334. Blending Coworking and Childcare with Daniella Cornue: Inside Le Village
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TRANSCRIPTION
334. Blending Coworking and Childcare with Daniella Cornue: Inside Le Village
00:00:00,"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 a thought provoking operator,"
00:00:26,"case studies and inspirational interviews with industry thought leaders to help you confidently stay on top of what's important and what you can apply to your own role in the Coworking industry. Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo. I am excited about this episode because we have a lot of folks who come to our Coworking, Startup School, interested in including childcare in their business model."
00:01:00,"And that is always a challenge because it's a challenging model. There are not a lot of successful models to model out there. So I've been excited to have this week's guest on Daniella Cornue. She is the founder and CEO of Le Village. I keep saying that wrong. I want to do the Le Village. She is in city neighborhoods in Chicago, expanding into the suburbs of Chicago and Milwaukee."
00:01:34,"She, they have a new location, it's a franchise model, so she's a corporate location that she opened and then franchise models after that in the Chicago area. So she gives a lot of insight around how she has found it works best to make this model work. And she shared some really interesting insights. I'm not going to, I, I won't do a spoiler alert,"
00:01:59,"but I think her insights are really helpful in understanding the way she set up her model and why it works, how it works. She also gave me a couple of nuggets after we hit stop on the record button that we both wanted to make sure we shared. So I will share on her behalf. She said they do a number of weekend parties, because I had mentioned that Play spaces make a lot of revenue on birthday parties,"
00:02:29,"and she said they also do a lot of birthday parties on the weekends. So those, that rental, I think is open to non-members. So that is a source of revenue important to mention that. And the space would be designed to be flexible to kind of convert to weekend rentals. I did not ask her who hosts those, if it's her or if she has someone on her team or they have kind of an ad hoc birthday party manager that goes in to do those."
00:02:55,"But I do know that's a really important source of revenue for play spaces and can, should be an important source of revenue for your space if you are child friendly. And she mentioned we don't have any $6,000 sofas, so if some kids build ketchup on our sofa, we can handle that. So she, you know, mentioned some things about the way the space is designed and the expectations,"
00:03:20,"et cetera. She also said, you know, she mentions this in the podcast. She said she gets a lot of folks who want childcare to be an add-on service, that they wanna run Coworking, but they offer also wanna offer daycare. And you'll hear from the way she talks about it, her model is just very integrated. You really can't decouple the two."
00:03:40,"She did say though that she thinks that you can for older kids. So the, the challenge she's solving is for kindergarten through, you know, just before preschool. So really babies and, sorry, not kindergarten, babies and toddlers, that's who she's serving. And so though you have to be on site, there's a lot of regulations for that age group."
00:04:01,"So once the kids are older, there are fewer regulations and more flexibility. So she mentioned that if she wanted to make a kid friendly space, she might focus on after school. So, you know, a lot of times public schools will have afterschool programs. Sometimes they're expensive, sometimes they're not every day. So she said she would partner with a group in the community that does programming for afterschool kids or even having a homework room where some place where kids can go after school and mom or dad can continue working and it's not at home."
00:04:38,"So I don't know how that works. How did the kids get there? Does mom or dad have to go pick them up from school and get them there? Maybe there's a shuttle service, who knows. So that we didn't solve, but she did say she has seen that model works and thinks it makes sense. And I think Melanie Marconi runs kind of that genre of model in her locations in Oregon."
00:05:04,"So, and I'm trying to remember what Melanie's brand is called. It'll come to me a minute. Its been a long day of Zoom. So she thinks that model could absolutely work. And I agree. Think of all of the, we were just talking about today's early dismissal. My daughter gets out at two 10, so my husband's gonna pick her up because I have meetings and out of the house and then he has to leave for other meetings and I'll come back home so that,"
00:05:29,"you know, somebody's here, but having a place where she could have social time or get homework done away from a screen. I know. Anyway, I love that idea. I think that can solve a lot of problems for a, like a, you know, much broader age group probably. So she definitely thinks there are things that can be done."
00:05:48,"It is the, you know, baby to toddler age that's really kind of hard to solve on more of an ad hoc approach. So, and she, you know, said you really have to know your numbers. And that is really one of our core promises of our programs is we want you to understand the business model. We want you to understand how to optimize the business model,"
00:06:10,"what you can expect, what the levers are of the business model, how to make the best decisions, how to use those numbers and expectations to get the right real estate deal, et cetera. So if you're thinking about opening a Coworking space, actually Thursday, sorry, you know what? We've already started by the time this airs. Oh, we have just started by the time you listen to this,"
00:06:34,"another live cohort of the Coworking, Startup School. We have a great group of folks. We have some building owners, we have a great mix of folks in that group. And we are starting our next cohort, I think at the beginning of March. So we will have that on the website. Actually it's at Everything Coworking dot com slash start. I think if you know you're interested in the Coworking Startup School and you just wanna know when the next date is,"
00:07:04,"it will be up there and you can register. And we run it as a live cohort. But you do not have to attend live if your schedule does not allow. We have folks who attend live, some who cannot and just do everything on their own time and listen to the recordings. And we have Slack group support if you have questions that you wanna ask."
00:07:24,"So know that's an option. And we are very passionate about you helping understand the numbers and then deciding you know, what model is best for you and help you make all the right decisions to create a profitable Coworking space. Okay. So I am standing between you and a very hot topic. So I'm gonna get out of here without further ado here as my conversation with Daniella Cornue."
00:07:50,"She is the founder and CEO of Le Village. Welcome. I am here. Thank you. Daniella Cornue from Le Village. I wanted to say Leila, but it's just Le Village. She's the Chicago in a neighborhood. I'm gonna have you kind of walk through it. You, we know you a little bit, but I wanna totally dive into you and your business model."
