313. Hula Coworking - How a Sustainable Workspace steps from Lake Champlain is Keeping Talent in Vermont

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313. Hula Coworking - How a Sustainable Workspace steps from Lake Champlain is Keeping Talent in Vermont

00:00:02,"Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast, where every week I keep you updated on the latest trends and how toss 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."

00:00:46,"Welcome to the Everything Coworking Podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo. Thank you for joining me. You're gonna love this interview. I have a few interviews coming up and they may not run back to back. I haven't finalized the schedule yet, but each of them are unique models within Coworking, which I think is really important to explore these days as consumer interests are changing what's possible."

00:01:13,"The model is changing, demand is changing, there's so, so much change. I, I'm gonna share somewhere, interspersed in here, instant offices released a new report on the state of the flex market, which is full of awesome nuggets as usual. So I want to run through some of those separately and kind of relate them to what we're seeing in terms of different models and,"

00:01:42,"and what's working and not working out there. So today's interview is with Marina McCoy. She is in our Community Manager University program. She calls herself a Community Manager, I would call her a general manager. So it just goes to show you can put lots of different, you know, names on different roles. She does a lot with the space, and we probably mentioned this in the podcast,"

00:02:08,"but she has us like jaw dropping every once in a while. So they have 150,000 square feet and I think that's the largest single location that we have in our Community Manager program. So they run into challenges that others don't. So they have a parking garage that they have contracted out, which is not common, that you're managing your own parking garage and was having trouble with that."

00:02:34,"And we were talking, we talk a lot about the member onboarding process and how to optimize that. We do a lot of training on it and have a lot of templates in the program. Well, they run like a 90 minute orientation program for their new members. So they are doing some things that are not common if you're not at that type of scale."

00:02:53,"So what I love about what she talks about today is, so first of all, Burlington is not a major market. She's in Burlington, Vermont. The why behind the space is really important. It was driven by an interest in keeping younger talent, or not even younger, but all talent in Burlington. There's a local college in, people tended to leave Burlington to go find jobs elsewhere,"

00:03:19,"but it's a beautiful city. It's right on a lake. And now with remote work, it's possible that folks can stay and live in a, you know, lifestyle focused city and do the work that they want to do. So that is kind of the why behind Hula. And they have had, I would call it wild success. And it just goes to show what's possible in a smaller market."

00:03:43,"I'd have to look up the population of Burlington, but, and they're pulling from the surrounding areas and she mentions that in our conversation that it's something they're working on, which is that they re they've realized that there is a sort of a finite radius that they can pull from. Yeah, Burlington's, Burlington proper, their population is only 44,000 people. That is not a very large space."

00:04:09,"And they have 150,000 square feet that is not all Coworking as we think about it. There are larger suites, but it is flex. So it's on demand, ready to go space on shorter term. And they have a, a sizable sort of, they call them air desks, you know, Coworking membership. So it, it's been a huge hit in a market that we would consider small."

00:04:34,"So, but she said, you know, they're running into, it's getting harder for them to fill their air desks. People will only come, you know, so far drive so far every day to go to a, you know, work in a flex seed. So they're figuring some of those things out. But they have a 400 person waiting list for their private offices,"

00:04:52,"which seems totally outrageous and hard to believe. But take a look at the space. It's gorgeous. It's right on the lake. They have a, I think it's a sailing club or a windsurfing club. So the thing that she's trying to figure out now is, okay, we have all this demand so we can shape the membership to some extent, right?"

00:05:11,"We the, there's no scarcity mindset, only abundance of interest in membership. So what do we want the community to look like? And it's really important to her to set an expectation that when members join, they need to be community contributors. And so she said, she started to talk about that on tours and set an expectation that like, look, we're taking members now that will contribute."

00:05:39,"And that doesn't mean you have to show up to every member event. She actually mentions like they sometimes have trouble getting people to happy hour. Their most popular member event involves cake. So she talks about that. I love that. It just goes to show like every population is unique. You will find what works for your people and they're evolving, right?"

00:05:59,"So a, a space that's 150,000 square feet doesn't have all the answers from day one. And Marina's just really impressive. She's very in touch with, you know, the members and the model and just the, you know, the overall why. So I, I just thought that was really interesting this community piece that she, they've gotten to a point where they're saying,"

00:06:20,"look, we don't want you if you're just gonna sit in your office all day. What we want now is to attract and curate folks who will contribute to the community. Again, doesn't have to be in, you know, a really persistent, significant way that interferes with people's ability to get their work done. But it's a specific mindset and an expectation that folks are gonna talk to other members,"

00:06:47,"show up to, you know, things sometimes network and create something that's bigger than a bunch of individual people in individual offices. So I think that's an interesting mindset that a Coworking space of any size could learn from. So I think you're gonna really enjoy this conversation with Marina. So without further ado, here she is Welcome. I am here with Marina McCoy and she is the Community Manager for Hula Coworking Vermont."

00:07:23,"I am super excited to share your story because I feel like hula is such an interesting manifestation of economic development and also just real true community building and trying to think of the word for it this morning, you've created a place where people really want to come that like really integrates work in life. So it's just an amazing blend I think, of how people wanna live and work today."

