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I don't agree with the "rubbish part". WeWork single handedly changed the way we work. It is way easier to build a tech startup with the help of a co-working s

I don't agree with the "rubbish part". WeWork single handedly changed the way we work. It is way easier to build a tech startup with the help of a co-working space company than before. I suspect that WeWork's business model ain't the problem but it's competitors, for example in London, UK. Competition drives prices for new real estate, crashed margins.

driverdan 8y ago
> WeWork single handedly changed the way we work. Why? Coworking is not a new concept. There are plenty of local coworking spaces in every city that has WeWork. How are they better than their local competitors?
- rickyc091 8y ago
  Not the OP, but I can shed some of my thoughts as I've been at WeWork, local co-working spaces, and leased our own office space. Most co-working spaces are cheaper, but they won't offer as many amenities as WeWork. 24-hour building access, conference rooms (for clients and internal meetings), phone booths, free coffee, a kitchen to utilize for lunch, highspeed internet (1,000Mbps if you use the ethernet jack) and roughly around 200Mbps on their free Wifi, free printing up to a certain volume every month. Did I forget the best perk? With your WeWork membership you can actually access any other WeWork location in the world and work out of there. There were a number of times when I was traveling, I would just book a desk at another city or country for a single conference room credit. Just a few positives off the top of my head compared to other coworking spaces. While you can find some with the same benefits, WeWork also wins with their decor and natural lighting in some offices. They also make it easy for startups to expand if they need more desk space. You rent on a monthly basis, whereas most places do yearly contracts. Now let's talk about leasing your own space and all the headache that goes with it. At least in NYC, most places don't have a kitchen. So if you want a place to make coffee and wash your hands that's not the bathroom, you'll need to pay someone to have it installed. You'll also need to set up the internet and electricity. And since you're on a lease, there's a good chance the landlord will raise the prices sky high the moment the contract is up. You'll actually end up paying relatively close to WeWork's price per month with a lot more things to manage on your own. Think of it as self-hosting versus managed hosting. Small scale startups don't want to deal with all the headache so they just opt for WeWork. It's a reputable brand and they know what they are getting at any WeWork. It's similar to walking into a Hilton or Marriot. You know what to expect from it. Hope that helps!
  - raiyu 8y ago
    I don't think the debate is whether WeWork provides a better office space experience than Regus, which it does, having used both. The question is though is it worth 10x more than it's competitor on a per customer basis? Since they are fundamentally selling the same thing, office space, and there are ton of new startups doing the same thing with a similar vibe to WeWork in NYC, their original market, it has shown that the model is easy enough to replicate and most tenants won't benefit from a WeWork satelite network of offices since they remain local, and the customers will primarly choose on price when the same benefits are offered. So a 10x multiple increase over their closest competitor at scale would imply that they have a foreseeable future where they are doing 10x more revenue, which would be approaching $8-10B. Also in a market that is heavily dependent upon the general health of the fiscal market that would imply 100% growth for each of the next 3 years and the global economy not hitting a recession which would certainly impact their revenue. That's before we even get into the fact they are losing over a $1B a year as well. They are well capitalized so that is less of an issue, but people are basically implying that either WeWork owns the entire coworking office space market, or these other initiatives take off. There is a possibility for that to work. After all half of Amazon's current market cap is actually AWS and that is far removed from their original ship books to customers business model when they first launched. So it is possible that WeLive can become a large contributor over time, but I would prefer to see more numbers on that and how that is progressing and if it's really a working model, then the rehash of the coworking office space analysis.
whatok 8y ago
There's no doubt that it's great for you as a consumer of VC-subsidized services but given that their largest investors are basically echoing what the OP wrote, I would have to agree with "rubbish" differentiation.
ghaff 8y ago
For a tiny subset of "we." And, in any case, there are lots of local alternatives.
- Fomite 8y ago
  This. I have never used WeWork.
jon-wood 8y ago
This makes very little sense to me. They haven't "changed the way we work", they've just stuck an attractive brand on shared office space. Every city in the UK has at least one Regus building where you can rent managed office space on short term leases, they just don't also throw in copious amounts of free drink and an atmosphere more like a college party than a workspace.
- dazc 8y ago
  I tried using a Regus space the other week. It didn't seem that much better than any other co-working space in regards to noise and bad manners?
  - zrobotics 8y ago
    Have you been in a WeWork office, though? IME all shared offices are incredibly noisy, I don't understand why anyone would want to rent there.
    - lsc 8y ago
      but that's pretty true of all tech offices I've been to in the last few years. Even FAANG companies where they're paying their engineers a lot. Over time, it seems like I'm getting less and less noise dampening... my last office, they had these little fabric cardboard deals they clipped to the edge of the desk... before that, I worked at smaller places, where there were a few people per office, and before that, I worked at a large place that gave us full cubes. But at this office? nothing. nothing in between me and the person in the desk across from me. I had facilities put in a whiteboard between us, 'cause while I can wear hearing protection for noise; accidental eye contact is just not okay. These aren't junior people, these aren't low-paid people; I don't think it's about saving money; or, cramming us in might be about saving money, but leaving out the partitions isn't. They give us really nice, expensive sit/stand desks that would demolish the cost of partitions. (That said, most of the places I've worked at the very least had fabric coverings on the floor, and often those noise dampening ceiling hanging things... but I personally think that partitions are important, and those have gone the way of the dodo)
s_kilk 8y ago
How? I've worked out of a WeWork and it's just an expensive shared-office space the same as any other.
rsynnott 8y ago
They were founded in 2010. I'm reasonably certain I remember co-working spaces being a thing a good while before then...
jamesash 8y ago
Regus is valued at about 10k per desk. Wework is valued at about 160k / desk (August 2017 numbers, see Aug 25 2017 WSJ). What does Wework do that Regus doesn't, that accounts for 16x the value?
- mrnobody_67 8y ago
  Free beer?
JohnFen 8y ago
> WeWork single handedly changed the way we work It has?? Not so much that I've actually noticed it...