00:08:16,"You did a, how I did this panel, I'm trying to remember when that was. It was maybe, maybe a year ago. It might have been a while ago. Exactly. And I should mention that I only knew of you because we share an accountant, which is sort of funny because you're in Chicago. I'm not. And Michael, our accountant,"
00:08:35,"he, I'm try, I think a friend I needed, I still, I needed like a tax accountant and I got a referral from a Chicago friend and Michael was like, you gotta meet this woman Daniella, she's killing it and she's in Chicago and she's in your business. And I was like, okay, let's let, and then let's, we were able to connect 'cause Juicy was in Chicago and it's,"
00:08:54,"oh, it's always like, that conference is always so crazy. So at some point I'm coming to Chicago, I actually was just saying how much I love Chicago and I need to plan my trip. And did you meet, have you, so Jen Luby is in, I always forget where she is. She has Day House. She's like, Yeah,"
00:09:11,"she is Day House and she's up in, is it Wilmette? No, what's the other? It'll come back to me. I always forget and I don't know why. It's ridiculous. And then Sue Rearden is in Forest Park and La Grange. Oh, nice. She has sweet spot. So she's in our programs. They just met each other recently."
00:09:28,"So lots of good operators in Chicago. Okay. But the exciting thing about your model is Coworking and childcare. Yes. Yeah, we're diving in. Okay, so let's do it. Tell us your story. How did you, how did this come to be? Yeah, I mean, honestly I started Le Village when my daughter, right after my daughter was born,"
00:09:50,"you know, I had a three month maternity leave. I had an amazing return to work program that was super flexible where I was allowed to work from home several days a week. Of course this is pre pandemic. Before it was cool and it was great, except I couldn't find daycare that allowed her to come into at part-time. So I started looking for,"
00:10:12,"I was like, well I just need a Coworking space that has childcare. Clearly this is a thing already. And I like, I have The solution. I mean, seriously. I was like, how is this not a thing? And I went through and looked and looked and nobody was doing it. And so I would get up Jamie, I would get up in,"
00:10:31,"in the morning, I'd drop her off at, 'cause I was doing it for a while and I'd drop her off at six in the morning. You know, get on the L by seven, shoot downtown, 45 minute commute work all day where We were. Where were you living at the time? We were in Ravenswood at the time. Okay. Ravenswood."
00:10:49,"That's The thing about Chicago. Ravenswood is totally in the city but still takes you that long to Right. Get off minutes transportation. Yeah. So you miss out, you know, and so I would, I drop her off at, you know, six 30 in the morning and I'd pick her up at six 30 at night and she would go to bed at seven 30."
00:11:06,"Yeah. And I would just cry every day. I was like, I'm missing all of it. And so I quit my job and I started Le Village shortly thereafter. And it was Just like, I'm doing this. And your husband said, My husband said I was crazy. Yeah. Okay. He still thinks I'm crazy, by the way. Okay,"
00:11:26,"so nothing has changed. Yeah, just I'm always doing something new. I just have that bone in me that entrepreneurial, He knows you're crazy. This sounds crazy, but Okay. He was on board with, but it usually Works out, you know. Okay. If you're crazy. But it works out. So, but he, you know, he also knows he can't tell me not to do things."
00:11:45,"So it was like, no, but you Were gonna go sign a commercial lease. He was fine with that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I actually, we bought the building, we ended up buying the building, so, Oh, I just mentioned on LA maybe last week's podcast. I was like, if someone had whispered in my ear when I was in Chicago before Fulton Market exploded."
00:12:04,"Yeah. Hey, You should buy this building. If someone had just suggested that my life would be totally different. Yeah. It's definitely been a, a big thing for, you know, we for you. I was like, I don't know this. I thought it was a great idea. I thought it was a no brainer. So you're like,"
00:12:19,"Need to just, let's just buy the building and do this thing. Okay, great. Well and I think financially it was like, well let's safeguard it. Right? Because if it blows up in my face, then you have the equity in something that's a tangible asset. Asset. You can sell it. Exactly. Exactly. Or sell it and make your money back."
00:12:35,"A hundred percent. Everybody listening 100%. Yeah. If you can, I mean now I'm in a market where, forget it and I cannot own commercial real estate. That's hard on my own. So yes, that's a further path, but good for you. Okay, thanks. So he's all in. You're gonna start the thing. He's all in."
00:12:51,"You bought the building first. Yep. Did you buy it? We bought the building SBA loan or We did an SBA seven. Yeah. K. And honestly, you know, we're not millionaires. I tell this to people all the time. Like, we shoestring this together. 401k. Yep. You know, little but you bought An asset and,"
00:13:11,"but we bought an asset. Mortgage is probably the same as what your rent would've been. 100%. Yeah. Especially in Chicago. Especially for the size of building that we Purchased. I mean the lease, you know, we see this a lot in Chicago, especially like the real estate portion of what we're doing. We have to be, it's delicate."
00:13:29,"You can definitely do it. Downtown is harder. Further you get out into the suburbs, leasing gets a little bit more feasible. It's just a little bit more challenging in the core of downtown. You have to really fight for that. You have to have, we have luckily have a great real estate broker that works both lease and say, you know,"
00:13:49,"for sale. And we're franchising right now, so we're in the middle. I've done my location in Irving, but now we have a location in Milwaukee. Yeah. Wisconsin as well. And so one of the things that we coach people through is can you purchase or should you lease? And what's really the best bang for your book? Yes. Okay."
00:14:06,"So you're the one whispering in folks' ear saying, Hey, I am. I might be possible. Yeah. And sometimes you just need to normalize it, right? We're right. We don't have some unusual, you know, amount of money. We figured this out. It could be possible for you to yeah's. Awesome. It's a long term investment and it really feel,"
00:14:23,"you know, it depends on what your family, you know, there's a different level of risk. It depends on what your family can handle. But yeah, that's how we did it. Okay. Awesome. Okay. So yeah, describe the model size and division. So yeah, so working in childcare. Yeah, it is. So one of the things that I hope people take away from this,"
00:14:44,"because we always, whenever I do a show or something like that, people are like, oh my god. I get operators that reach out to me and they're like, I'd love to add this on as a service. And I'm like, well it's not really a service, it's kind of a way of life. Yeah. Kind of Thing. Okay."