00:07:52,"So thank you for joining us today. Yeah. So I wanna hear your story. You're in our Community Manager University program and I'm always laughing because Marina, you'll come to the calls and be like, okay, we're having a problem with our parking vendor. And everybody's like, yeah, no one else has 200,000 square feet and problems with their party vendor or what,"

00:08:13,"like talking about your, the way you do your member onboarding, like the fact that you do this like 90 minute group orientation, which we all love. And so sometimes I'm like, yeah, most of us cannot relate to this because that's a giant space and you have a team. So anyway, let's back up. I wanna hear, 'cause I just have heard this briefly and I can't remember what it was that you shared a little bit about your story."

00:08:36,"Maybe it was at Juicy. Like what, so I got to meet you in Chicago, which was awesome. I love meeting people in person. So tell us about your background and then kind of the, how you got in, how you decided to go to work for Hula and then we'll talk more about Hula and your role and your community and all those good things."

00:08:54,"Yeah, So I got into Coworking really randomly. I used to have a sustainability consulting agency and they actually hula hired me on when they were still in the building phase back in 2020, the summer of 2020. And then when they opened up in the spring of 2021, I was one of their first tenants for a designated desk and I was still consulting them."

00:09:21,"And then in November, 2021, the director of operations and facilities offered me a job out of the blue, Like stops by your desk and was like, Hey Marina, what do you think about giving up your consulting practice? And Yeah, and I had just opened up a brick and mortar shop too. A zero waste store. What? Yeah. Wow. So I had two businesses and he,"

00:09:48,"one, I thought I was in trouble like, oh no, do they wanna end the contract? He sat me down and he is like, we've been thinking about this role and we thought that you would be the perfect fit 'cause you have an outgoing personality, you're very personable, you're a go-getter and all these like really nice things. And I was already pretty invested in the community."

00:10:10,"I would teach zero waste workshops, host food drives, coat drives, just was already diving in so much. And also just hanging out at the front desk and like knew all these questions. Like I would answer these questions for people coming in already 'cause I knew so much. That's hilarious. Yeah, so they, they offered me the position and I closed up my businesses last year and I started January, 2022 and I've been full-time with them."

00:10:42,"I tried balancing working full-time with them while having my two businesses last year for 2022. And it was incredibly hard. And yeah, it's been the best, most unexpected thing to ever happen to me. I love my job. I wake up inspired to go to work. I feel really seen and a sense of belonging when I'm here and I leave feeling fulfilled."

00:11:08,"So it's, yeah, it's such a great honor to help build a community for hundreds of people here. It must have been in order for you to, you know, make that move. I mean you must have been pretty compelled by the work that they were doing. So what's the why behind Hula? How did it come to be? So it's just under 150,000 we are under,"

00:11:30,"okay. I round it up. We have 20,000 square feet of Coworking, our 14 acres of property right on the shores of Lake Champlain. We also have a surf club too, which is pretty cool. I'll talk about that later. But out of the 150,000, 200 square feet is for Coworking, a hundred thousand is for the private offices. We have 50 private offices and then the rest is all common space areas where people co-work too."

00:11:58,"But specifically we have 20,000 square feet just for our air desks members and designated desks. And Wow. In total we have 1400 members, 500 of them air desks members, a hundred of them designated desks, and then the rest private office tenants. Wow. A lot. I really, I really jumped in. So your team manages the entire building? The community operations."

00:12:24,"Okay. Yeah, so we have a facilities team, facilities and operations which handles, you know, the general operations, building ops and then we do all the community operations. So taking care of the community, setting up the events, partnerships, connecting with local businesses outside of our Coworking facility too. So a little bit of everything and part back to your like original question on how Hula became a part is that the Sculleys who are the founders Rocks and us,"

00:12:59,"they saw a need for it. We didn't have many Coworking facilities in Burlington and the ones that did have a wait list. So there was a need for people to have a Coworking space and private office spaces too. 'cause there wasn't many in Burlington. Like we are a smaller city. Yeah. Like 46,000 people with 2% vacancy rate. So we're Wow."

00:13:24,"Pretty stuff for, yeah, That's wild. Okay. It's pretty wild. Yeah. And, but we have the second lowest retention rate for college students in the country. So they saw that need of wanting to attract college students to stay here after graduation and also attract businesses to Vermont. Oops. I got a call and keep businesses here because once they grow they tend to leave the state of Vermont."

00:13:53,"So we really wanna keep those people in Vermont and help with the overall economic development for the state. So Was there kind of economic development funding that went into creating the The cowork, the, the building? Yeah. Through, through grants and then also the Scully's invested in Hula as well and other outside investors. So it was a whole pool of different income."

00:14:22,"Yeah, it's super income resources coming together. It's super interesting. Well I was just listening to, I mean I listen to a lot of this stuff. Jura Peg writes a lot about the future of work and cities and migration and people moving and just this whole dynamic of like, well you can work from anywhere. And so it's such an opportunity for Burlington,"

00:14:44,"you know, sort of post pandemic. But this project started, obviously it was in the works for years and Right was really underway kind of around the pandemic time. But now you really have a shot at retaining people in Burlington because professionals can choose where they live. Right. And you've created this amazing facility with this really dynamic community right on the lake."

00:15:08,"Yeah. That's so awesome. But it's, but it's really Compelling. So if you can pick where you wanna live, right. And work like Burlington's on the map now. So it feels like just really aligned with the choices people can make around where they live and work. Not everyone, but those who are fortunate enough to decide where they live and work."

