8 ms·

I went to WeWork just because I needed a few month-to-month desks quickly. WeWork has excellent execution but I don't think of them as a lifestyle or luxury br

by nugget 9y ago

I went to WeWork just because I needed a few month-to-month desks quickly. WeWork has excellent execution but I don't think of them as a lifestyle or luxury brand. If someone else can provide me the same ballpark product for 20% less then I would likely switch. There's a lot of room for competitors to move into the market.

madaxe_again 9y ago
It's called working from home, and it's a lot more than 20% less.
- eyko 9y ago
  Not if you regularly have clients come around for meetings or colleagues for a chat. WeWork provides a good enough atmosphere to work and socialise with work related people (it's not just the desk you're paying for).
  - lloyd-christmas 9y ago
    Half my business comes from other companies in the wework network. I also regularly contract out work to people in the network.
    - madaxe_again 9y ago
      So you're saying you've built a business 50% dependent on someone else's business. That's fragile.
      - lloyd-christmas 9y ago
        That's some piss poor logic. Half my current business comes from a network I belong to. That doesn't mean that it's DEPENDENT on that network. If I go to the same restaurant everyday but that restaurant goes out of business, do I starve? I just go to the place next door.
      - linkregister 9y ago
        You think the entire B2B business model is fragile? Only consumer-facing companies are resilient enough for you?
        BillinghamJ 9y ago
        Relying on a single client/company for 50% of your revenue puts you in an extremely fragile position. Very common reason for failure in B2B companies - relying on a single big fish which will make or break the company.
        lloyd-christmas 9y ago
        But that isn't what I said. I said I get 50% of my clients from the network, not that I need the network to get 50% of my clients. They are drastically different things. It's client acquisition cost. Why pay to go apple picking when I have an orchard in my back yard?
  - madaxe_again 9y ago
    No, it's the "I feel special" you're paying for. Meetings, you can go to the client, you can rent a meeting space by the hour. Hell, I've made a multi million pound deal in a train station waiting room. Colleagues, one can communicate without meatspace. Socialising - that's not work. That's for the pub.
    - yequalsx 9y ago
      Perhaps you are assuming your particular experience is normative. I think it is not. To attribute the demand to nothing more than “I feel special” needs more justification than what you've provided.
  - gumby 9y ago
    I have started several companies from my home (for the first two, "home" was an apartment) and had no problem with employees working from the "office" nor with customer meetings (customers included Sun, NASA, Cisco). These have all been in Palo Alto, so perhaps its acceptability is location-specific. Each year I have some MBA students from Switzerland visit and last year it was in my home -- apparently some of them were weirded out by that. (By this year's visit we'd grown and so they came to a boring office).
    - eyko 9y ago
      If you pay someone to keep your home clean and tidy, have ample space, free beer, good coffee, and very comfortable furniture, then by all means. Not everyone has that luxury! WeWork (and similar co-working spaces) is a workspace where all the little details are taken care of for you. The location is also important - I don't live that close to a main train station or hotels so having a relatively centric workspace is handy for visitors. They also create an atmosphere that I wouldn't be able to create at home, with nice break out areas. The only thing I miss is not having a proper kitchen to myself, like I do when I work from home. Oh and yes, I do work from home, sometimes the entire week.
- iamben 9y ago
  Completely disagree. As someone that worked from home for 5 years, moving to shared workspace (coincidentally WeWork) provided the needed separation of church and state. I'm far more productive and I'm more than covered the costs of the space from work I've got as a result of being here.
pcsanwald 9y ago
I had the same experience, although I didn't end up using wework because they gave me a runaround on location (I wanted manhattan space and they were clearly trying to get ppl to lease in dumbo, this was a while ago). I 100% agree that the switching costs are very low in this kind of market. It's good to hear their execution has improved. when I asked them if they had space in a manhattan location, they essentially couldn't (or wouldn't) tell me.
mrisoli 9y ago
You might not think of them as a lifestyle brand but it certainly looks like that is the case they are making. I only knew WeWork by name and didn't know much about it, after this thread, I googled a bit and their Twitter page is full of meme-level motivational images(Always be hustlin' signs, dogs at work), they are definitely trying to appeal to a specific audience here. I share the sentiment of others in this thread, it looks to me like they are leveraging real estate to capture the trendy piece of the market. Their latest offering(as it seems from their Twitter feed) is a wellness/fitness center called "Rise by We", as described on their feed: "a holistic wellness community crafted to enliven your spirit". Judging from that I wouldn't be surprised if their next bet is the next 'W hotels' of conferences/events where they can obtain a share in bigger companies events budget.
- lloyd-christmas 9y ago
  > I wouldn't be surprised if their next bet is the next 'W hotels' They already are doing that targeting the very small business audience: https://www.welive.com/ https://www.welive.com/
  - mrisoli 9y ago
    Okay, so I am now surprised they are already doing that. However, I was thinking more along the lines of conference/events which the hotel business is a complement of, since so many people go to conferences to party at the company's expense, this is just one step further.