00:14:59,"I love that you made that point. So Yeah, so you know, it really is, you know, we have a space, Irving Park is our smallest location at this point. The other locations are opening up at around 7,000 square foot in that range. Le Village Irving Park is, was much smaller. That location's around 4,500 square feet and it's really split up into half classrooms and half Coworking."
00:15:27,"And so people that are like, I wanna add this on first as a service. And I'm like, are you ready to chop up your space in half? Like essentially it, it's just, or you could divide however you think is appropriate, but yeah, Right. It, it's just really tough. You know, one of the other unique things about,"
00:15:44,"so our space is literally a Coworking and childcare space. We have classrooms on site where parents can come in. They literally, we serve specifically babies and toddlers, which is really unique in the marketplace as well. You see a lot of these like play cafes cropping up and things like that, which I'm sure is eating into some of that Coworking revenue that people are looking at."
00:16:08,"Which is probably why they're Interested different though, right? It's hard to, you still really are supervising. Yeah. So tell us more about Yeah. What the experience looks like if they Yeah, I mean I would say like play cafes are even less supervision than Le Village does. You know, we, you have to be able to drop your kid off and go work."
00:16:27,"And if, because we specialize in babies and toddlers. Yeah, that's a challenging age range. Right. But it's a great age range from a membership standpoint. Yeah. Because once they get a little bit older, they start school free school, Right? Yes, exactly. So then you're competing with that. So for us, we serve babies and toddlers."
00:16:47,"Our classrooms are staffed with certified teachers with a full curriculum and parents are there, you know, so they come in, they work on site, it's all in one building. You cut, you know, that commute time that I was doing and all of this back and forth, you know, our parents get to have lunch with their kids. We close the classrooms down in the middle of the day and everyone picks up their little ones."
00:17:10,"They get to have that quality time, but then they drop them back off into the classroom for afternoon session if they're there for the full day, the piece out and, and you know, we do all of the things that a typical childcare space would do, but just with much more parent involvement. And that's why our slogan is community first, Coworking and childcare."
00:17:33,"'cause it really encompasses all of it. Oh Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Okay, so full-time is not required? No, we do not require. Okay. We have anywhere from three half days all the way up to Monday through Friday. Eight to five. Okay. But I have to commit. I'm not doing drop in. I'm not, I'm a member."
00:17:55,"I've picked a package. Do I have to commit for X number of months or like a half a year? What does that look like? Yeah, We do basically an eight. We have an eight week cancellation policy for people. Yeah. So, you know, that way we're kind of know who's gonna be in the space. But yes, we ask people like,"
00:18:12,"Hey, pick your schedule. You know, at most people especially right now are on some sort of a hybrid schedule and they're required to be in the office on some sort of schedule. Children frankly need babies and toddlers. They need schedule, they need a little bit of routine. So we tell people like, Hey, pick what you're trying to get in here for so we can plan for you and figure out what's going on."
00:18:34,"We don't allow drop-ins. This is another thing that like when we have o, when I have operators that reach out to me, everyone wants To do drop-in like the old flexibility for mom. And I'm like, yes. And that business model is never going to work. It's just, it can't. Well, and you know, if you think about it,"
00:18:49,"jb, it's a safety issue, right? You can't have so and so from Mexico or from Germany or from wherever jumping, dropping into your beautiful space with people's infant, you know, you don't know these people. Yeah. Like with people's infants and toddlers on site, it just becomes a huge safety issue. That's Part of the community piece is that we know who here,"
00:19:10,"you know each other. It's sort of a family. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. It's like an extended Yeah. Family everybody knows, knows. Like a Typical daycare would never, like you can't, don't drop in like at a Right. Typical daycare. Yeah. But you know, on the other side of that too, it's like you drop your kid off at a typical daycare,"
00:19:28,"you have no idea the parents what's going on. Yeah. You know, the teachers, you don't know what's going on. Yeah. And so we're trying to like, we like to say we're not a Coworking space, we are not a childcare space. We are a new model. We are the evolution of childcare and what working parents are really looking for."
00:19:51,"Hey there, I am jumping in to share with you a free live training we have coming up on February 15th called Four Ways to Fund a Coworking Space in 2024. It's 2024. And you know, there's more demand than ever for your Coworking vision. You wanna create your first Coworking business or you'd like to add a new location. But interest rates are crazy town."
00:20:14,"SBA loans same. And lenders look at you like you're the abominable snowman when you say you wanna do something in the commercial office sector. So what's a passionate Coworking entrepreneur to do when the going gets tough, the tough get creative, creative but realistic. Join my totally free masterclass and we'll walk you through for creative ways to fund your Coworking space. In 2024,"
00:20:39,"I funded two Coworking spaces using creative financing. And I work with dozens of operators every single month through my Coworking, Startup, School operator mastermind group and coaching programs who are finding creative ways to fund their launches and their growth. So come join us, find out what's working and what's possible. Join our free live training on February 15th. If you can't make it live,"
00:21:04,"that's cool. We have a replay. Just register, save your spot. And that's the way you get the replay. But if you can join us live, you can ask all the questions you want and engage in the discussion in the chat to register, open up your podcast player, click the details for the episode and the link is right there. We hope to see you there."
00:21:24,"You had no background in childcare? You, you have some other professional background? I do. I do. I worked in, I really had a business background. I worked, I had in business and I worked in marketing and advertising, but I did go, when I decided to do this, I was like, oh, I better get educated."
