141. Don Ball on how Liquidspace Pro is creating access to enterprise customers for the independent operator

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141. Don Ball on how Liquidspace Pro is creating access to enterprise customers for the independent operator

00:00:01 Welcome to the everything Coworking podcast, where you learn what you need to know about how the world wants to work. And now your host, co working space owner and trend expert Jamie Russo Way. Welcome to the everything Coworking podcast. This is Jamie Russo. This episode is brought to you by Community Manager University. I launched this program back in December and put a Founding Members group into the program and have been learning and enjoying the group and adding to it slowly. And it is amazing the community that's being built on the information being shared and the learning that is getting done.

00:00:47 So the platform is designed to train and develop community managers from day one to regional manager. It includes many courses that cover the major buckets of the community manager role, including community management operations, marketing, finance and leadership. And the content is laid out and graduated learning path so that community managers can identify what content is relevant to them. Given their experience, they also get access to resources templates. We do an in depth training once a month, and we do a Q and A call once a month and have a slack group,

00:01:22 where there is a lots of information and just in time questions getting answered, which is super useful to everyone in the group. If you're interested in learning more about the program, you can go to www dot everything coworking dot com forward slash community managers Today I get to chat with a longtime friend, Don Ball. He is a co working O G for those that haven't met Don before. So Don was one of the co founders of Cocoa, which became fueled Collective. We did not talk about this in the podcast,

00:01:58 but Fueled Collective actually bought my co working space in Chicago a few years ago. So we have a special relationship. They took over my beloved community and took great care of it. So Don has a really interesting journey through the co working world. He talks about his background, Coco, the evolution into field collective and his transition into working with liquid space on there. Pro platform, which is a way for independent operators to access the demand that we're starting to see come out in full force from enterprise users.

00:02:38 So check a little bit about that platform and how we can participate on today's call, so I hope you enjoy my conversation with done today. I am sitting here through video on Lee, but with one of the yogis of the yogis of Coworking. Don Ball, who's one of the co founders of originally Cocoa Now fueled Collective started in Minneapolis, and we'll let done kind of talk about the evolution of that business. But don, you have been doing this for a long time, and I can't wait to kind of talk about your story and what you're working on today.

00:03:19 Thank you for joining me. Oh, thanks for having me. And I'll be one of the only yogis who nobody recognizes like that. You're quiet. You totally behind the scenes. But you're like, What year did you open Cocoa? Yeah, we opened January 4th, 2010. So it was a year ago this january, maybe 10 years ago. This January. That's wild. Yeah. Yeah. What's even more wild is that you hit a January 4th date because everyone says I'm gonna open in January.

00:03:47 What a perfect time. Everybody's coming out of the holidays and then construction happens and no one hits it. April G et, I think that says a lot about my co founder, Kyle Caleb Ralph. That we set a date did it. That's entirely in his nature to, like, do what he says and say what he'll do. Make it happen. Yeah, I make it happen. Yeah, totally. Okay, So Don Life pre co working. We were just talking about kind of the incarnation of co working and how it used to be just kind of this totally new,

00:04:18 innovative thing where you get out of your house and be with your people. And that was super knew 10 years ago. And now it's not so new. So tell me, what was your life? Pre co working and then segue into your Coworking moment. What made you start? Coco? I don't think there's anything extraordinary about my life. Prior to co working, I was a marketing copywriter for years. Did it mostly freelance with them, worked in an agency for a while. I then ended up after the dot com implosion.

00:04:48 I did. What seems smart at the time was I left the cozy job to start a usability practice with two other guys, and that was a slow motion train wreck. These were the smartest people I've ever known, but we didn't have a sales person or in a kind of an account manager amongst us and those things you need to get clients durn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're really good. What we did each of us. But in between magic we didn't have, and it just did not work well.

00:05:15 So as that was, you know, kind of descending into it was threatening to become like a, you know, a fiery explosion. And then that's when be kicked off, Coco. And that ended up kind of saving my bacon. I had a new thing that actually made some money that we could turn to wait. But how did you come up? I mean, the concept of Coworking was super new and 2010. How did this? Yeah, it was newish. Well, I got involved with,

00:05:41 and I think these things are all related. I was an early social media official, rattle like flicker. I got on really early twitter. I got on, I think, fairly early. Um, it got involved with a group in town. That was all Twitter people. You know, this like, 2007. I think I can make it you have six somewhere around there. And so I was really enamored by that early social media. I mean, Flicker was actually a really dynamic community. I made a bunch of friends internationally on there,

00:06:10 and then I created ah, mean to other people, created like a marketing bar camp. Before I knew what bar camps were. It was like a peer to peer conference, you know, on on conference. And so we put that together, and so I was just really drunk on that Yeah, community. And yep. Yeah, I just was, like, really into not just learning from other people but seeing the experience that how people felt when they could share with their peers, I used to think like everybody leaves,

00:06:36 he's on conferences, feeling like a 1,000,000 bucks. It was very different than a traditional conference where you listen to the accomplished person in your field, talk about all these great clients and the great work you're doing. You need to leave feeling like his love going like I don't have great clients. I don't have great work. Nobody knows who I am. If I want to be depressed, I go to a conference. And how many people I didn't meet. How many sales I didn't make you how much I'm not accomplishing in my career.