00:15:26,"It's super interesting. Yeah. So We really are trying to sell people on the lifestyle of Vermont. So at Hula our tagline is find your work play balance at hula, we're right on the water. We have a surf club, we have saunas, free bike rentals, bike tuning workshops, like we're really focused on the outdoors and activities and then health and wellness."

00:15:49,"'cause we have meditation and free massages, all, all that good stuff. So it's, it's pretty awesome. And people and businesses have told us because of our commitment to health and wellness that they've incorporated that more into their business structure too. Yeah. So what does your membership look like? Is it more freelancers? Is it like small businesses who works at hula?"

00:16:14,"A lot of remote workers, which is helping bring, like, attract people to Vermont, which is great because like you said, they could work from anywhere and they're choosing Vermont. Half of our pool of people, of members, 50% are tech base. And then sustainability and community builders. So community builders. We have Vermont Food Bank that is based out of here."

00:16:36,"1% for the planet. So more of those social enterprises. Yep. Wow. Interesting. And that was sort of part of the goal of this space was to attract, yeah. And part of why they were working, I guess I, I'm guessing, but they were working with you as a sustainability consultant. So were you working with them on like,"

00:16:55,"well how do we attract people who will sort of fit into that culture? What was the work that you were doing with them as a consultant? Just high. Yeah. High level. Yeah, High level. Our, I was a zero waste consultant. Okay. So I would help with the composting, recycling, reducing overall waste consumption, reduction of single use plastics and introducing reusables."

00:17:15,"So not so much on the renewable energy side. I was a zero waste expert. Well I guess still, yeah. But we are a net positive building. So we have one megawatt of solar array on two of our buildings. So we have three buildings total. We have geothermal heating and cooling as well, which is super rad. But we produce an more than enough energy to actually offset the power for the other Scully businesses."

00:17:43,"They own a couple of businesses around Vermont. Interesting. Okay. Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So very focused on sustainability. Some of our walls too are repurposed from Centennial Field Stadium, which is the local baseball field. They were, they're old benches. And then we have like the trees that we unfortunately had to cut down."

00:18:05,"We repurposed them into dozens of coffee tables scattered throughout the building. Wow. Okay. Interesting. Do, yeah. I see that you are on your website now. Wow. 125 steps to the shores of Flight chance. Yeah. So crazy. Okay, wait, in 45 minutes. That's what I was wondering, what do people do in the winter?"

00:18:25,"Because it definitely snows 45 minutes to the mountains. Okay, very cool. Yep. And 15 minutes to the airport Food. Yeah. And we do hula ski days too. So we meet up on the mountain and ski with members. That's awesome. And your sister restaurants spot on the deck. Wow. I wanna move to Burlington. Yeah. Oh my gosh."

00:18:51,"Do you, yeah. So I mean, tell me like, what's the typical like new member when pe when you give tours, like what, what are, what are people's responses to hula? I mean it's, it's like one of a kind. Yeah. I like to say that we do the opposite of catfishing. So like we need to update our website,"

00:19:12,"we need to update the photos. There's a lot that we need to do. So when people come in, they're always so amazed by it because our, like currently we just have to update some things so it doesn't do as too much justice right now. Yeah. But I kind of like how it works like that. I figured it's better to kind of undersell it a little bit than to oversell it."

00:19:31,"And I love that shock factor when people come in. We have a lot of sun that comes in. We have over 400 plants scattered all throughout the building. Just pretty cool. And it just really promotes a healthy work life balance. 'cause we're on the lake. I give them a whole tour of the building. I call, I have two tours."

00:19:51,"I call one my Flight attendant tour where I'll like touring everywhere and then do like one strip or I have tours, three tours that I do a week where I'll have like eight people. Yep. Okay. Going On. And then if they're interested in signing up for membership, then they'll go to our 90 minute orientation. Right. I know We're all like,"

00:20:12,"all the community managers are like, oh my god, if we can get a member to sit through like 10 minutes, we're lucky. And you're like, yep. 90 minutes. That's how it is. Yeah. Yeah. But to be fair, like we have, yeah. Eight people generally in orientation and that's a great way for them to meet each other."

00:20:28,"But since we're growing, we can't afford to be away from the desk too much. Like at my office is actually the storage room behind the front desk. Yes. You've seen it when I'm on Zoom calls. Yeah. In the storage room. But this is also super Common and we can't Yeah, you, I know that they put the staff in the storage room."

00:20:47,"It sounds bad but it's like very practical. Yeah, well it's just me like, and my team is at the front desk, which is great. Yeah. But we can't, with how many members we get per week and per month, we just can't do individual orientations. We do on very rare occasions, but our orientations are on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

00:21:07,"So you have an incredible number of members for, are you pulling from broader than the 46,000 in population? Okay. Yeah. So Chin and County is our main area. You know, it's surrounds Burlington, there's Williston, Colchester, Shelburn, there's, you know, multiple towns around. But we found out, we're trying to figure out why people cancel and it's usually when they live outside of Chinen County."

00:21:33,"'cause although they love the space, that's too far. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a 45 minute drive when you don't necessarily need to drive isn't isn't worth it. Even though we got all the perks. It's, I was gonna, well so I was gonna ask you like, does anyone not join when they tour or are they just like, take my money,"

00:21:51,"here's my card. And and more so like I would say either has to do, if they couldn't get their employer to pay for it or they live Yeah. If they live outside of Chin County, they're just debating on how often they'll come in. But if they don't become a member almost every time they either become a 10 day punch passer or just full days whenever they have the ability to do so."