00:21:47,"And I did go and I don't have a bachelor's or anything, but I did go and get, there are, it's called a CDA certification and go through like safety classes, first aid. Okay. All of, you know, the CPR, all of that. I don't teach in the rooms, but I still like to, you know, practice what I preach,"
00:22:03,"kinda deal. And I think that, you know, I am also a mother and I think that changes things just a little bit and go in like empty. Yeah. And I hired a consultant when we opened too, which is something I, I think for operators that are looking to start this from scratch. We, we really spent the money upfront to put it together."
00:22:28,"Again, we have a specialized curriculum that kind of leans into the flexibility that is still a big part of who Le Village is, right? Like we still don't have the same kids every day and it's super fluid and, and we put the time and the effort into putting the curriculum together, hiring teachers, putting all of that, those pieces into play so that we could succeed long term."
00:22:57,"And your curriculum goes to each location? Is that kind of a, the, the guide? So the anybody who franchises does not have to reinvent that they're really identifying a location and maybe customizing their decor, but they're, they get the guidebook with the curriculum. And then what does the team look like on the, what does the team look like overall?"
00:23:19,"Well, I mean, I would say like a lot of our team, you know, we have a couple of what we call administrators that are running kind of the day-to-Day operations of the space. I'm obviously not at Le Village right now. I'm at home. My myself, my daughter's graduated now, so I don't, I'm not there all the time anymore."
00:23:36,"But, but that being said, we have to adhere to ratios and this is like some of the stuff that we'll, yeah. You know, we talk about, we teach people you have to have safety ratios. So our staffing is mostly in the classroom. Our teachers are very much in the classroom and it depends on how many kids you have. But you know,"
00:23:55,"in our baby's room we have three teachers, four teachers some days. And in our older classroom, same deal. You know, anywhere from three to four staff members. And they're teaching, we're doing activities and we have what we call little hands, big body sensory and art. And those are kind of our pillars of learning. So they're doing these projects and circle time and all the things that you would expect from a quality childcare experience."
00:24:23,"Okay. Can mom or dad leave the premise? So if I want full-time daycare, but I have to go downtown every other day, can I do that? Yeah. So the sort of, I guess is the answer is yes and no. So we are, we have a, a program called Tag, A Tag in program. Okay. Basically if you are gonna leave,"
00:24:47,"you need to tag in another village member to be responsible for your little one while you're out. And that's how people use it all. Say that's A regulation issue. And that plays into the community approach. Hey. Exactly. Is there, like, is that part of onboarding? Do you explain, is that sort of an implied expectation of being a,"
00:25:07,"that you're willing to do that? Yeah, and you know, part of what Le Village is, is, you know, being a parent of a young child, being a parent, frankly in general, but young children especially. It's so new. You know, when Nate and I had Vivi, we were the first people to have our daughter. We didn't have any friends that had kids."
00:25:25,"Our parents live far away. We were very like on an island. Yeah. And, and we found that we were not the only people on that island after a while. And so what Le Village is, is kind of bridging that gap. When we started my, you know, I have Le Village, but it's named after the phrase, it takes a village."
00:25:44,"It Takes totally, yes. Takes a village, right? So what Le Village does is kind of gives you the pieces to that you're gonna make your mom friends, you're gonna make your core community. And so it's not a big deal to lean over to your friend who's also got a kid in the same class and be like, Hey, I got a meeting downtown,"
00:26:01,"I'll be back in two hours. And she's cool and you guys sign out on a little form and they off they go. You know? Yeah. And you're making friends. I mean, I just had this conver, we only have one kid and I was having this conversation with my husband and we live, no, we have no family anywhere around."
00:26:15,"And I was talking to him about the whole, it takes a village. I was like, look, I think our life would've been a lot different if we lived with family because there's so many limitations. Like he travels, I travel, we can't travel at the same time because we don't have that infrastructure. And we never made those relation. We,"
00:26:33,"we actually, we have a lot of friends who moved their parents here so that they would have that support. So we do have some friends that are close enough where maybe we could leave a kid, you know, there's a wedding coming up and we're going through like how do we go to the wedding without, we probably have to fly in a grandparent,"
00:26:53,"you know? Yeah. But Le Village for us would've been that, like how do you build your village when you don't have one? And Yeah. Others being in the same boat. And that like those relationships where you could lean on each other for that kind of thing. I mean, it's becoming more common. It's like people used to grow up and live near home,"
00:27:12,"right? Yeah. And they'd have aunts and uncles and parents and that's still the case, but it's really shifting. People move far away and don't have that. So to your point, like this evolved new way of, of living. It's so, so interesting. Okay. So in ter, I'm curious in terms of compliance. So you have a new location in Wisconsin?"
00:27:34,"We do. So you had to sort of start from scratch in terms of learning. So do you, does Le Village do that on behalf of your franchisee? Who's in charge of learning the regulations for Local markets? We, we kind of look at it together. You know, being in, in Wisconsin, you know, it's not California. California scares,"
00:27:54,"scares the bejesus outta me. 'cause they are, you know, they are the red tape state, right? Illinois is pretty red tapey so as well. So luckily, you know, some of the states that we're looking at right now, we, we are really looking to close down Chicago. Like this year, this is our big push is I really want to get these into Chicago."
00:28:13,"But we had this, the most amazing owner operator in Kelly Overton who runs the, and owns the Milwaukee Brewers Hill location. And so when I actually taught, I was like, you've gotta do this, you would be so great at it. She was moving away into Milwaukee and I was like, I'm serious. I stalked her for eight months. I was like,"
00:28:35,"please do this for me. You're gonna be so great. And she did, she ended up doing it. And it's been a roaring success. There we're, we couldn't be happier, but we had to, we both sat down and it was like, okay, let's look up the regulations, let's you know, some like, you know, small business ownership."