driverdan 8y ago

> WeWork single handedly changed the way we work. Why? Coworking is not a new concept. There are plenty of local coworking spaces in every city that has WeWork. How are they better than their local competitors?

rickyc091 8y ago
Not the OP, but I can shed some of my thoughts as I've been at WeWork, local co-working spaces, and leased our own office space. Most co-working spaces are cheaper, but they won't offer as many amenities as WeWork. 24-hour building access, conference rooms (for clients and internal meetings), phone booths, free coffee, a kitchen to utilize for lunch, highspeed internet (1,000Mbps if you use the ethernet jack) and roughly around 200Mbps on their free Wifi, free printing up to a certain volume every month. Did I forget the best perk? With your WeWork membership you can actually access any other WeWork location in the world and work out of there. There were a number of times when I was traveling, I would just book a desk at another city or country for a single conference room credit. Just a few positives off the top of my head compared to other coworking spaces. While you can find some with the same benefits, WeWork also wins with their decor and natural lighting in some offices. They also make it easy for startups to expand if they need more desk space. You rent on a monthly basis, whereas most places do yearly contracts. Now let's talk about leasing your own space and all the headache that goes with it. At least in NYC, most places don't have a kitchen. So if you want a place to make coffee and wash your hands that's not the bathroom, you'll need to pay someone to have it installed. You'll also need to set up the internet and electricity. And since you're on a lease, there's a good chance the landlord will raise the prices sky high the moment the contract is up. You'll actually end up paying relatively close to WeWork's price per month with a lot more things to manage on your own. Think of it as self-hosting versus managed hosting. Small scale startups don't want to deal with all the headache so they just opt for WeWork. It's a reputable brand and they know what they are getting at any WeWork. It's similar to walking into a Hilton or Marriot. You know what to expect from it. Hope that helps!
- raiyu 8y ago
  I don't think the debate is whether WeWork provides a better office space experience than Regus, which it does, having used both. The question is though is it worth 10x more than it's competitor on a per customer basis? Since they are fundamentally selling the same thing, office space, and there are ton of new startups doing the same thing with a similar vibe to WeWork in NYC, their original market, it has shown that the model is easy enough to replicate and most tenants won't benefit from a WeWork satelite network of offices since they remain local, and the customers will primarly choose on price when the same benefits are offered. So a 10x multiple increase over their closest competitor at scale would imply that they have a foreseeable future where they are doing 10x more revenue, which would be approaching $8-10B. Also in a market that is heavily dependent upon the general health of the fiscal market that would imply 100% growth for each of the next 3 years and the global economy not hitting a recession which would certainly impact their revenue. That's before we even get into the fact they are losing over a $1B a year as well. They are well capitalized so that is less of an issue, but people are basically implying that either WeWork owns the entire coworking office space market, or these other initiatives take off. There is a possibility for that to work. After all half of Amazon's current market cap is actually AWS and that is far removed from their original ship books to customers business model when they first launched. So it is possible that WeLive can become a large contributor over time, but I would prefer to see more numbers on that and how that is progressing and if it's really a working model, then the rehash of the coworking office space analysis.