00:22:19,"Yeah. They want, they wanna participate in some way. I love that. Yeah. So I, I'm curious about a lot of things the I so it's a such a large space with so many members. What do you do to, so you talked about like the group orientation, so people get to know each other a little bit. How do you foster connections among the members when there are so many of them and the space is so large?"

00:22:48,"Yeah, that's a good question. I would say we're still figuring it out. Wait, When did you open? That would be a fair question. We'll set a little more context. Yeah. So Yeah, we just reached two years in March. Okay. So we're still new. We're still learning as we go. And we're fine tuning who our ideal member is."

00:23:08,"'cause our members range from their twenties all the way up into their seventies. There are people all over in different industries. But our, our main client well member is late twenties to late thirties. And that they're actually remote workers generally and into the tech space. And into the outdoors. Okay. So we started, we found out that we don't have much of a drinking crowd at Hula."

00:23:34,"Our happy hours. We have a bar weren't doing well, like people just weren't showing up. But our food-based events, we do surprise popup pizza parties. We have a monthly cake club where we, that's What I was just picturing you like, there was like a huge line for cake. Stay with us. We'll be right back. We're just gonna share a message from one of our partners."

00:23:58,"I want to interrupt you for a minute. With a special offer, if you are an operator that is getting ready to launch or your space is less than a year old and less than 200 members, office RnD is piloting a program called Flex Startup program, which allows you to save 50% on your first year with office RnD Flex to help you grow your Coworking space."

00:24:24,"As many of you know, I run programs that help operators launch. I run mastermind programs for operators that are in business and a Community Manager program. And we have lots of members that love using RnD office RnD. It's kind of an all-in-one platform that has fantastic analytics, meeting room management, lots of integrations, all the things as I like to say."

00:24:50,"So it's a fan favorite of the Everything Coworking program members. So I'm excited that you get a chance to kind of get started with it at a discounted rate. So 50% off of your first year, you can learn more about the offer and sign up for a demo by going to Everything Coworking dot com slash org d that's Everything Coworking dot com slash org d We'll also throw that link in the show notes."

00:25:22,"So if you open your podcast app, you can grab the link right there. Yeah. Over 60 members come to that and we're out of cake within 10 minutes. It's, it goes so fast. Me and the community team are just slicing piece after piece. Hilarious. And we keep on having to buy more cakes. It Goes to show you have to experiment because I would've thought when you described your ideal customer,"

00:25:44,"I would think like, oh they probably love like local beer. Right? So they'd show up to happy hour and have a local beer. You're like, Nope. They love cake. Yeah. Unexpected and outdoor things. Yeah. Right. So we also have saunas on campus with Savu saunas and I created a happy hour with them. Nicole one of the founders is amazing."

00:26:04,"And we got together last year, like how do we get the hula members involved? And you could jump in as sauna for an hour for $20 with other hula members. And that is more popular than Oh interesting. Or alcohol based happy hour Sauna party. Okay. I love it. Yeah. So you're like, there's two saunas down there. They could fit eight,"

00:26:25,"eight people each. So 16 people and sometimes more. They have multiple different slots and there's a cold plunge and yeah, there's been some fun conversations. I go, I'm really into sauna and cold plunging culture. Okay. So I've met a ton of members through doing that. That's been really awesome. And I've set up local partnerships with businesses within Hula as well."

00:26:48,"Like with sale Vermont people could go sailing for free for two hours on Tuesdays with sale Vermont and connect with other hula members. So it's just for hula members. And so you get to connect and have conversations with people that maybe you otherwise wouldn't have. Yeah. In sort of a natural authentic environment. Which may be the other reason people love it. I don't know if I can talk myself into a cold plunge by the way."

00:27:13,"I'm a big CrossFitter. And so it's very like people do that. Although I don't have access to one. Maybe I would try it if I had access to one and if I was making sense. I'm so addicted. I Know. It's super interesting. Wait, how often do you do it? I do it weekly at least. Okay. Okay."

00:27:30,"I think there are a lot health benefits to it. Somebody, somebody was pitching me on it recently. Okay. You're, this might be a rendering on your website, but your designated desk look very fancy. Yeah. Do they look like that in real life? Yes. 'cause I believe the ones that are on the website are, are North Wall ones."

00:27:49,"So the North Wall ones are sit stand desk. They have a barrier between the other two desks and they come with a locking filing cabinet. Yeah. With also like a coat rack in there. Yeah. That's why I was like, wow. Yeah. But there's a lot of privacy there. It looks like your own, I asked this because you probably picked this up from the Community Manager call sometimes."

00:28:06,"Sometimes, you know, the whole talk is like we can't sell our dedicated tests. How do we sell dedicated tests? So whenever I see like something unique. So anybody listening, if you check out the hula website and you look under workspaces, you can see some images of their dedicated desk. They're pretty fancy. Yeah. Yeah. We're trying to add more designated desks because we have a wait list for them right now."

00:28:26,"A wait list for dedicated desks. Wow. And a four year waiting list for private offices. Shut The front door. Yeah. Over a 30 people on it. Wait, but although you did say you only have 50 of them. Yeah, 50 private offices. Yeah. Yeah. But, 'cause you have a lot of square footage for only 50 private offices,"

00:28:48,"but you have a lot of open space. Do you have suites? Like what's the other? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we have offices that are 30,000 square feet. So we have bigger ones. So that's in building 44, which is just primarily private offices. Yep. Those are bigger ones. And then we have smaller ones that go up to like 10,"

00:29:08,"20 people in the Coworking building, which is building 50. Got it. And your wait list is for the smaller offices I presume? Generally I believe, let's see, I just went through it the other day with one of my community associates and out of the 130 that's between 50 and 60 are one to two person offices. Okay. And then the rest just go up."