00:07:01 That's that would be it. With a nonconference, I'd leave going like I've had 10 new people. I have new friends. It was a night and day difference. So to me, co working when I heard about it seem Blake, it could be that same experience. But every day, which was really that was electrical. There was, I think I saw, like, a wiki in our town that somebody had created and everybody was going like, Yes, someone really ought to create a co working space.

00:07:24 And I was thinking like, Well, that'll just keep on happening. People just say yes, I'm gonna do something about that. So into that one day one day, Yeah, we decided to do that. Someone did a coworking experiment in our town and the rent there was caffeine that they were able to rent out every Monday. And I think a little pop number of final later is called a jelly. Yeah, 2009. In October or November, somebody did this. The reason the only reason that matters is because Kyle and I went to this curious people on that first Monday,

00:07:55 and by the second Monday, we decided we were going to do this. And that's November. And then by january 4th, we were open. So yeah, that's wild, right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it ever happened again. But it happened then. Totally. Okay, so you opened your first base in, like, two months? Yep. And then tell us sort of the evolution of cocoa and into fuel. This is, you know, maybe the short version. Yeah. Coco was pre straightforward.

00:08:21 We spent a year trying to prime the pump and get people to trying to convince them why they should have co working as an actual budget item when they've never done that before. Yeah, never spent money on. So that was hard to get people to go. The breakthrough for us was a year and 1/2 in We got the space in Minneapolis. We started in ST Paul, which is the lesser of the two cities. But then a year and 1/2 later, we got this beautiful space called mini apple screen exchange,

00:08:46 which looks like a train station, 45 foot ceilings and window. You know, like Florida ceiling windows is gorgeous. And once we got gorgeous. But I don't want to see your utility bill. Yeah, okay, that's a thing. Oh, we don't pay it. The granite changes this like they own the building. Still this and I don't think they're good landlords. Okay, great. Yeah, That's if you don't charges for that. So anyway, so it gave us a free run and that,

00:09:12 like, gave us so much press locally and true, so many people that I think he really became viable at that point because this is like a 16,000 foot square space, which is big for something with 40 foot ceilings. Yeah. Anyway, so once we did that and then Eric Schmidt came through and then we got hooked up with Google for then with Google French crooners. And, yeah, I was just kind of a nice ride. Then somewhere I want to say was, like, three years ago and the fall,

00:09:39 all the competitors showed up. I mean, the guy, obviously in the space of 1/4 in the co working in the tourney in our town, grew by 300% 1. Wow. You know, And then, of course, we work brought their funny money, which I have said from Day One and the press is has vindicated me. I was like, There's no way, you know, they have triple our cost basis and they're charging less than us And that really became hard. So you know the lesson we learned there was it.

00:10:06 Coworking went in this in a short space of really, like eight years went from being a movement started to becoming a commodity. I dare say, like it's just too easy for somebody. Get into the business. It's really hard for someone to, you know, if someone sensible, I should come to your place. You know, it's not honest for me to say like, Well, we have such better community than anybody else because that's not true. I like every place, probably has a decent community,

00:10:31 gets three other shows up, you know? And so how do you differentiate yourself? You know, it's a better fit and finish. Well, that's great. Until the next person spends right. That's a race to, uh, threat. Disaster. Yeah, So all those commoditize ing factors come into play. And so one of the things we are fueled collective came up because we were looking for a growth path. And then this crazy guy from Cincinnati approached us, and I understand he had approached a bunch of other operators to,

00:10:56 and they were looking for somebody where they could take Indiana and basically turn it into a franchise. And so we decided the bite and started work with this group out of Cincinnati to see about creating a franchise offering partway through. They come back to a single. Hey, guys, we have a problem. Your profitable. You're not profitable enough. It turns out for a franchise, you need a really big margin because you're gonna snatch yep, to 9% from the franchise E. They still need about 20% a bunch of centralized costs that you're gonna pay for,

00:11:25 and then the machine that runs the whole thing needed for each Franchising is an investor to feel good about it. They still need to be left with, like, a decent margin. So they said, we have to do something that camp up your margins. So what they came up with was almost like the idea of combining co working with, like, SoHo House. And so the idea was to really put hospitality in there to have much bigger piece of the rev you be coming from meetings and events in the bar.

00:11:49 And so that's kind of the central concept with Fuel Collective. And we opened a space and Cincinnati, which is kind of like our model space. It's been killing and ever since they were doing Yeah, model really works. And so Kyle and I sense and we're trying to, you know, we have a lot of legacy spaces which are just co working on Lee. You've been trying to 11 that with more of the hospitality. It's not always easy because this insanity space was designed from the ground up, right,

00:12:14 allow for, like, very intentional current events and meetings. And that doesn't put out the co workers like you could sit there and like that, realize that a group of 50 people just came in and out and had a rock. It's time, but most of our space is not all of them. If you bring in 50 people and then they're kind of having a good time,

00:12:29 Yeah, put out and you are not getting work done. That's yeah. Yeah, and I would guess like the food and beverage piece.

00:12:35 It's just really hard to retrofit. It is, yes, true. The cost is tremendous to do that.