00:28:51,"Sometimes I feel like I wear so many hats, like so many hats, you know, legal, accounting, like all these pieces that I need to know. But we, you know, really kind of, we didn't leave her on an island to do that. We were definitely like, okay, this is the new state we need to know. You need to know daycare,"
00:29:09,"regulations, childcare, all of that. You need to know safety and code regulations. You need to, you know, you've gotta have your stuff together to do this model. Yep. Can you be a member of your Coworking space without having a child in childcare? No. Okay. I do not allow that. Yep. And yeah. And is that partly because of the limited size or will that apply to any new model?"
00:29:35,"I think it will apply to any new model. Why would you wanna work on a space with a bunch of screaming babies and toddlers? You know what, again, you don't have it just like, it lends to the creeper factor. I hate to say that, but it's like why we have had people like, oh yeah. But I'm like, why would you wanna be here without like Yeah,"
00:29:51,"you can go Somewhere else. It's fine. Yeah. There's other places for you. There's lots of, I love to make references to other lovely Coworking spaces. Yeah, That would be okay at that point. Yeah. So are the Chicago locations all franchised or are you opening corporate locations as well? We will likely open another corporate location. So I opened a sister concept called Le Village Learners last year."
00:30:15,"That was the other location that I opened. And it's a pre-K concept, so it doesn't have, so it's offsite. And this is the one, so I say, oh, you can't have, if you don't have your kids on site, then you can't be a member. But I am gonna, I'm gonna say like most of the time with that,"
00:30:30,"because what happens is our kids have been with us now, we've been open since 2019 and they're graduating through the program. And so we started, I started Le Village learners last year. It's a pre-K concept where parents can drop their kids off, which is really like an like kind of where parents get after four years of being on site with their little ones."
00:30:51,"They're like, I would like to drop you off now. And then they have the, it's free for them to be members at Le Village Cowork. They get to go down to Cowork if they wanna cowork, but they don't have to either. So then they can like, whereas like when they're babies and toddlers, we really require you to be on site."
00:31:09,"Yep, yep. Once they hit this pre-K four kindergarten, you can drop off or not. And so that was my new experiment last year that I did. And I have been forbidden from starting any new experiments for at least one year. So I know I'm giving, Yeah, I'm like I giving good a year to breathe and we will likely, I really would love to open a location in like the West Loop Bolton Market,"
00:31:39,"you know, kind of area. I think that market's really exciting. But this year we're really focused on, so we have a location, a franchise location opening in near the Brookfield Zoo in Lions. So we, we are calling it our Route 66 location. And then we have another location that's opening in Just Plains that we haven't really announced. So I guess this will be your big break."
00:32:02,"I love it. Perfect. Thank you. Hey there, I'm jumping in again this time. I am speaking to those of you that have, are either getting ready to hire a Community Manager or who have a Community Manager and you would like to support their training and development. We know how challenging it can be for Coworking space operators to create their own training and development material to support their community managers."
00:32:33,"And this is so important in terms of onboarding new community managers and supporting the growth of your existing community managers. And we're getting towards the end of the year, what a great holiday gift end of year gift to give to your Community Manager. So the platform is really around a couple of things. One is access to a community of like-minded folks. We have a very active Slack group with really wonderful questions that are posed every single day."
00:33:04,"And we find that's one of the biggest values. We have community managers from all over the world and this is an excellent group of community managers that have invested time and effort into getting better at that role. And they are the kind of folks that you want your Community Manager to be by and hanging out with and they know their stuff or sometimes they don't and they ask questions and we help them out."
00:33:28,"So I am in the group, we have coaches that are in the group to support them. So we love when they ask questions for things they need help with because the other aspect of the program is really around helping them get resources they need to make their jobs easier and to learn things that they can use in their role to be better at their job."
00:33:48,"So we provide some done for you resources like Google business posts, detailed event ideas, et cetera, that they can just kind of grab and go and use. And we also provide monthly resources that add to our training library so they can do our certification. And then we have a lot of electives that help them kind of get better at all the things that go with the role."
00:34:15,"So the, our community managers wear a lot of hats. So we break our content into industry knowledge for new community managers, community building operations, sales and marketing and leadership. So the leadership bucket is great for our more advanced community managers. We also have virtual office and digital mail training and coffee training for anybody who needs to know how to use commercial coffee brewers."
00:34:44,"So we have some of the, I'm just gonna give you kind of a sampling of content that we have. So in our community building modules, we have hosting your first member events, building community with budget friendly events, member events, swipe files, our sales and marketing modules. We have tour training, we have the training on the full Coworking sales funnel so they understand what that looks like."
00:35:11,"We have social media planning frameworks. We have, what else do we have? Three simple steps to an effective marketing newsletter. These are just some of our samples. Ooh. These are some of our best utilized topics. Demystifying the process of letting your Coworking members use your address for their Google business listing. How to close a tour operations modules, how to set up automations,"
00:35:39,"how to do a new member onboarding audit. Simple ways to use AI to boost your productivity. We have over 40 courses in the program. So we cover kind of higher level topics. And then we also cover things that are timely, like the CMRA updates, Google business updates, et cetera. So we get together monthly to do official training and we also host a best practice sharing call,"
00:36:07,"which is one of the fan favorites of the group and the Slack group. So if you have any questions at all about the program, don't hesitate to reach out. You can learn more and register at Everything Coworking dot com slash Community Manager. Now back to our episode. That's exciting. Okay. I was gonna, yeah, I was gonna ask you sort of Yeah,"
00:36:30,"geographically, but to your point, there's probably still a lot of neighborhoods in Chicago that could handle this model. Yeah. And it is a neighborhood model. A Neighborhood model, Yeah. Yeah. Downtown. You know, we want people, we want it to be in people's backyards where people live. Right. That's really the concept. Exactly. Create your community near home."
