5 ms·
> The New York-based company that revolutionized the commercial property business Has it?
by gtirloni 7y ago
> The New York-based company that revolutionized the commercial property business
Has it?
- scarmig 7y agoIt's definitely innovated the form of marketing boring old shit into something new and revolutionary.
- dyarosla 7y agoInnovated or more accurately executed well? There’s a subtle distinction here.
- munk-a 7y agoNot only did it revolutionize the commercial property business - it also then proceeded to disrupt that revolution with a counter-revolution. (And no, it absolutely hasn't revolutionized anything, but when you're a tech company everyone feels obligated to give you more credit for some reason)
- adonnjohn 7y agoExcept they're not really a tech company.
- barbecue_sauce 7y agoTech adjacent maybe?
- adonnjohn 7y agoWho isn't nowadays?
- apexalpha 7y agoIn what way?
- barbecue_sauce 7y agoA lot of remote work is tech work, and that is who I would assume is WeWork's primary customer.
- correlator 7y agoAre they a tech company? Not really sure what the distinction is to get that title, but it's not the first thing that comes to mind when I think about wework ... P@ssw0rd
- Alupis 7y ago> Not only did it revolutionize the commercial property business Did it though? WeWork still isn't in any of the cities near me, and there's been plenty of co-working, "rent-a-desk/cube/table/office", shared workspace places around for a long while. WeWork's pricing is ludicrous to boot. The main difference I can see is WeWork has gotten VC money to grow larger than just a single building - which is how most of the other co-working places operate.
- colechristensen 7y agoI don't think they invented any of the things they do, but they made them much more prevalent. Renting commercial space and brining it up to spec to be usable is a lot of work and overhead that a small or startup business very much should probably be allocating elsewhere (building out conference rooms, wiring for power and networking, placing WiFi, entry security, decoration, etc. etc. etc.) It all ends up being extremely time consuming and taking twice as long as best estimates generally disrupting everything, not to mention the years long leases, enormous deposits, contract negotiations and other upfront costs. It is at least somewhat revolutionary to have turn-key office space become prevalent.
- caymanjim 7y ago"Revolutionized" is a frequently-abused superlative, but they have made some significant improvements to the coworking space model. In NYC, they have multiple locations. You can pay for membership and use whichever space is convenient for you. Their facilities are great. They have some nice perks, ranging from minor expected conveniences (WiFi, copy room, kitchen, etc.), to silly hipster nonsense (who the hell actually likes kombucha enough to keep it on tap?), to things they do better than others (mail room, easily-scheduled conference rooms, exceptional and constant cleaning). They also allow businesses to scale up by offering private mini-offices inside the larger coworking space, which is a nice place to call home while you transition from a two-person moonshot to a twelve-person startup. They didn't invent anything new, but they do it really well, conveniently, and with multiple locations so that you can deal with one company in multiple geographic locations. I don't know if that counts as revolutionary, but no one else does it that well.
- gtirloni 7y agoThanks for your insights. Although my question sounds a bit sarcastic, I wasn't really sure what made them different. Looks like they got something there with the flexibility and quality.