00:12:40 But if you start from the ground up and you design the space accordingly, one of the things that a big investment that was made the field collective originally was to bring in a designer for the space.

00:12:49 And there was one woman in particular and Vicky Charles, who was the head of design for SoHo House.

00:12:53 Then she left to start her own practice and dude like George Clooney's house and things like that. So she's really high end.

00:12:59 I mean, yeah, if you look up online, you're like, Wow, she's really a whole brand under herself But she designed this like that kind of whole space designed a system that is,

00:13:08 was using Cincinnati that we hope to use in some spaces going forward. So that was kind of the whole field.

00:13:14 Collective idea was to kind of not jump tracks entirely, but to bring in adjacent category into the business.

00:13:21 So you know, you could jump all the way to hospitality, but you're competing with the head centers and hotels.

00:13:26 But this is like bringing both together. So I'm dying for one of these in Burlingame. Just so you know,

00:13:31 uh, workspace. But we're in a place you can socialize, and it's inaccessible sort of club space.

00:13:39 You know, a place where you could meet people for drinks, but, you know, go in the back in,

00:13:43 you know, get into your office or to your desk. I think it's such an interesting model for kind of that,

00:13:49 you know? I mean, I'm sure you'll get some in urban cores, but sort of the suburban.

00:13:54 Yeah, places where people need a gathering place and sort of that multipurpose space. Yeah. Exciting. Yeah.

00:14:02 There's one space that we're looking at for a space that would really be a development that would make it It would make if this location comes through.

00:14:10 And as I was telling you before, you know, like deals, you're working on deals all the time and most of don't come through very few do.

00:14:16 So I figured across on this one, but the idea would be it would almost be like a de facto conference center because there's nothing in that area.

00:14:22 Yeah, good conference center. And I think even in the burbs there's enough headquarters out in the burbs and corporate attorneys in that conference centers air still needed,

00:14:31 you know? Yeah, We're not all gonna go downtown to the Hyatts and the Hiltons, So anyway,

00:14:36 so that's feel collected by my fingers crossed that we can move more into that model and quickly enough. Yeah,

00:14:42 I think it's an exciting evolution of the industry, for sure, Kind of the hybrid approach. And And I assume kind of the average footprint is larger than kind of your typical coworking space.

00:14:55 How many square feet is this Cincinnati location? That's about 40. Okay, across two floors. I mean,

00:15:02 that's on the larger end when you're not doing, you know, ah, floor for 100 people. You know,

00:15:08 I think a lot of the larger spaces air kind of doing that really big team sweets and there pulling in enterprise,

00:15:13 you know, users or start ups, or what have you to take a big chunk of space? They're not,

00:15:19 you know, one choosing that space out. The other difference to is the fueled, insistent Addie and I think this is a model going forward is retail space and the landlord fitness space.

00:15:29 Yeah, landlords or not, they don't have a lot of great prospects right now for retail. Gap is not taking 40,000 square feet,

00:15:36 right like they used to, you know. So I think that's another thing. Is that the idea of having this kind of club workspace slash club space,

00:15:44 flash event space that becomes an amenity to the rest of the building, which is office space? But it's a retail level That's an enticing prospect for some landlords.

00:15:52 Yeah, so, yeah, hopefully that work, I suspect you mentioned, you know, the hybrid.

00:15:56 I suspect we're going to see him bunch of hybrid models that people will come up with cool, other things to combine with co working and create,

00:16:03 like these little like lifestyle pockets. Yeah, so that's kind of exciting. We're still, you know,

00:16:07 it's kind of a new creative phase for the industry. I used air quotes that still I can't believe it's a It's an actual industry,

00:16:14 I know, but the funny thing about it is your 10 years in, and there's still a lot happening,

00:16:19 a lot of evolution and things that are still possible. Then I suspect if we have a big you know,

00:16:24 downturn not gone. Formaldehyde, whatever. I don't know what kind of hide this. You know, if there's a downturn,

00:16:32 I think that could actually be a rial. You know, kind of a creative instrument who's gonna force a lot of people to rethink what they do.

00:16:39 And it opens up kind of new opportunities for rethinking what it is that's being offered. Yeah, So,

00:16:44 speaking of kind of what's new and rethinking. So you've transitioned out of a day to day role at fuel.

00:16:50 Then you have some interesting projects that we're gonna talk about today. Do you wanna Can I get off that?

00:16:55 Yeah. Yeah. So you're still in owner? Not just not an employee. I still go to the board meetings and caused trouble there.

00:17:02 You know, I'm more of the person you want that the early stages of, ah, start up.

00:17:06 Because I really enjoy those moments when there's really no right or wrong. There's just, like, survival and getting to some measure of success.

00:17:15 Building creating? Yeah. Created like a sort of excitement. Yep. Creating out of thin air, innovating as you know,

00:17:23 can innovate forever. Racial dragger, boys. Crazy and fell. So I kind of reached my point of like least utility and was also kind of,

00:17:32 you know, not enjoying developing process is ongoing processes and measurements, because that's what a mature business does.

00:17:39 So in November, I kind of like decided to head back in the wilderness and hang my own shingle as a consultant.

00:17:46 And I'm trying to figure out what kind of consulting that is. It could be. In some cases,

00:17:49 I wrote a whole book on retirement for Millennials, for wealth management company. So that's one end of the spectrum.

