experience standpoint. Let's see here. You nodding your head, Jamie, I know You, you, you know what? I spoke at a, a work tech like in 2013 or you know, something kind of early on, you know, the office evolution path.

00:45:44 And there were a lots of folks from Australia doing case studies and I was like, why is Australia so like advanced and Very progressive? I Asked somebody and they said, you know, maybe it's because we're so far away from everything, we always have this fear that we're behind. And so they said they do a lot of like go out and look and see what the rest of the world is doing and bring it back and do the best thing.

00:46:08 And I thought that's pretty interesting. And, and maybe that's right, but it's a sort of a unique like, cultural dynamic. Yeah. So I'd say Australia to me is always in the lead. Wow. I guess that just means we need to go to Australia, Jamie. Oh, you've already been there. I need to By the way, not a bad place to be this time of year,

00:46:26 I'll tell you that much. Totally. Especially if you're in, in, in Chicago. So Jamie, it's, I love, I like putting Jamie on the spot. Come up with a good personal question. Jamie, get to know Ryan. Oh, well I have two questions. One is, I do wanna know, how did your dad get to be the bun for the Shake Shack?

00:46:47 Oh, so my dad, it's Like, what, what does it look like when dad comes home and says, guys, guess what happened at work today? All right, so, so, so this is, so my dad is a, was a complete hustler. So, you know, both my parents had challenging upbringings for different reasons. You know,

00:47:04 I'm the first person in my family to go to college. Like, you know, we were blue collar family, you know, kind of through and through. So when my dad, when I was young, my dad always had two jobs and a side hustle. Hmm. And when I was really young, his side hustle, I don't know if anyone's ever been to Rutgers University in New Brunswick,

00:47:25 but there's something really famous called the Grease Trucks, which is everyone pours out of the bars at two o'clock in the morning and there's all sorts of food trucks crafting up the craziest things you could put on a roll. And honestly, my dad, when I was young, like really young, used to have a food truck and would be after working two jobs,

00:47:47 would then go there until 2, 2 30 in the morning. And so he always had like an entrepreneurial hustle in him. And we were actually driving home one day, I think we're, I had a baseball practice or whatever and we're driving home and outside of this guy's house, there was a box truck and a sign that said Business for sale. My dad turns right into that driveway,

00:48:14 knocks on this dude's house and literally like a week and a half later borrowed the money from my uncle or great-uncle and ended up buying this business. And that was in when I was eight years old and he still runs it to this day. But, so how do you get in front of Danny Meyer? Well, no, Danny Meyer found the role himself.

00:48:34 That was always the role that was at the park. And so once Shake Shack opened up in New Jersey, my dad got lucky that he just, that was his role. So he, you know, ended up picking up Shake Shack as a customer. I'm, I happen to be listening, it's a, it's a tiny slow bit slow but Danny Meyer's book Setting the Table,

00:48:51 Oh the best. That was one of the first ones we read when we started the business. Yeah. Wait, have you read Unreasonable Hospitality? So I, somebody just gave it to me, I haven't started it yet, hopefully, or Listen to it Christie's on and it's stressed her out. You were gonna love it and you might wanna listen to it.

00:49:07 The guy's really intense. I think it's a hundred times more interesting than Danny. I mean he worked for Danny and he did 11 Madison Park and it's so good. Yeah, we, for a long time we used to have every one of our leaders resetting the table that was part of their onboarding. So we took a lot philosophically out of that book. And then the best advice we ever got,

00:49:27 so you know, Chris and I were, Chris was 26, I was 27. We're starting a hospitality business in the middle of a financial crisis. No business, no experience, I mean, you know, crazy entrepreneurs. And we had an opportunity, there's a restaurant in New York called Patroon, great restaurant, Holly Recklin Go and it's owned the, his last name is a Reky.

00:49:50 At one time he was like a really big restaurant for New York, like had multiple, multiple units. He was kind enough to like take a meeting with us and we had lunch with him and we said, you know, what advice would you give to two 20 something year old kids that wanted to build a great hospitality company? And he said, hello coffee,

00:50:14 goodbye. How do you feel when you show up? What's the last thing you remember before you leave? And how do you feel when you walk out the door? And he said, the most important person that works for me is the doorman because he controls hello and he controls goodbye. And he goes, you better make sure you have fucking good coffee.