00:36:51,"Yes, exactly. So, you know, I, I'm hoping that we can find a great owner in Evanston, in Pilsen, in Bronzeville. Those are like my, if I could dream up Yeah. An owner operator. Yeah. Like for each of those places. That would be awesome. How do do Dads are dads members. They are. We've actually seen an influx of dads,"
00:37:15,"which has been really amazing. Honestly. It was, when we first opened, it was very much a, this is a mom space. And now I, I would say it's like 60 40, like 60% moms, 40% dads in the space. But our dad and our dads are like, they're hands on dads. It really is the evolution of fatherhood too."
00:37:36,"Yeah. To see these dads take on. Yeah. You know, we have a lot of split memberships where like, moms come in like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and dads come that, oh yeah, dads come in, it's like Tuesday, Thursday. And their family like splits it up and everybody gets space and time. And that's what really,"
00:37:52,"like the mission of Le Village is really to tackle the motherhood penalty and really create equity for women in the workplace. And you're normalizing. Dad does half or maybe all of the, maybe all get the kid to daycare and I know, yeah. I did a post on that recently 'cause the, I interviewed the founder of Gable, which is kind of a marketplace and she was talking about how passionate she is about Yeah."
00:38:20,"The motherhood penalty. And I posted, yeah. There's a podcast with data that says the penalty is not gender based. It is a mother, it is a caregiver penalty. Oh yeah. So it's the burden that the things that mom takes on that dad doesn't take on. Yeah. 'cause I also love like being in that space with other dads, like normalizing,"
00:38:42,"well dad can do the doctor's appointments too, and dad can do these things and Oh, other dads are doing this. Because it was interesting, the podcast, it was a, it was a Freakonomics podcast and this woman who had done a bunch of research through Harvard and she was like, yeah, I don't really know what's ever going to change this."
00:38:58,"I mean, she was just like, I don't see how culturally we're ever gonna move the needle. Her one suggestion was maybe if schools went until five. Right. Because there's still the whole Well, yeah, yeah. Three o'clock. Yes. Unless there's after school. Guess who's going to get mine today? Jamie. Yeah. My husband. That's right."
00:39:16,"Dad's doing it. You know what, I have, I know, I have my husband on school pickup today too, and it's early dismissal day. Oh gosh. Didn't we just go back? What? Yeah, Well they have two o'clock dismissal once a week and then Yes, we have Monday off for MLK day, which probably lots of people do."
00:39:33,"So I, yeah, exactly. So I'm, and that is something, the working from home, that's, I still get most of the responsibility, but there's a little, I do think the working from home has helped shift. Like that may be what has shifted with your dad's, right? Oh, well they can be hybrid and so they could go to the space half of the time and Yep."
00:39:53,"That's a big deal. I think that, I think that return to work is really just attack on an attack on working parents. Right. That I think is a whole other podcast. I know. We, I really passionately think that it is a bunch of people that don't have, you know, that they, they just don't see Yeah. The people making the decisions do not have caregiving responsibilities."
00:40:14,"Yeah. Yeah. Then they don't care. Yeah. So, and they don't want them, they're like, cool, you figure it out, you deal with it. So I hope that people take a stand on that, you know, and parents take a stand on that and mothers take a stand on it because it really does fall back on our shoulders."
00:40:29,"Yeah. To figure this stuff out in the long, at the long run. Yeah. So it, it could be partly a California thing. I had this conversation with this group of women who help, they would maybe be a consultant of the type that you hired. They help folks launch open daycare and they were basically like, it's a very hard model."
00:40:49,"You need inexpensive real estate and inexpensive labor. And they were like, otherwise it's very hard. So it needs to be subsidized. And they were trying to figure out Yeah. How they, I think they were sort of exploring and somebody introduced us like, right, could they co figure this out with Coworking? And then could you get companies like Salesforce who have all these distributed people,"
00:41:12,"but you know, Salesforce wants them to go to some office. Well, can you put the daycare there? Because that's one of the hurdles is right, like moms at home and post covid can't get daycare. And so, you know, all these challenges. So Yeah. Talk about what are the biggest challenges of the model. And I'm also curious,"
00:41:28,"like the profitability is, is childcare profitable without Coworking? Do you need both? Like how do they sort of interplay? I mean, I think for us, like it really is one big model for us. You know, we do a comp on, you know, what Coworking spaces are charging. We do a comp on what daycare spaces are charging."
00:41:49,"And you really have to consider all of those pieces. You can't, you can't really separate the two. It's one big thing. I think that the woman that you were, the, the group that you were talking to has hit the nail on the head. It is a, it's really hard, especially if you wanna do right by your employees because it's a really messed up industry where people get taken advantage of."
00:42:13,"And you are not gonna come in and fix all of those problems overnight. It's just not gonna happen. But if you wanna be a good person and pay a reasonable living wage, then you're gonna have to figure it out. You know? And so part of what we've, part of what, why we started franchising was like, I don't know that I have the capacity to open another location myself,"
00:42:37,"but I can teach someone else how to do this and do this successfully profitability wise. I mean, Le Village does, it does great. We're doing great. You know, we are a service that people seek because no one else is really doing it yet. Or I shouldn't say that. I actually should not say that. There have been a lot of people that have tried to do this and they do not succeed at it because it's really hard to succeed at."
00:43:02,"It's, it's really hard. I know, yes. We've kind of figured, figured it out. Yeah. And we are making it work and it does work for us. So I feel like that was a really roundabout way of answering your question. I'm sorry. You're awesome. I wonder, I mean, I'd be curious about your PERS perspective on,"
00:43:19,"'cause I would say like half of the folks who come through my Startup school have an interest in childcare in solving that problem. Yeah. And I'm always like, Kim Lee is one of our coaches and we're always both, okay, we totally get it, but let's talk about this and think about the model and how to make it successful. And they tend to really wanna pursue this ultimate flexibility,"
00:43:41,"which Right. I just, you have a business, like my business background is just too practical. I'm like, I totally get it. And it is very hard. I mean, there are probably ways, somebody sent me a website and they have nanny services. Some people are getting creative about like partnering with babysitters. There are ways, but it's a different,"
00:44:01,"if you want your kid Right. In a curriculum based program, that could be all day and Most parents do. Well I think part of it, it might, and I, I may be getting this wrong, but like parents who have full-time work or part-time, but it's, you know, they have to be working during that time. They really need dedicated predictable care."