00:17:56 I helped somebody figure out how to position their business to their new corporate masters, so there was kind of like positioning work and storytelling work.

00:18:04 And then the little behold I ran into you again because I don't for 10 years but ran into the liquid space folks,

00:18:12 and they were looking to develop a new product and needed to think about the storytelling aspect of how to frame it up.

00:18:17 And so I jumped in on that. It's kind of like occupying a lot of my time right now,

00:18:21 developing this new product for liquid space. Yes, so liquids face for folks that don't know. I feel like they're Ah.

00:18:26 I mean, they've been steadily building their business over the last year, I guess roughly 10 years. Although that was also the very beginnings for liquid space.

00:18:36 And Mark has confessed that he would come to the G W a conference and be like the guy in the back that didn't really buy a ticket with his iPad,

00:18:43 like showing his beta to anyone who would listen. And today they have this really robust platform where people confined space,

00:18:52 like, you know, practically by the minute, buddy. The hour and the let's see, our day months.

00:18:59 Yeah. Multi month. Yeah, because I think the original use cases I recall Mark, I think we were in Chicago and he was saying like,

00:19:06 Yeah, so you're walking down the street and you're like, I need a meeting room. And I was like,

00:19:09 Who walks down the street Needs to meet a girl like I usually know, like, well, ahead of time,

00:19:14 if I want to need a meeting room. But anyways, that was maybe a fiscal kind of use case.

00:19:19 Totally right. Oh, the VC called. We must meet right now. Yeah, that was like Palo Alto before that.

00:19:26 So I think that's probably what's his mindset. And then he gets out and find his real world customers.

00:19:31 Yeah, yeah, and over time, that's really changed, because it's not just I need drop in space.

00:19:36 All that's totally part of the deal. But you've gotten the idea of having a marketplace, and I believe the good space is the biggest digital marketplace for,

00:19:43 like, the flex office thing. But the use case has changed, so that now you have, in addition to like,

00:19:49 I need an hourly drop in or I needed the day office. You've got people like basically housing hole,

00:19:54 using the platform to find space for whole team's. Any space for 20 people Kip see, for the next two years like that's a big yeah,

00:20:01 I mean, they're really capitalizing on the whole sort of, you know, fast, flexible fun. As Mark likes to put it.

00:20:07 I think he stole that from Lisa Picard A e Q. But yeah, they're kind of uniquely positioned to kind of fill that spectrum.

00:20:13 So the next step that they're taking that is what I'm helping with his daddy and creating, you know,

00:20:18 offering just for enterprise and the central conceit there is that more large employers are embracing co working, but they don't go about it the same way you know,

00:20:29 small business, might they? They don't go to Yelp and right for the right location in each city,

00:20:37 and they don't Yeah, because they're placing multiple teams. You know, if you imagine someone in corporate real estate over the course of a year,

00:20:44 they may place 20 teams and more than 20 locations. In other words, they're finding places for remote workers and remote teams,

00:20:50 and they really can't afford to do to work with one off right on this. And it's somebody in corporate real estate making this decision right.

00:20:57 It's not so the other suitor that today's liquid space user could be, You know, like you or me or somebody looking for meeting space or a day pass or a place to go,

00:21:06 you know, join a co working space and they can kind of do their full search on liquid space.

00:21:11 And they can, you know, go in and tour, just pop in for a meeting and make that decision.

00:21:15 And it's sort of an end user consumer decision like somebody's using liquid space as they would use, you know,

00:21:21 Google or Yelp or other search engines. But the enterprise user is like somebody in corporate real estate has got to make a decision for a bunch of people that they like you know,

00:21:32 may not even know. But they know some requirements and, you know, I kind of get exposed.

00:21:38 I goto work tech and some of the more enterprise type events. They're so focused on creating a new experience for their remote groups that is on par as much as possible with,

00:21:52 like what they can get at the corporate office, which is not that easy for, you know, for some of them.

00:21:57 Yeah, yeah, but I think that's probably part of what you're trying to solve. Is creating sort of a filter herbal platform where you can go and meet their requirements?

00:22:07 But I'll let you I'm guessing you know what you look like the first problem that you encounter. If you're talking about someone in corporate real estate or someone who's in maybe a workplace strategy,

00:22:18 the corporations don't procure like everybody else like you described, You know, like if I'm a small business owner is for my team of five people,

00:22:24 I'm both the consumer and the user. Yeah. Where is when you get people in corporeal state departments?

00:22:29 You know, they have internal clients that they're trying to source spaces for and they don't want to sign it.

00:22:34 Negotiate a separate agreement for every individual coworking shop being. I don't want to have different payment terms for every single instance that they procuring.

00:22:44 So you can see why a lot of corporations have gone toe like we work in Regis. It absolutely fits the way they buy one agreement,

00:22:51 one monthly, you know, itemized invoice, and I unlock this entire world. The catch is that the vast bulk of coworking inventory is not registered.

00:23:01 We work. Yeah, you know is laudable as it is the network that those two organizations have put together.

00:23:06 You have tons of individuals like Littlefield collectives and smaller that are out there. And so how do you possibly transact with those people?