00:29:31,"Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. But ha, it's so interesting. It's hard to know in markets, especially a smaller market that you have demand for the larger spaces. So do you consider like those larger spaces, are those separate tenants or are they still a part of the hula sort of ecosystem? Like do they get invited to free cake or, Yes."

00:29:54,"Yeah. Okay. They get invited but our, like one of our challenges actually is getting private offices to engage more with the community and actually come in. Yeah. So we have, this was something that we've learned along the way is having requirements on how many people should be coming into the private offices. Because since we have a four year rating list,"

00:30:17,"we have all these people that want to come that's so into hula and they have all this square footage, but not that many people are coming in. And I feel really bad when I'm giving tours and there's companies that we really want in the space. They're like, but it's up deep. There's already, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's such a bummer."

00:30:34,"And we're trying to work like, you know, we have flexible leases so we're trying to work with people on it and some, so we have the modular walls so we can make offices smaller, bigger in building 50. Okay. Which is pretty cool. So there's been some businesses that have worked with us and we actually, like one office was just basically we cut it into three offices,"

00:30:56,"which was awesome. So we were able to bring in two more businesses. 'cause they realized that you're never here, We're cutting you into a third. So that we could bring That's, so that's a really interesting dynamic. So it's like you have people who want like the optionality of having space in this amazing office building in quotes and then they're not showing up and actually using it."

00:31:16,"And then you're like, people are coming through being like, no, I would come. Yeah. Pick me. So now you are thinking like one of your filters is you have to commit to showing up because you want a vibrant space with people in it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So now we have a minimum that you have to have one,"

00:31:34,"at least one person per a hundred square feet. And then you could have on your office up to two people per a hundred square feet. So you can make a 10 person office, like a 20 person office if you need to up to 15 extra people on there. 'cause people get really creative 'cause they're trying to cram people in. Sure. Since we don't have that much office space."

00:31:58,"Yep. Interesting. Okay. But you wanna require them to actually come to the space. Well, I don't wanna say required because I don't want people to think that it's not Yeah. Fun. But we do have more conversations with people coming in saying that we want them to be community builders. Yes. That's the whole point of hula. We Right."

00:32:19,"Look, Our culture, the culture we're trying to build is like people who wanna show up. So if you're never coming maybe Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, Our Coworking members are super active though. They're awesome. You're air desperate, they're Really great. They're, They're there because Right. They want community and free cake, cake and surf club and yeah."

00:32:40,"All that good stuff. Yeah. That's very cool. Yeah. Yeah. I, I'm just looking at my giant list of questions for you figuring out, yeah. So I mean a lot of my questions were really around like yeah, how do you attract and, and retain you know, people and encouraging people to stay in Vermont. But it sounds like you're almost not having that problem."

00:33:05,"You're having this problem where people are really into it and taking space and now you're trying to figure out like who do we, who's the best fit for what we're offering? Yeah, I would say it's a mix because we still are like we're doing great on the private offices designated desk. We have some room we could add a couple more hundred coworkers and like,"

00:33:30,"'cause we've been kind of steady at 500 coworkers and we really wanna get number Everybody listening like, are you Kidding Me? 500 coworkers in one, in one building. I mean there's plenty of people listening who have multiple locations who have those kind of numbers across locations. But yeah, that's incredible. And it's such a small market, right? It's not like you're in Boston."

00:33:53,"Well and that's what we're starting to realize. We're wondering if we've hit our cap for our location. Indeed. So we're trying to get more creative because we know that there's people here and we're trying to figure out how to bring them to hula. Is it because we're slightly outside of the downtown area? Like we're very close. But it could just be that one little spot."

00:34:17,"We, our prices are pretty competitive and like we have parking on site, which that has its own huge pain challenges for right off the bike path to do. So it could be accessible through the bike path and walking. But yeah, the number one reason why people cancel is because they're not coming in enough and it's be usually because they're members that live outside of Chin and County."

00:34:42,"Yeah. It's hard to write, Try trying to figure it out. I know. I think that's a really tricky one to solve. It's like no matter, you know, if you're giving out free money, you know it still might not be worth the drive. It's super, yeah, it's, that's an an interesting challenge. Challenge. Well can,"

00:35:03,"can you talk about anything else that you do sort of in terms of like local partnerships? Like you talked about, you know, sauna Day and anything else that you're doing to interact with the local community to sort of, you know, bring that into the ecosystem? Yeah, so as I mentioned before, we had the second lowest retention rate. I think at 70% of students leave the state of Vermont after college."

00:35:33,"So we've connected with local colleges to set up different programs to get students in hula. 'cause once they're in Hula they're like Oh man, I wanna work for a company based out of Hula. Yeah, okay. So we yeah, connected with Champlain College and they teach entrepreneurial workshops here. We have a couple that they teach and students come to our campus."

00:35:53,"Then we also connected with U V M and their ARC program, which is student entrepreneurs. And we comp their membership so that they have the resources to you know, places to work together as a team that are not necessarily their library and just being around hula and feeling that energy helps them and they get to talk to other businesses. We have a really active Slack channel so people ask questions and connect with one another."

