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My WeWork has three kinds of clients. The first kind sit in the dedicated desk area, work 10-12 hours/day and rarely leave the space for community events. They'

My WeWork has three kinds of clients. The first kind sit in the dedicated desk area, work 10-12 hours/day and rarely leave the space for community events. They're either serious consultants/freelancers or just starting their own startups. The second kind sit in the shared desk area and basically dick around all day. They attend all the community events and use WeWork as mostly a networking/dating hub. Who they network with, I have no clue. The third kind are companies with satellite offices in WeWork. GoDaddy works out of my space and has taken over an entire floor. Curiously, these are now the largest client type by far. Three floors in my space were earlier dedicated to independent workers and small startups. But now, WeWork opened three more floors of space, and of the six floors, four are occupied entirely by large companies.

conanbatt 7y ago
> But now, WeWork opened three more floors of space, and of the six floors, four are occupied entirely by large companies. This was interesting to me. I've seen wework turn corporate often. Startups are great candidates: they want to offer good offices and not worry about big moves, contract negotiations, get good branding, etc. But that is a small market..
- scarface74 7y ago
  Yahoo also thought it was doing well when most of its profit was coming from unprofitable startups funded by VCs. Guess what happened when VCs stopped investing in startups in 2000?
  - erik_seaberg 7y ago
    I will never forget hearing a software consulting shop had been around for 20 years until they picked too many customers who went under simultaneously.
sharadov 7y ago
It's interesting that godaddy would opt for a wework rather than leasing office space and setting it up. Probably less cost and hassle?
- joecot 7y ago
  Given the office makeup others have described (small startups and freelancers), and the networking events, it might give them an opportunity to convince their neighbors to host with them. Probably not entirely worth it, but if you need office space anyway, that is a slight marketing advantage. And given that GoDaddy hosting is really just reselling AWS servers, they need all the help they can get.
- vadym909 7y ago
  its probably in a city where they dont have a presence and dont want to bother with setting on up.
- hrktb 7y ago
  There’s a bunch of internatonal companies using wework apparently. My guess would be the same as yours: nice location in the cities, modern looking offices, the brand value, and not having to find a good office manager. I worked in a recently furnished office two years ago, there was a sizeable effort to make it an attractive work place but it still slightly paled compared to wework in terms of pure office space.
- burger_moon 7y ago
  Amazon also uses WeWork in a few locations, including Seattle. I would imagine since they're renting out multiple floors, they're getting a better than market price.
- kemitche 7y ago
  My naive view is that it's similar to the reason some companies use AWS rather than running their own data center. That is, it's worth it to pay the premium to not have to manage their own space, and have the flexibility to scale up/down their usage a bit more quickly than locking into multi-year leases.
delfinom 7y ago
At the same time, just because large companies are renting space doesn't mean they are still profitable. In fact one can argue that WeWork may be underpriced enough that it attracts said companies to exploit it.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
  Reminds me of when Michael Scott tried to start his own paper company and was selling paper so low it was bankrupting his company. He didn’t understand it until an accountant consultant type pointed it out.
  - puranjay 7y ago
    But hey, he got a $60k exit and landed back in an "executive" role at the company. Now that I think about it, that episode was prophetic of the startup scene
    - JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
      Hahaha I didn't even think about that.

conanbatt 7y ago

> But now, WeWork opened three more floors of space, and of the six floors, four are occupied entirely by large companies. This was interesting to me. I've seen wework turn corporate often. Startups are great candidates: they want to offer good offices and not worry about big moves, contract negotiations, get good branding, etc. But that is a small market..

scarface74 7y ago
Yahoo also thought it was doing well when most of its profit was coming from unprofitable startups funded by VCs. Guess what happened when VCs stopped investing in startups in 2000?
- erik_seaberg 7y ago
  I will never forget hearing a software consulting shop had been around for 20 years until they picked too many customers who went under simultaneously.

sharadov 7y ago

It's interesting that godaddy would opt for a wework rather than leasing office space and setting it up. Probably less cost and hassle?

joecot 7y ago
Given the office makeup others have described (small startups and freelancers), and the networking events, it might give them an opportunity to convince their neighbors to host with them. Probably not entirely worth it, but if you need office space anyway, that is a slight marketing advantage. And given that GoDaddy hosting is really just reselling AWS servers, they need all the help they can get.
vadym909 7y ago
its probably in a city where they dont have a presence and dont want to bother with setting on up.
hrktb 7y ago
There’s a bunch of internatonal companies using wework apparently. My guess would be the same as yours: nice location in the cities, modern looking offices, the brand value, and not having to find a good office manager. I worked in a recently furnished office two years ago, there was a sizeable effort to make it an attractive work place but it still slightly paled compared to wework in terms of pure office space.
burger_moon 7y ago
Amazon also uses WeWork in a few locations, including Seattle. I would imagine since they're renting out multiple floors, they're getting a better than market price.
kemitche 7y ago
My naive view is that it's similar to the reason some companies use AWS rather than running their own data center. That is, it's worth it to pay the premium to not have to manage their own space, and have the flexibility to scale up/down their usage a bit more quickly than locking into multi-year leases.

delfinom 7y ago

At the same time, just because large companies are renting space doesn't mean they are still profitable. In fact one can argue that WeWork may be underpriced enough that it attracts said companies to exploit it.

JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
Reminds me of when Michael Scott tried to start his own paper company and was selling paper so low it was bankrupting his company. He didn’t understand it until an accountant consultant type pointed it out.
- puranjay 7y ago
  But hey, he got a $60k exit and landed back in an "executive" role at the company. Now that I think about it, that episode was prophetic of the startup scene
  - JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
    Hahaha I didn't even think about that.