00:23:15 Because it just doesn't work for a big corporation. To go to them individually is an operator. You know,

00:23:19 some with that experience, I'll tell you that we would have companies like we have three m and Google and we've had target come through and UnitedHealthcare in General Mills.

00:23:28 You know it's unfortunate. Fifteens Fortune five hundred's have come through, but it's almost always by accident. We could never afford to actually chased down those panels.

00:23:36 Dale cycles are long. Yep, and getting on their approved vendor list is sometimes it's a murderous process.

00:23:42 To do that, they guard those fairly carefully and then even, just, you know, their payment terms might not always be.

00:23:50 You know what you want to hear? You know, like, I need the money in, You know,

00:23:54 like 15 days. Sorry, we pay every 45. And what you gonna do, right? Yeah,

00:23:59 Cheat them. So that's the dilemma. They don't want to shop with you and you have a hard time going after them directly.

00:24:04 So this is where, like, the idea that we're pursuing with Liquid Space Pro is making basically approaching the B enterprises with a very enterprise friendly platform that says there is just one master agreement.

00:24:18 You know, usually one vendor basically for their purposes, which is liquid space and then also making it easy for,

00:24:23 you know, for the all the suppliers down to the one off locations to be on the platform D visible to the corporations and to transact the business.

00:24:31 So what that gives a company is like access to space is in all the geography is they need. And what's interesting is,

00:24:37 you know, big employers don't necessarily. While they do needs based Major Metro's, they also have yeah,

00:24:45 bases in secondary and Tertiary Metro's. And even sometimes they might have a remote workers and literally remote places,

00:24:51 you know, rural areas. So the more depth of inventory that there is, the better, actually,

00:24:55 for attracting those large companies, but just has to be made easy. And so that's what we're setting out to do.

00:25:00 We have kind of a private beta that we're gonna be putting together in the next few weeks. So we already approached the number of operators to be part of that.

00:25:08 We're definitely open to hearing from or and on that we're gonna introduce some enterprise partners we already have. So basically,

00:25:15 we could start trying out the whole functionality and see how it works so down. What's different in whatever you can share,

00:25:22 Of course, in terms of the functionality versus kind of the standard liquid space platform that's been available, I mean is part of it.

00:25:29 Like there's now just this tipping point of enterprise demand where it kind of makes sense, too. There is,

00:25:35 but you know, it is. I mean, so basically, if you're an operator and I assume that maybe the bulk of our listeners are people on the supply side of things,

00:25:42 absolutely guess a number of them are listed on liquid space already. Yeah, because it doesn't cost anything to be on there.

00:25:48 Yeah, I think the key thing is this idea of the common license. What we call the dash license.

00:25:53 Yeah. No, it's just one agreement. And basically, as an operator like him, feel collective got on board,

00:25:58 we said, Okay, great. We will agree to abide by the dash license. And so that way that opens up all the large employers who are saying we only want to use the dash license.

00:26:07 It's as to describe the license. It's pretty standard stuff. Most of the operative parts of it are nothing that would be a raised eyebrow,

00:26:15 but it just allows for just clean license. You're of the space. There is Ah, an interesting little piece of it called house rules.

00:26:22 And what that is that's like a little custody, just a little woozy wig. You could say it was a window that lets you add in the particulars about each year.

00:26:29 Location you need, like our space in downtown Minneapolis doesn't love. The landlord doesn't allow dogs. So that's something I've been an actor in the House.

00:26:37 Rules Get Dugs. Rest of space is no problem. We might have some restrictions on what we can do with booze,

00:26:42 because the city is really tight on that. So those kinds of things you basically get to customize your dash license for each of your local instances,

00:26:49 and then you're good to go. So that's kind of the one key thing. The other thing, which is something I actually didn't even know about that I wasn't in the right part of the business to know about this until I started work with liquid space.

00:26:59 And that's the reason sales dashboard for actual, you know, space operators. So what you can see is that somebody is conducting a search in your area for this particular kind of space,

00:27:09 and then you basically can choose to intervene in that process and send them a proposal. They may have been considering you,

00:27:16 but you can jump in. It's almost like using, like, a link. Then they have the mail.

00:27:19 Yeah. If you get sales Navigator, you get a bunch of in male points. So it's the same idea that you can kind of jump in and try to catch their attention.

00:27:25 Say, like, Hey, I have something that would be perfect for what you're looking for. Yeah,

00:27:29 And then you get to see basically what your metrics look like. The number of searches coming to your listings search is being done in general,

00:27:36 how you're actually doing on your conversion rates. So it's a little bit of CR M within the Lupus base platform.

00:27:40 Yeah, that's got more robust recently. And it's I think they've rolled out some updates to that. It's pretty impressive.

00:27:47 Yeah. Yeah, Like I said, it was all new to me as of, like, a month ago.

00:27:51 And so I was like, Well, where has this been all my life tonight? Yep. So,

00:27:56 yeah, so that's the general idea. In the middle of all this, some people may have heard the GSA's Yeah,

00:28:01 which is the federal government's, you know, purchasing arm put out an R P for co working. And so that's something that's been process.

00:28:09 A bunch of people are applying to that Liquid spaces is jumping in as well, because there's room for aggregators to be.