00:36:21,"So that's really helpful for students. We also connect with Middlebury College on their summer innovation program for interns. We actually have two other interns right now, Sophia and Carl. Carl works for the funds our, our VC side of hula and then we have Sophia as one of the community associates highlighting the marketing. 'cause we're doing a market research analysis. 'cause we've never done one before."

00:36:45,"Well like done one while in business before there was one. Yeah, yeah. Totally. So as we're fine tuning our ideal member. But, so those are really important to us. And Sophia, our intern, she said part of why she applied for our internship is 'cause she wanted to work out at Hula. So that was great. And when we've done orientations people have said yeah I just wanna be a part of hula."

00:37:08,"So that is really validating to us knowing that people are starting to be attracted to Burlington because of hula and that was our goal to help retain people here. But that seems to be working. Yeah. We also, our private events team is amazing. That's growing substantially. Again, since we're on the water we have this great patio that overlooks the water and we have different events."

00:37:31,"One of my favorite ones that they do each year is the holaday market. So it's our holiday market and we have over 65 vendors, local vendors that come in and sell gifts for people for the holidays. And we actually don't charge them to apply to be a vendor or to vent. So we really wanna make it accessible. They can donate if they want but it's not required."

00:37:57,"So just being able to see all these different local businesses come together and have the community. We have thousands of people that roll through for that holiday market, which is pretty cool. And people, you know, a bonus of that have become members because of it or have decided to host their own events here. 'cause we have fundraising events, conferences, markets,"

00:38:19,"just, there's weddings now that we're doing here too. Yeah. Photo shoots, video shoots. Yeah. We've had a bar mitzvah as well. A little bit of everything. It was Really evolving into a bit of a community hub too. Which for for you, I mean you talked about the, you know, have we hit a sort of a plateau on the Coworking memberships?"

00:38:41,"I mean maybe but Right. Maybe people find other ways that they wanna be involved and maybe that's okay. Yeah, yeah Exactly. Yeah It's incredible how I think in this time of like work from anywhere and people working from home, we forget like how powerful placemaking can be and people want Right. You like people coming in and saying like I just wanna work for a company that's here 'cause I wanna be here is pretty,"

00:39:09,"it's amazing. And to be behind the Team, that's an That. Yeah a hundred percent. I remember I was in Chicago in sort of the tech scene in like 2000 ish when the bubble was bursting but by the ti and it was like, there was like no tech in Chicago. It was like a little bit, there was like one two incubator Coworking kind of space."

00:39:32,"Maybe a couple. But it just was, it was like we were definitely, you know we were no Silicon Valley right. And but major city but like a teeny bit of tech. And when I opened my Coworking space in Chicago, there was a space that was Yeah. Funded by a local real estate family and also some, you know, city government support and it's called 1871."

00:39:54,"And it just like, it was amazing how when you created this place for people to go, it was just like what you're describing. Like people just wanted to be there and the investors wanted to be there and the entrepreneurs wanted to be there and anybody who just wanted to be a part of it and the tech scene in Chicago like exploded because there was this that's Awesome Lace,"

00:40:15,"right? And it's like it really matters. Like proximity and all the serendipitous things and the relationship building it, it had a huge impact and it, it really matters. So it sounds like you guys are having that impact as well. What can, tell us a little bit, and I know this is not like your purview, but tell us a little bit about the fund."

00:40:33,"What is, what's the goal of the fund and What is it? Yeah, so do, so it's called the fund at Hula and it's our VC side. They invest in local businesses to Vermont. They might be branching out to do some in New England, but they provide mentorship as well and provide the resources if they need someone in operations or to help redo some of the business model."

00:41:00,"But it's really cool to see all the different businesses that they've invested in. A lot of them are health and wellness too. But there's beta technology, which is electrical aviation and then benchmark space system that actually is based right in hula building the satellite parts. Which is pretty cool too. They have a whole lab here. They're in building 44. One of our bigger buildings."

00:41:24,"I'm pointing over to it but you can't, you can't see it. So that's, that's really cool. Definitely based in a lot of tech ones. But unas is also one of the businesses that they invest in. But outside of investing, they also host community events where they invite local businesses and entrepreneurs that they be as a curated group that they feel like they could collaborate with each other or at least have conversations."

00:41:52,"And that I've been to a couple of those dinners and it's great just meeting local entrepreneurs that are out there trying to help build the economy too. They go by what, what was the quilt that they told me? A rising tide lifts all boats. Yeah. So being in an together is really the fund's mission and yeah, it's just been great to see how they've grown."

00:42:16,"You know, they're only a couple years old as well. And then having the businesses in hula that they've invested in, going from a designated desk to a small private office to one that's like a couple hundred square feet to one that's a couple thousand square feet. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's like the ecosystem piece And when people see, oh I can grow here and there's funding and there's mentorship and and you know,"

00:42:42,"all of that kind of under one roof, that's pretty special. Very cool. So I'm curious like you're operating this like incredible space and supporting this incredible community. What are, share a couple of the, the growing pains that you've had since you've in, in the couple of years Been open? Yeah. Yeah. So the growing pains, definitely the private offices as I talked about before,"

00:43:07,"just trying to get people to be engaged because we have this huge wait list and we really want community builders to come in. The Coworking software was something that you know was in place before I came on. But something that in hindsight that we've looked at that we should have taken a little bit more time with going through. So now we're actually switching over to office r and d,"

00:43:32,"which I'm really excited about. They've been great to work with so far and very patient with us because we have to off board. Yeah, I mean People, I know you're smiling but I'm sure right, that's one of the bigger stresses in your life when you Right. You have to change all their payment. You it's a huge migration. Yeah. Yeah."