00:44:25,"But then also your model needs that too. You can't hire somebody to be in the space and then have two people show up. Right. You have a fixed cost. So you have to make that match. And so the easiest way to do that is people who are willing to commit. So that is hard for mom who has a side hustle or has some sort of business where they aren't quite ready to commit and pay for daycare because it's not inexpensive,"
00:44:51,"you know, to Oh no, it's not inexpensive. Yeah. I would say too, you know, though, I've had those side hustle moms and the problem we did, you know, when we first opened we tried this whole flexible like really mushy thing. Yeah, we did. That was what we opened up with. And I was like, whoa,"
00:45:04,"this is not gonna work. Yeah. Real quick, you, I will say like probably one of my biggest thing is I make mistakes and I fix them quickly. Yeah. Because if you don't, if you let it flounder Yeah. You're just, you're gonna drown. So I was like, oh. But the problem was too, and I actually,"
00:45:21,"I've always been really good about bringing people in when we make these big changes and Abby, who's our owner in the Brookfield area, was one of those moms and she was so, it was like, what I love and I was like, but are you using it? Do the math. Are you really showing up as often as you want to? And then,"
00:45:38,"you know, you sit down and it's, oh, I'm actually only using this whatever and then I'm burning this money the rest of the time. Kids are So she Had a fixed commitment. It wasn't enough for you, but it was more than she. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So it was, you know, it's, and then the kid,"
00:45:53,"you know, I get part of this too is we can't just think about the parents. My biggest priority are the kids. You, I think you asked this in a roundabout way earlier, but if the kids are unhappy and the kids are screaming, because again, for my model, we serve babies and toddlers. Yeah. If baby is screaming their head off and mom,"
00:46:13,"you can't not hear that. Your mom Hears. No, the mom alerts start firing. It does. It goes off. And so it's like it. And part of this age range is separation anxiety, which is a developmentally normal thing that kids are gonna go through. But the only thing that cures that is trust and routine. And if you don't have trust and routine,"
00:46:35,"it's gonna continue to be a problem. And they're gonna cancel. They're gonna cancel anyways. It's Not gonna matter. His big is unhappy. And then yeah. That tr I love that trusting routine. That's just like a core sort of belief about how this Yeah. Gets structured. That makes a lot of sense. Okay, so what happens? So you mentioned the experiment with the pre-K."
00:46:56,"So Yeah, if my kid ages out, I have to leave. Yeah. Well most people, again at that phase, like most people are, they're going to fit my daughter. You know, she's been, she was with me from the beginning. She graduated all the way through this program. She was at learners when we first opened it. And then,"
00:47:14,"you know what, she started pre-K four public school. Like this is what happens. Yeah. Kids get older. Yeah. And so, you know, but guess what? People are always having babies. So, you know. Oh, Good point. So they may stay. Right. Parents who have overlapping kids. I know. I didn't do that."
00:47:31,"I stuck with One and they come back around, maybe come back. I did. We only have one, two. But yeah. So, you know, but, or just new parents that are, you know, moving into the neighborhood. Yeah. That have a baby. You know, honestly it just, It's sort of a positive cycle then,"
00:47:45,"so you can grow. So I as a working parent, have to go find a new Coworking space though You would have to go f Although we do allow alumni to stick around. 'cause again, we know you the whole reason that we require this. Okay. Yeah. Once you're in, you're kind of in, honestly, most people, you know,"
00:48:03,"they'll do and we do will allow drop-ins on let's say public. So Monday public school is closed, VVI is dropping in at learners is, you know, that, that's awesome. That's kind of like how we get around it. Okay. It's very much, I just, we need to know who you are. Yeah. Like, I'm not taking strangers from wherever,"
00:48:21,"but you know, once you, we know who you are, then you're kind of in forever if you wanna use us. Right. But also, no one stays at the same Coworking space for eternity. Otherwise we'd all No, that'd be amazing. It would Go crazy. It would be crazy. Yeah. But there, so there's a natural transition."
00:48:35,"And then, so do you have a waiting list? We do, yeah. We do waiting list in Chicago for sure. I think Brewers Hill is still filling their older classrooms if I am correct. But I'm, I, I dunno, I have to check with her, but probably because I know she was like Up and then word of mouth kicks in."
00:48:54,"I would guess that It does. Yeah. It just kind of goes. Yeah. So this is why, this was the other reason I was like, we gotta get these other locations open now because people are just like kind of clamoring for it. And so you wanna provide that service to people. Was my question gonna be about Oh, how do you,"
00:49:11,"how, how do your customers find you? That's a good question. Jamie, they find us. I think social media was like a big thing for us, for really, especially Instagram was huge for us for a really long time. And we still dump that in. You know, it's always the thing with chicken or the egg kind of situation with marketing."
00:49:32,"I'm sure you feel this as well. It's feed the algorithm. Word of mouth is huge, frankly. Yeah. We get a lot of referrals for parents that like, are at a party and they talk to this mom and she's talking about all the problems that we just talked about. And they're like, oh my God, you should come to Le Village."