00:28:14 Part of that and insane ideas is give the government access to a much broader and deeper in Vitoria spaces that,

00:28:21 in addition to the biggies. And you would imagine that the biggies, they're going to try to get in on this as well,

00:28:26 and that makes sense that they would have part of the solution. But for the rest of us who operate in smaller markets or smaller chains,

00:28:34 there's a shot for us to get in on this opportunity as well. Yeah, I think that's super exciting.

00:28:40 Mark, who's the CEO of liquid space. I think we may have been referring to him without clarifying because we've known Mark for 10 years.

00:28:48 He had the G s A speaking the G W a conference this year, and I think you know,

00:28:52 some people like That's interesting, you know? All right. But I think you know, he could smell some of those things coming,

00:28:58 and it's pretty exciting that they're kind of more broadly looking at flexible office, and they're sure analogous to that enterprise user and that they want to support small business.

00:29:09 And yet you have to be large enough to give them some, you know, coverage that they're looking for.

00:29:15 So it's hard to get their attention. I think the platform is going to make that really interesting for folks that otherwise,

00:29:22 you know, just couldn't one be wouldn't qualify. It's similar to trying to get corporate business or enterprise business.

00:29:28 You have to be large enough to underrate the legal process is, you know, the just the amount of time it takes to write a proposal that meets the standards because of the art of peace Have so many provisions in them that,

00:29:40 you know, when you look at some of these things, it's everything from executive orders that have been recently or yeah,

00:29:45 naked in the past, certain kinds of there's just all sorts of really big requirements that you have to make sure you know,

00:29:53 I think I mean, Mark mentioned there, I s o certified. Yeah, it is. And no one else's,

00:30:00 you know, I mean, like Mitt, right? Maybe Regis, I don't know, but to your point.

00:30:04 That's one of those things. And I asked him the other day why they did it. Now I can't remember.

00:30:08 I think maybe he just knew like at some point they'd be going after government, you know, business or maybe some of the enterprise.

00:30:14 But like, you know, you and I are not I s o certified. So I think if I were to tally the hours that the whole team has put on But just this GS a opportunity so far,

00:30:26 it's staggering. That's just to make sure that you, you know, your eyes are dotted your teacher across so that you don't you are rejected out of hand,

00:30:33 right by some, you know, the person reviewing the pencil for some little thing that you overlook. That's the horror stories we hear is that people like,

00:30:41 Yeah, we we were rejected for this little technical reasons. You're like, Oh, come on. But that's how it is.

00:30:46 And I suspect I have no way of knowing for sure. But I suspect that this G s a opportunity is just like them putting a toe in the water because it's on Lee for GSA's for the G s.

00:30:57 A. Itself but they leave open the possibility that other agencies could forget. We may see some bigger things come through later.

00:31:05 Well, and so I think the other interesting thing about working with a government that Mara Hauser actually pointed out last week is I think she and Mark were talking about it that even once you get awarded,

00:31:18 you know the opportunity to be ah, supplier. Yeah, you have to go knock on doors. So,

00:31:25 sir, back to your point about like, Well, you and I don't have the resources to do that,

00:31:29 but liquid space does. You know, they'll probably hire someone to go knock on agency doors. And you know what your space needs over the next two years and how can we help you and they'll come back on a platform and look for solutions.

00:31:40 But so it's not like the dashboard that we just talked about, where you're going to see all this flurry of activity.

00:31:45 To some extent, you may. But some of it is like poking around and letting the government no.

00:31:49 Hey, you can take advantage of this and we're here, and it's still a sales process to go.

00:31:55 Only if you win a contract. You win the right to basically solicit, right? Yeah. You have to market to people and demand generation.

00:32:04 So then you have to have the resources in place to do that. Yeah. So for somebody coming from the quick fix start up world,

00:32:10 you know where you're just, like, you know, Let's just get some business in here tomorrow. This is a different process because you're really thinking you're staking five steps ahead to ultimately win business.

00:32:20 A volume, right? Its scale, By the way, does the phrase I s o certification just make you want to crawl under your desk?

00:32:27 Well, yes. To talk about process like you would on your chart, which I s Oh, right.

00:32:33 They have so many different numbers. I know. I didn't know I was even gonna throw out a number like,

00:32:38 Is it 9000? Is it? I don't know. What? It's 270010 20. Trusting 1001. Okay.

00:32:46 Anyways, yeah, that's far in the future. So I'm not even sure what that's about, right?

00:32:50 Totally. You know one thing. I want to go back to the dash license. Do you know,

00:32:54 I think it's sort of interesting about that is and I don't know if you guys had This challenge is I think operators Gil stuck on the dash license because it put one page,

00:33:05 Yeah, so they're comparing it to their, you know, 10 page. I've had this problem myself.

00:33:11 I have this agreement that I've had since day one, and I want it to be shorter. And yet every time I look at all the legal,

00:33:18 you know clauses, I think Well, what if I can't take that out just like Ah, but we did recently.

00:33:27 We use the dash as a base and then we added back in some things that we didn't want to live without.

00:33:33 But I think you know, there's that mental hurdle of saying the dash is enough and it's OK. It's only one page,

00:33:39 because the enterprise clients, that's what they need, right? Super simple, fly through their approval process.