by nugget 9y ago

madaxe_again 9y ago

It's called working from home, and it's a lot more than 20% less.

eyko 9y ago
Not if you regularly have clients come around for meetings or colleagues for a chat. WeWork provides a good enough atmosphere to work and socialise with work related people (it's not just the desk you're paying for).
- lloyd-christmas 9y ago
  Half my business comes from other companies in the wework network. I also regularly contract out work to people in the network.
  - madaxe_again 9y ago
    So you're saying you've built a business 50% dependent on someone else's business. That's fragile.
    - lloyd-christmas 9y ago
      That's some piss poor logic. Half my current business comes from a network I belong to. That doesn't mean that it's DEPENDENT on that network. If I go to the same restaurant everyday but that restaurant goes out of business, do I starve? I just go to the place next door.
    - linkregister 9y ago
      You think the entire B2B business model is fragile? Only consumer-facing companies are resilient enough for you?
      - BillinghamJ 9y ago
        Relying on a single client/company for 50% of your revenue puts you in an extremely fragile position. Very common reason for failure in B2B companies - relying on a single big fish which will make or break the company.
        lloyd-christmas 9y ago
        But that isn't what I said. I said I get 50% of my clients from the network, not that I need the network to get 50% of my clients. They are drastically different things. It's client acquisition cost. Why pay to go apple picking when I have an orchard in my back yard?
- madaxe_again 9y ago
  No, it's the "I feel special" you're paying for. Meetings, you can go to the client, you can rent a meeting space by the hour. Hell, I've made a multi million pound deal in a train station waiting room. Colleagues, one can communicate without meatspace. Socialising - that's not work. That's for the pub.
  - yequalsx 9y ago
    Perhaps you are assuming your particular experience is normative. I think it is not. To attribute the demand to nothing more than “I feel special” needs more justification than what you've provided.
- gumby 9y ago
  I have started several companies from my home (for the first two, "home" was an apartment) and had no problem with employees working from the "office" nor with customer meetings (customers included Sun, NASA, Cisco). These have all been in Palo Alto, so perhaps its acceptability is location-specific. Each year I have some MBA students from Switzerland visit and last year it was in my home -- apparently some of them were weirded out by that. (By this year's visit we'd grown and so they came to a boring office).
  - eyko 9y ago
    If you pay someone to keep your home clean and tidy, have ample space, free beer, good coffee, and very comfortable furniture, then by all means. Not everyone has that luxury! WeWork (and similar co-working spaces) is a workspace where all the little details are taken care of for you. The location is also important - I don't live that close to a main train station or hotels so having a relatively centric workspace is handy for visitors. They also create an atmosphere that I wouldn't be able to create at home, with nice break out areas. The only thing I miss is not having a proper kitchen to myself, like I do when I work from home. Oh and yes, I do work from home, sometimes the entire week.
iamben 9y ago
Completely disagree. As someone that worked from home for 5 years, moving to shared workspace (coincidentally WeWork) provided the needed separation of church and state. I'm far more productive and I'm more than covered the costs of the space from work I've got as a result of being here.

pcsanwald 9y ago

I had the same experience, although I didn't end up using wework because they gave me a runaround on location (I wanted manhattan space and they were clearly trying to get ppl to lease in dumbo, this was a while ago). I 100% agree that the switching costs are very low in this kind of market. It's good to hear their execution has improved. when I asked them if they had space in a manhattan location, they essentially couldn't (or wouldn't) tell me.

mrisoli 9y ago

You might not think of them as a lifestyle brand but it certainly looks like that is the case they are making. I only knew WeWork by name and didn't know much about it, after this thread, I googled a bit and their Twitter page is full of meme-level motivational images(Always be hustlin' signs, dogs at work), they are definitely trying to appeal to a specific audience here. I share the sentiment of others in this thread, it looks to me like they are leveraging real estate to capture the trendy piece of the market. Their latest offering(as it seems from their Twitter feed) is a wellness/fitness center called "Rise by We", as described on their feed: "a holistic wellness community crafted to enliven your spirit". Judging from that I wouldn't be surprised if their next bet is the next 'W hotels' of conferences/events where they can obtain a share in bigger companies events budget.

lloyd-christmas 9y ago
> I wouldn't be surprised if their next bet is the next 'W hotels' They already are doing that targeting the very small business audience: https://www.welive.com/ https://www.welive.com/
- mrisoli 9y ago
  Okay, so I am now surprised they are already doing that. However, I was thinking more along the lines of conference/events which the hotel business is a complement of, since so many people go to conferences to party at the company's expense, this is just one step further.