3 ms·

Weird story start to finish. End of the day the business itself filled a niche, but the TAM is smaller than a VC funded startup needs.. the pricing needs to be

Weird story start to finish. End of the day the business itself filled a niche, but the TAM is smaller than a VC funded startup needs.. the pricing needs to be higher to survive, and there is no moat. Not a lot of magic to renting out real estate. Really any half competent large landlord should be able to run their own brand of these, or offer it as one of the pricing levels. It's also not even clear you need a global brand of this. There's no name coworking spaces all over Brooklyn now. If I want to use one when I'm elsewhere, then I'll use whatever they have... There's not a big platform effect here.

sharkweek 3y ago
> If I want to use one when I'm elsewhere, then I'll use whatever they have... There's not a big platform effect here. So what you're saying is... we need a massive VC-funded search function tool like Zillow for coworking spaces. Kidding, kidding (I think?).
pocketarc 3y ago
> It's also not even clear you need a global brand of this. For me, the cool thing was knowing that in a multitude of different cities, I could just walk into a WeWork, using the same app, same system I'm already familiar with and trusted at, and just get on with whatever I'm doing. Kind of like being able to trust Uber in a new, unknown place. Or walking into a McDonald's anywhere in the world and knowing exactly what I'm getting. It's a shame it didn't work out.
- jakewins 3y ago
  For ~95% of my work travel, Starbucks solves this already for me though.. I guess if you’re in a line of work where you travel often, stay long, and the destinations are not where your employer has offices, like maybe sales, devrel, that kind of thing? Although friends I have in sales and devrel don’t normally stay more than a week in a city
- steveBK123 3y ago
  Right but then it means WeWork had the wrong structure. Uber is basically a middleman with independent contractors putting up the capital (car) and labor (driving). McD is a franchise with independent business owners putting up the capital (restaurant location) and labor (employees). So maybe WeWork 2.0 as a platform that allows CRE landlords to list spare space in any city globally makes some sense. WeWork puts up little to zero capital and just takes a cut. WeWork 1.0 original sin was they were basically like those Airbnb sublet side hustlers. They signed multi-year leases for millions of square foot of space, and then tried to fill it with people paying for single seat per month at a time. Essentially duration transformation for leases. This works OK enough (well barely) when rates are low and return expectations match, but very bad when rates are high and you can get low risk high returns elsewhere.
  - criddell 3y ago
    McDonald’s typically owns the building. For about half the locations they own the land as well. The franchise owner rents the location from McD.
    - klooney 3y ago
      I mean, Adam Neumann owns a lot of the buildings and land. He was perfectly aware of the smart business model here.
      - FireBeyond 3y ago
        And conveniently, WeWork was "willing" to lend him the money at below market or zero interest to make those purchases!
        Marazan 3y ago
        I will never stop being in awe of this part of the grift.
        FireBeyond 3y ago

sharkweek 3y ago

> If I want to use one when I'm elsewhere, then I'll use whatever they have... There's not a big platform effect here. So what you're saying is... we need a massive VC-funded search function tool like Zillow for coworking spaces. Kidding, kidding (I think?).

pocketarc 3y ago

> It's also not even clear you need a global brand of this. For me, the cool thing was knowing that in a multitude of different cities, I could just walk into a WeWork, using the same app, same system I'm already familiar with and trusted at, and just get on with whatever I'm doing. Kind of like being able to trust Uber in a new, unknown place. Or walking into a McDonald's anywhere in the world and knowing exactly what I'm getting. It's a shame it didn't work out.

jakewins 3y ago
For ~95% of my work travel, Starbucks solves this already for me though.. I guess if you’re in a line of work where you travel often, stay long, and the destinations are not where your employer has offices, like maybe sales, devrel, that kind of thing? Although friends I have in sales and devrel don’t normally stay more than a week in a city
steveBK123 3y ago
Right but then it means WeWork had the wrong structure. Uber is basically a middleman with independent contractors putting up the capital (car) and labor (driving). McD is a franchise with independent business owners putting up the capital (restaurant location) and labor (employees). So maybe WeWork 2.0 as a platform that allows CRE landlords to list spare space in any city globally makes some sense. WeWork puts up little to zero capital and just takes a cut. WeWork 1.0 original sin was they were basically like those Airbnb sublet side hustlers. They signed multi-year leases for millions of square foot of space, and then tried to fill it with people paying for single seat per month at a time. Essentially duration transformation for leases. This works OK enough (well barely) when rates are low and return expectations match, but very bad when rates are high and you can get low risk high returns elsewhere.
- criddell 3y ago
  McDonald’s typically owns the building. For about half the locations they own the land as well. The franchise owner rents the location from McD.
  - klooney 3y ago
    I mean, Adam Neumann owns a lot of the buildings and land. He was perfectly aware of the smart business model here.
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      And conveniently, WeWork was "willing" to lend him the money at below market or zero interest to make those purchases!
      - Marazan 3y ago
        I will never stop being in awe of this part of the grift.
        FireBeyond 3y ago