00:33:44 That's what we need. It's standard, and I'm sure you've run into this tube in to get Enterprise.

00:33:49 Anybody who works for a company that wants, like an office there red lining your agreement, their attorneys got it,

00:33:55 and then you gotta make a custom agreement and does your attorney have to look at it. It's like how you're in the version management game,

00:34:02 right? You know, and having to keep track of light. Which version of you know me like that?

00:34:06 Yeah. I kind of see the dash licenses insurance against having to negotiate with a corporation's team. 20 lawyers.

00:34:13 Right, Cause that stuff will kill you totally. You know, just like I don't know what your lawyers charge,

00:34:19 but the ones to be used fuel, my gosh, that. Yeah, I went into the wrong business clearly,

00:34:24 right? Why? People think they want to be attorneys and then looked at the on paper, but yeah,

00:34:31 but then you're redlining leases and a lot of fun. Totally. So, don, I'm curious for people listening.

00:34:38 You're doing a beta platform. So some operators are kind of in that beta group. What will this look like overtime for?

00:34:45 You know, we'll be open to all operators. Will there be some qualifications? Do you have a sense as to what that will look like in terms of how listeners will be ableto one day participate?

00:34:54 Yeah, I mean, the beta simply just where we do our homework and, you know, discover situations that we couldn't have anticipated and for them so that what follows.

00:35:04 I think we're trying to move pretty quickly on this. So what follows? The Beta is public, you know,

00:35:09 public offering. That's a different thing. But we make it available to the broader world, and the whole goal is to get as many people many operators on.

00:35:17 It's possible. That's how it works, because a company shows up and says, Oh my gosh, I confined a little space in Naperville,

00:35:25 Illinois, where their people are. I mean, that's gonna be the beauty like this, trying to make it easier for their people,

00:35:31 too. Now I have to go too far from home and home is right, you know, everywhere.

00:35:35 There's an example in your area where liquid space worked with Genentech. Yeah, right. And yet so their whole thing was like their employees.

00:35:43 While they're paid well, they still suffer from the fact that they can only afford to live an hour and 1/2 2 hours out for Shin,

00:35:51 including writing a bus to work every day. Yeah, and quality of life declines. Right when you're thinking about like I'm missing my kids games,

00:35:58 I almost think so. What they did is they basically worked with liquid space. And you may know some of the space operators were involved too.

00:36:06 They basically created, like a handful of officially sanctioned genetic drop in spaces gave employees permission to just go to those.

00:36:14 So where is your commute was an hour and 1/2. It's now 15 minutes. Yeah, and then they set it up on the platform that basically,

00:36:21 like they could check in. And it was all under, like, a master procurement agreement. So basically Genentech just But you you show up as an employee,

00:36:28 Should you check in? It just goes on the company tab, but it is all pre approved. That's kind of like a vision of where it could go in some cases where,

00:36:35 like a large employer could just say, like, we have 50 spots across the U. S. That you,

00:36:40 as an employee are free to stop it. And I think most of us know that you know what companies pay per square foot per employee for office space is an absurd amount of money.

00:36:51 Oh, especially genetic. Their campuses is nice. It's pretty swank. It's super nice. Yeah, they did some updates.

00:36:57 I met the woman who runs their real estate group. It's pretty forward thinking and James burgers, I think.

00:37:03 Her last name. So she gave me a tour of their immediate set up. Have you talked to them at all?

00:37:09 Or just that? I talked to one of their, you know, corporeal state guys. Yeah. I mean,

00:37:13 they've tested the sort of free address. They have neighborhoods, they're building 35. It's got this beautiful,

00:37:19 like coffee Coworking type, you know, area in it. I mean, it was major culture shock for them at the time,

00:37:25 but you know, all new buildings, and they're really kind of trying to be forward thinking about how they help people work.

00:37:31 But as you and I were talking about before we started recording, you know, they're right in the heart of like we're all the traffic.

00:37:37 It's to your point. It's like totally impossible teen and tech. It's super painful with traffic. So,

00:37:43 yeah, I love that. And for operators, it's great because they're selling, you know, buckets of space,

00:37:48 lots of open space. You know, not that don't think even necessarily taking private space. I think they need access to meeting rooms for privacy.

00:37:55 And what does any team would? Here's the fun part that I overheard was that you would think that a major corporation looking for space is gonna go for stuff that looks super corporate.

00:38:05 But in this case, they deliberately said No, we don't want everything to look like we work Sorry,

00:38:11 but they said We don't want to go look like that. We want some stuff that's homey and casual.

00:38:16 Yeah, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, so you know, the kind of homey spaces I think a lot of us have built are actually in demand.

00:38:22 People appreciate that, and I actually could make it into corporate specs. If you can believe it. A corporate requirements yet,

00:38:28 right? It's that's that is a bit more comfortable and casual and has a good feel to it. These were things that I think a lot of us have built in our spaces and always felt like were were exactly quantifiable.

00:38:40 But we're important. Yeah, so to see that a major corporation has actually said yes, we want some of that is really hopeful.

00:38:47 For those of us who are, you know, just have a handful of spaces or one space but a lot of love into it.

00:38:53 And we're thinking like, well, you know, well, anybody besides, you know, the lonely freelancer appreciate this.