00:49:48,"Yeah. So there's some of that. LinkedIn has actually been something I've been towing into recently. You don't run People ads? We don't, no. We did when we, so we're, we did some Google ads actually when we were searching for owners at the table. We did a big campaign at the end of last year searching for franchise owners. But honestly,"
00:50:08,"no, that's a different, a we don't spend that much on marketing. It's usually our marketing is very earned marketing. Yeah. That's, that's okay. But I also love the model because you're getting Coworking member plus childcare at the same time. So Yep. You're whole like, well we don't, you know, don't really separate the model. So you,"
00:50:26,"you don't, don't have, you don't have a separate staff person for the Coworking side? No, we do. Okay. We have one like kind of operator. Yeah. Where she, you know, in Irving Park it's Lily and in Brewers Hill it's Emily. So they like operate the space and then the teachers are in the classrooms. So yeah."
00:50:47,"Basically the whole time Experts. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Okay. Okay. We're so, okay. Given that this, right, this model is so hard, what would you say are some of the biggest challenges of the model and maybe some of the ways that how you've approached it helped to overcome those? I mean, I think we've talked a little bit about them."
00:51:08,"You know, the, I think keeping your kids safe is the most important. Safe and happy and healthy if you come from that space. You know, I, again, I talked to people and operators and they're like, oh, well you come to our space, we'll do the Coworking and you do the childcare. And I'm like, well, that's not,"
00:51:30,"that's not what we do. That's not, we, We are, I totally understand what you're saying too. It's so integrated the way you approach it. It's So, even the design of the pub, even the design of the Coworking space is designed with children in mind. And you know, so the furniture is selected a specific way, the layout,"
00:51:53,"all of that stuff. You have to constantly be thinking about your kids first, and frankly about your parents too, who have kids and who are gonna feel really bad if they, their toddlers supposed to Up Right, Right. On your $6,000 couch. You know, it just, you have to think about these things. So I think that those are the challenges,"
00:52:16,"but also the what is gonna make, you know, what's gonna make a big difference for people. I think, I think that parents are hard. There's the, the word mama bear is a real thing and you have to constantly be coming at it from like a loving, respectful. Hmm. Especially new mom, Right? Yeah. Yes. Yeah."
00:52:45,"Well, and I, you know, and it's so funny to be kind of on the other side of this, right? My daughter is older now. You forget how it feels to be a new mom pretty quickly. It's kind of like how you forget childbirth, right? Yeah. Right. You like, you feel lock it all out. Yeah."
00:53:00,"It's probably the scariest thing in the world. And fear makes people a little on edge. And so if you are always coming at it from a place of like empathy and kindness, you're gonna get a lot farther with working moms. Yeah. So you have to have a special personality to do this model as well. You too. Lots of love. Lots of of love."
00:53:20,"I have, a lot of times I, I sit with a lot of crying moms. Some, you know, that's part of my job is, is psychologists sometime, or, you know, or just armchair or psychologists or whatever the phrase is. And just listening and letting them, just letting them feel their feelings and being present and being there. That's not your vibe."
00:53:37,"I don't know that I'd recommend it either. Totally. Okay. What have I, is there anything I haven't asked about that, that you wanna chat about for anybody who's thinking about this model? I just, I would, again, just don't take, it's not a light thing. It's not a service that you add on. It's not a, it's not something that's,"
00:53:56,"oh, this is gonna be, I love that, the place that comes from. And I wish it was easier, but just really do your homework and do the numbers. Do the numbers which You help with. So in your Yes. For in terms of the how the childcare Coworking memberships. Yes. And how that all integrates are you finding, so you mentioned spaces are,"
00:54:17,"some of them are a little bigger now, 7,000 feet. Is there like an o optimal size that you like right now? I wouldn't go too big. Yeah. Is like kind of what I always tell. 'cause like people are like, well I'm gonna put it this big. You know, you can do those things, but you're gonna be paying for them and you're gonna lose that sense of community because people will silo if you give them the opportunity."
00:54:40,"So I think that like we tell people like not bigger than 10,000 square feet. Like, you're not gonna, like, it's not gonna pop. Yep. People are not the, I think in cowork, traditional Coworking. Right. It's all about the amenities. Just remember your biggest amenity is the childcare. Yeah. That's why people are there. All the other stuff is like whipped topping and cherry."
00:55:04,"Like, you don't need And un monetizable space And un monetizable space. Exactly. So just, and you got pay for that. So run again, I go back, run the numbers, do the math. Make sure you're doing, like, doing all of your homework, because this is where people get themselves into a lot of trouble. And know your safety regulations."
00:55:23,"Know your safety codes, know your stuff because it only takes one parent that goes sideways and is upset about the way something goes and they sue you into next year. And then you're all done End. Yeah. So you, you have a, an attorney on your professional team, I'm sure. Oh yes. Oh yes. You just gotta be careful and protect yourself,"
00:55:44,"protect your staff. Yeah. But if you're going, if you're doing the right stuff, then you won't need any of that because you should always be doing the right thing and know, and you should know it and you can't be like, oh, I didn't know. That's not an excuse. Doesn't, you gotta know your stuff. Doesn't, not,"
00:56:02,"not like your 3-year-old could say, I didn't know mommy. Right. I didn't know. Or my 12-year-old. Okay. We'll put links in the show note website. The best place to learn more about. Yeah. All and more info. Yes. And we would love to hear from anybody. You know, we we're happy to, to be present with people."
00:56:19,"And if you're in the Chicago market, we are really looking for those owner operators that are, you know, curious and ready to go. And then in 20, at the end of 2024, we are opening the Austin marketplace and the Atlanta marketplace. Okay. So we will be starting to take applications at the end of this year for those territories, but those are our next outside territories."
00:56:45,"Hey, I'm glad you mentioned that. Awesome. Yeah. So here we go. Nice. Very exciting. Make those small plans. Okay. Thank you for taking the time to share. I have been looking forward to this conversation for a long time, so thank you for doing this and we'll put all the info. Thank you For inviting me. Yeah."
00:57:05,"And hopefully we can meet in person the next time I come to Chicago. I would love that. Sounds good. Thank you Daniella. Thanks Jamie. Have a great rest of your day. 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."
00:57:29,"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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