00:43:50,"And just hiring more people too. I manage a team of five six right now 'cause we have Sophia, our intern, but five generally at the front desk all have different shifts rotating out. So that is part of it too. And then conference room, booking times. It wasn't until I went to Juicy when I figured out we give a lot of conference room booking time out."

00:44:13,"That's so funny. I knew that we were giving some out but I didn't know how much and I had some people laugh at me, The beauty of conference, I was so embarrassed In the, in the most like supportive way. Yeah. They're like Let's talk. We have all these conference rooms and they're booked all the time now. So we get complaints from members saying that they can't."

00:44:39,"Yeah, I get it. Book conference rooms and because people have so much hours they tend to not cancel their booking. Yeah. And people walk by and the conference rooms are empty. Conference rooms. Yeah. So we run into that issue. So now I'm just trying to figure out how to send the message out that we're, when we do the switchover,"

00:44:58,"we are also reducing conference room booking hours. We're not raising any prices. So I'm gonna try to spin it like that. Yeah. But I know that there's gonna be some backlash Totally with that. And then like our visitor policy, we are trying to adjust now too just 'cause we're having more people in the building and seeing if we could put caps on internet because we know that some visitors come in and take advantage of the facility for the whole day instead of the two hours."

00:45:24,"Yeah. Just like little growing people also because people want Yeah, yeah. People wanna come in. Which is great and I feel so honored to have this like quote unquote problem. Yeah. But those would be the big ones. And then parking, which I haven't really been able to find other people that struggle with parking. I know Like I asked that juicy too and I met one other person but they get funding from the state so their parking is like very subsidized and ours isn't."

00:45:55,"We like people have to pay for it. It's extra. We don't do an all in package because people said that they would rather have it a LA so that way if they are biking or walking, they're not paying for parking and saying like, we have a gym on campus too and that's extra. So people could really build the membership that they want."

00:46:15,"But we don't have enough parking on the actual campus. So we bought a lot across the street that people can park out. But again it's pay for parking or we've had some growing pains with the parking company that we are currently using as well. Like these are all good problems to have. So that's what I tell myself when we're going through it. It's like,"

00:46:38,"oh people aren't interested in coming out hula, this is great. But we have to figure out at the same time. Well I think probably when you, in the early days you have so much space, it probably felt like guests are no problem. Conference room time is no problem. And now that you're, you know, really starting to, you know,"

00:46:58,"felt you're full in many, you know, many aspects, then you kinda have to change how you management manage it. And that involves a lot of change management. So. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Because we just want people to come in. Yes. At first too. Yes. Which is great. Like so no barriers. Very, very flexible."

00:47:15,"Yeah. Bring all the guests you want. Yeah. So now we're like slowly been taking it back. Yeah. So yeah. But the members are great. They're very adaptable and flexible and a lot of them, the conference rooms is a benefit to them. But the number one reason why people come to Hula, like what attracts them and what keeps them here is the community."

00:47:39,"The second is the location because we're right on the water. And then the third is a place to work. We did a community demographic survey. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So like having number three as a place to work was kind of funny. Hilarious. Right. I, it's interesting though. I was like not the number one. Yeah. But community being the number one."

00:47:58,"So that means that we are fostering a strong sense of community like it's here. Yeah. Which is awesome that it's portraying as that and that people stay because of it. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot of people listening who would really like envy what you just described because a lot of times people lead with the work. Right. But we want people to then value the community and that sounds like it's really being recognized by your membership."

00:48:25,"Maybe that's how they found you in the first place, but now they value, you know, the people and the experience that they're having there, which is amazing. Okay. What are you, what are you most excited about? That's like besides the space management platform switchover. Oh yeah, that's, that's Behind you. So about that like whatcha we more weeks on that But Yeah,"

00:48:51,"whatcha excited about or looking Forward to? Yeah, I'm excited about the new software. Yeah. New software. Bringing more people in that are just more community builders. That's what we like to call our members. Yeah. Like when I give tours, I really emphasize that we're trying to bring in community builders. Whether you're coming to the Cake Club or like our surprise popup pizza parties or just like connecting with other members,"

00:49:16,"having conversations. If you see someone sitting alone going up and talking to them on our Slack channel we have an introductions channel which everyone is automatically added to. So people can take a few moments to introduce themselves. And I love seeing on the comments on the threads that people are like, oh let's meet up for coffee. Like, oh, I'd love to brainstorm with you because they're meeting people through that channel outside of like if they went to orientation together."

00:49:43,"So that's really cool. And then we're also working closely with, so the founders of Hula also starting a affordable workforce housing unit. So it'll be up to 700 units, like directly across from Hula because as I said, we have less than a 2% vacancy rate in Burlington and we have all these businesses that are trying to bring people to Vermont and they want to work like out of hula,"

00:50:11,"they wanna work for these businesses. They have very specific talents too. So like we can't find some of the people locally locally, but they have to turn on the job because they don't. Yeah. So that's been a really big issue for Burlington and that's one of our top focuses now. We even had a happy hour focused on it, like just educating people on the importance of having housing because there's a lot of regulations and Burlington working against having housing."