00:38:58 Well, it turns out yes. So I'm encouraged by that because I think what it means is that ah,

00:39:01 lot of us with the ability to get in on this, the enterprise game could open our doors to a lot of people who actually want or offer just the fact they work for a major company and previously were the cubicle farm.

00:39:11 Doesn't mean that they want to kind of let down their hair, you know, it actually kind of be a co worker.

00:39:15 So that's good. Totally. And hang out with people who are doing innovative things and who are running their own businesses,

00:39:22 like super energizing for them. But I think the thing to remember, I think this has evolved, but I feel like in the early days there was this,

00:39:29 like, anti corporate member, like they were somehow not also humans human exactly. You know, interests in a need for community and kids at home.

00:39:40 And it might have liked wronger need actually totally fresh. I think you have to stay open. We had a lesson in our early days of cocoa where we had a guy show up who we remember.

00:39:49 We were all like, I don't think he's gonna fit in these kind of corporate. He's got the tassel loafers and the pleaded first.

00:39:56 No, they told me, judging about appearances, which is wrong, but he turned out to be.

00:40:01 I have to say this guy Dave has turned out to be really like my favorite member of all our members.

00:40:07 And the reason is because he showed up and it changed his world. And he figured out that he could be successful by showing up in a space like this and giving other people.

00:40:16 And as a result, I think he's made Maurin roads, and the other day he visits us, basically between contract gigs at bigger companies.

00:40:24 So when the contract is over, he shows up, it field and hangs out for about three months ago.

00:40:28 He finds his next one. So some guy shows up. After Dave was there, some guy shows up and he had just been fired as the president of a company because he told the owner that he didn't think he should spend all his money on motorcycles.

00:40:40 And the guy said, Well, you could just this'll Guy showed up and he's kind of dejected and thinking like,

00:40:45 What am I gonna do next? You know, I have a weird talent set. He meets Dave and Dave starts showing him around introducing the people,

00:40:53 offers to check his resume, turns around some websites that might be helpful. And then So this guy Gerard says,

00:40:59 Dave, why you doing this for me? Goes, Oh, it's just your turn. You get to,

00:41:02 you know, show up and have your life change. So very woo, I get it. And also not everybody's into this.

00:41:09 This is just about, you know, real estate. But no, I don't think it is. I think this is a great story,

00:41:14 you and yeah, going up and helping each other or being helped. And I think that's a really righteous thing,

00:41:20 and I would like to see it. See, it happened at scale. Yeah, I would like to see cubicle dwellers show up and go like,

00:41:25 Oh, I haven't had this experience before. I think I might like it that, you know, that's kind of like I think that's everybody wins that case,

00:41:30 right? Totally. I love it. Okay, well, keep us posted after the bait is done.

00:41:34 And when it's kind of widely, you know, ready for takeoff. And people see some signs of that that we make enough families that they go,

00:41:41 Oh, open for business, for sure. I'd see if anybody is an operator and they're not on liquid space.

00:41:46 It's free to get on. And certainly if you like to test things, you know, like with your marketing.

00:41:51 But certainly like listen spaces and see what happens used the dashboard to see kind of what activity you get.

00:41:56 We even have recommendations built into the platform that encourage, you know, kind of like update you're listening and keep it fresh and tried different things.

00:42:03 And so you could just go to the website liquor space dot com and click under list space that will lead you to the right next steps.

00:42:09 If you're already in, you might want to get the dash license another look because that's kind of your ticket to this world of pulling in,

00:42:17 you know, participating in this kind of volume business that we see coming, so that would be another piece of advice and that if you're a large employer who happens to be listening to a coworker podcast,

00:42:25 it could happen. I think also could happen. You could learn more about this whole, like the liquid space dot com slash enterprise.

00:42:31 There's some information, and obviously we would be happy to taking inbound e mails from anybody. So perfect.

00:42:36 Thanks for letting me talk the buckles. No, I'm a big liquid space fan. It is. You know,

00:42:41 I understand. It's somewhat market specific. Not every market in the world has people looking for on demand.

00:42:46 But I love your point about testing because I also think markets where? Coworking. It's still early. It's early for everyone,

00:42:52 right? So liquid space will be a part of that growth, for sure. But we have tons of great members from liquid space,

00:43:00 both meeting room and full time members. It's great advantage, Greer. Well, you know, and I would just say this is from my fresh experiences,

00:43:06 an operator in a saturated market. I think our market got overbuilt for what it is. Yeah, a very short period of time.

00:43:14 So marketing is really a hard game, and you have to try different things. So I would never say like,

00:43:19 this is the answer, but you owe to yourself to find out if they can help you. But keep it in the mix.

00:43:25 Yeah, that's right. I imagine you've had episodes about marketing. We do episodes. Yes, generation totally.

00:43:32 Although, yeah, I ever want to do one. We're marketing to your point. I mean, it's,

00:43:35 you know, always the hot topic was always the thing. How do you differentiate how to keep building your membership base?

00:43:41 So exactly anyway, for next time. Thank you. Done for coming on and for sharing. And yet we'll stay tuned.

00:43:48 Thank you so much. It was an honor to be on your podcast. Thanks for joining us on this episode of everything CO working.

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Jamie Russo