00:50:33 Literally. And so if you think about Convene, one of our principles is, hello Coffee, goodbye. How do you feel when you show up? What's the last thing you remember? Surprise and delight. And then how do you feel when you walk out the door? And candidly, one of the reasons we're always trying to get control of our own entrance or get control of the lobby in the building is so that we can control the welcome experience.

00:50:56 Cuz it sets the tone. I mean, I don't know how you guys feel, but if I walk into a really nice boutique hotel or a great restaurant and there's a lovely hostess that feels way different than walking into a class, a office building and getting nailed with like, can you give me your ID please? Like, just completely the whole vibe is just so different And,

00:51:19 but that was some of the pearls of wisdom that we were lucky enough to get early on. Well you, you, your staff here is two outed three so far. Like I got off the elevator like Dan was standing there waiting for me, he's like, Giovanni room back this way. He's like, would you like some coffee? And I don't drink coffee,

00:51:38 I'm already hyper enough as it is, but he offered it. Right. So my guess is he asked me, how long is it gonna be? I said, it'll be right at an hour. He said, I'll be over there right at for, so we'll see when he comes around the corner. Well, like I said, I like, you know,

00:51:51 I'm very blessed and we're, I'm very grateful just to have the caliber of humans that we have at this company. I mean, you can't make people care and you know, we've got a ton of people that just innately right on cue deeply care about delivering a great experience to our customers. Is he waving? Yeah, he's waving. He literally just came around the corner.

00:52:11 Right? I think he hurt me. They're listening in the walls just to anticipate your next need, Gio. So is there anything, we've got a couple minutes left so I wanna be really conscious of your time. So is there anything that you wanna discuss or share with the last few minutes we have and we know y'all are doing a lot of cool stuff over there.

00:52:33 You know, I would just say it's a really as challenging, I think as the last three years has been for all of us, any of us in and around the industry and as dynamic and as uncertain the environment is around us. I think for our collective part of the sector and industry, there's never been a better moment in time. You know,

00:52:54 I think our, I always tell our team, our customers need us now more than ever. Our landlord partners need us now more than ever. And I really feel that is how it is across the industry. And so, you know, I think for everyone you are listening in yet will be a bumpy 12 to 18 months. But, you know,

00:53:13 I think the value in the future of this part of the sector has never been, in my opinion, more solidified. And, you know, we gotta keep that optimism. Well, I would tell, tell you, and thank you so much for being such a dynamic thought leader out there, right? You're never afraid to share your position or challenge other people's.

00:53:35 And that's such a big part of it. I mean we, we have someone that just commented Ryan's passion's next level and very inspiring And so I'll tell you, when I first made the transition out of, out of Regis, you were one of the first videos that I saw talking about the future of Flex, and I used it for months. I,

00:53:52 I feel like, look, this guy gets it. I appreciate that. Yeah. Even though Mark Dixon started, I w g 30 years ago, he just didn't have that in that, that passion. Right. It's, it's a different level of leadership. And so certainly thank you for that. Thank you for being a gracious leader and host and taking time to be with us.

00:54:17 No, I mean, I love this stuff and I've been, I saw what Jamie did and I was like, I gotta get on there. So, you know, I really appreciate the opportunity to come and, you know, spend time with both of you. Appreciate that. We got to talk about personal stuff too, you know, I think at the end of the day,

00:54:33 we're all human and, and so I appreciate you making sure that we, we weave, you know, some of that in, and, you know, special thank you to everyone that joined live. And if you're gonna watch the recording, you know, thanks for tuning in. Okay. Now we have to let Ryan go find his iPhone. No,

00:54:48 so, by the way, I was like, I'm so relieved. I hear it buzzing in the room. Okay. I, I have no idea where it is. And I'm literally like a conference room. I, I, it's crazy to me that I can't find it, but I keep hearing it buzzing, so like, I think I'm good.

00:55:02 That's Awesome. Well, I appreciate a great rest of your day. Awesome. Well, thank you both so much and hopefully good chance to see each other live soon. Yep. Perfect. Thanks. All right. Awesome. Thanks. Bye. 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.

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