whatok 8y ago

There's no doubt that it's great for you as a consumer of VC-subsidized services but given that their largest investors are basically echoing what the OP wrote, I would have to agree with "rubbish" differentiation.

ghaff 8y ago

For a tiny subset of "we." And, in any case, there are lots of local alternatives.

Fomite 8y ago
This. I have never used WeWork.

jon-wood 8y ago

This makes very little sense to me. They haven't "changed the way we work", they've just stuck an attractive brand on shared office space. Every city in the UK has at least one Regus building where you can rent managed office space on short term leases, they just don't also throw in copious amounts of free drink and an atmosphere more like a college party than a workspace.

dazc 8y ago
I tried using a Regus space the other week. It didn't seem that much better than any other co-working space in regards to noise and bad manners?
- zrobotics 8y ago
  Have you been in a WeWork office, though? IME all shared offices are incredibly noisy, I don't understand why anyone would want to rent there.
  - lsc 8y ago
    but that's pretty true of all tech offices I've been to in the last few years. Even FAANG companies where they're paying their engineers a lot. Over time, it seems like I'm getting less and less noise dampening... my last office, they had these little fabric cardboard deals they clipped to the edge of the desk... before that, I worked at smaller places, where there were a few people per office, and before that, I worked at a large place that gave us full cubes. But at this office? nothing. nothing in between me and the person in the desk across from me. I had facilities put in a whiteboard between us, 'cause while I can wear hearing protection for noise; accidental eye contact is just not okay. These aren't junior people, these aren't low-paid people; I don't think it's about saving money; or, cramming us in might be about saving money, but leaving out the partitions isn't. They give us really nice, expensive sit/stand desks that would demolish the cost of partitions. (That said, most of the places I've worked at the very least had fabric coverings on the floor, and often those noise dampening ceiling hanging things... but I personally think that partitions are important, and those have gone the way of the dodo)

s_kilk 8y ago

How? I've worked out of a WeWork and it's just an expensive shared-office space the same as any other.

rsynnott 8y ago

They were founded in 2010. I'm reasonably certain I remember co-working spaces being a thing a good while before then...

jamesash 8y ago

Regus is valued at about 10k per desk. Wework is valued at about 160k / desk (August 2017 numbers, see Aug 25 2017 WSJ). What does Wework do that Regus doesn't, that accounts for 16x the value?

mrnobody_67 8y ago
Free beer?

JohnFen 8y ago

> WeWork single handedly changed the way we work It has?? Not so much that I've actually noticed it...