00:50:47,"Yeah. Developments just because regulations haven't changed in a while and a lot of, there's permits, you could get permits for building commercially but not as much for residential housing. Housing and yeah. Residential. I'm just trying to navigate that. But I would love for that to happen 'cause like I already live in the neighborhood but I don't wanna leave the neighborhood."

00:51:08,"So it would be nice to be able to rent from there and just be able to offer more housing because a lot of people do travel in to come here to work and as I mentioned before, the number one reason why they cancel is because they're not able to come into hula as much as they want. So if they're able to live like directly across the street,"

00:51:26,"we're close to the lake so they have easier lake access, be part of the surf club, be part of all the different events that we have because we do have a ton of private events that we're doing too. Yeah. Which, you know, I'm excited for the events department growing. Yeah. Yeah. That's, so I'm curious, that was gonna be my wrap up question,"

00:51:44,"but I do wanna ask a follow up about you talking about you want community builders. It sounds like being a community builder doesn't have to be super intense. It can be little things that people do. Do you tell people like when you talk to them about that, like what that looks like? Yeah. Yeah. Just little things getting involved. You don't have to show up to every event."

00:52:07,"You don't have to be super active on Slack. But really just being able to like when you're in the kitchen, just saying hello to someone when you're making coffee or putting something away in the fridge and doing things like that. 'cause in the private offices, the smaller ones, like the bigger ones do have their own kitchen just 'cause they have so much square footage."

00:52:27,"But we purposefully didn't put small kitchens in the offices to help with that collision of people in the kitchens and having more conversations because they are meeting each other there. And then maybe grabbing lunch together. We also have the cafe and here too the spot. So the spot has three locations, which is like our sister restaurant spot on the dock spot here and spot on Shelburn Road."

00:52:50,"Okay. So I, I love that insight though because I think there's a lot of people who want people to act in the way that you're describing, but the members don't know, right? Yeah. They don't, they've never been in a Coworking space before. They don't understand like what's expected of me. What does success, you know, success look like?"

00:53:11,"What does it look like to contribute? Yeah. So I, I feel like that's kind of an important idea is like you're telling people this is what we want and this is how you participate and we'd prefer to have those types of people as members. So you've also Yeah. Sort of gone, you've left that like scarcity mindset of can we, can we fill this giant space and now you're in this place of like this is what we want in,"

00:53:36,"you know, who we want and how we want our members to behave and contribute and we're gonna be clear about that. Yeah. Like on the tours that I give, because I do Yeah. The weekly tours with people, I talk about that and then an orientation we talk or not even an orientation, we talk about that. Yeah. As well."

00:53:55,"'cause the first part of orientation is the history of hula. 'cause we actually used to be an oven factory. Pretty cool. So we weren't built from scratch. We were you knowed repurposed in ways. Yeah. And so we talk about the history and the vision and mission behind it and going into all the different perks. 'cause we have so many perks that people can take advantage of both professionally and personally."

00:54:18,"Like the meditation, massages, sailing and the surf club, all that good stuff. And that really helps 'em feel a part of the community. Because before I came on there wasn't an orientation and it wasn't until I started touring other Coworking facilities and they kept, I'm talking about orientation. I was like, oh no wonder our line is so long at the front desk because people don't know how to use the system."

00:54:43,"And so now the orientation, it's helped so much with the front desk and the questions and generally the people that have questions are members that came on before we had the orientation, which started last April, April of 2022. Like we're learning as we go. I, you know, this is a new space for me to walk into to the Coworking industry and I'm totally sold on it."

00:55:09,"But you know, I'm obviously on this podcast but it's been so helpful for me because being someone that doesn't know too much about the industry, it's still a relatively new industry. Having resources like this, being able to go to Juicy has just been so helpful. Yeah. Like insanely helpful. Totally. I know 'cause you're, you've taken on this giant project and lots of folks would sort of look at you as a model,"

00:55:34,"but you're still learning too. And it's, yeah, it's a lot of things to learn from others, which Right. That's why we do what we do. Well thank you for sharing your experience and telling us about Hula. I am dying to come visit. I think I probably told you that at Juicy. I was literally, yeah, my parents live in upstate New York and I was like,"

00:55:49,"how do I swing by hula on my East coast visit? So one of these days it's gonna happen because Yeah. Love to tour. It seems like a really special place. So thanks for taking the time to do this. It's, we really appreciate it. Yeah, Thank you for having me. I feel so, so honored and yeah, this is our first time really speaking at a national level about Hula."

00:56:13,"So thank you. Well You're doing, I mean a lot of incredible, the community building's really special. The net zero's really special the fund, so I suspect I might have opened the flood gates, so who knows what might happen after does. Yeah, it, it was funny. I do see like it was the ask me Anything one and I like asked the question."

00:56:33,"I was like, what do you do when you have a four year reading list and Everybody's just like Turned around. Yeah. And one of the guys on the asked me anything, I was like, who even are you? Yeah. I was like, Exactly. Who love Burlington, Vermont. That's so funny. I love it. Yeah. Well I love that you're out and going to conferences."

00:56:54,"You'll have to try the G W A conference that's in September. I have to give the the plug. But anyway, yes, we'd love, we, we can't wait to hear more from you and to watch your journey. And good luck with your tech switch over and Thank you. We'll see you in the Community Manager group. Thank you. Yes,"

00:57:13,"thank you. 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. 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."

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