363. Creating a People-First Coworking Experience with Kristin Hardwick, Founder and CEO of CoHo

Welcome to the Everything Co-working Podcast where every week I keep you updated on the latest trends and how to's in co-working. I owned and operated co-working spaces for eight years and then served as the Executive Director of the Global Workspace Association for five years. And today I work with hundreds of operators and community managers every month, allowing me to bring you thought-provoking operator case studies and inspirational interviews. With industry thought leaders to help you confidently stay on top of what's important and what you can apply to your own role in the co-working industry. Welcome to the Everything Co-working Podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo. Thank you for joining me today. We have another great guest in store for you. I know you love to hear stories of other operators. I'm Kristen, my guest today and we're talking about how important it is to connect with other operators because you kind of live in your own head and your own business. And while our business is really about building community, sometimes as operators, you are kind of missing that in your own life. So Kristen was a member for a long time of our, I call it our secret operator, Mastermind. I don't talk about it that often, but so I knew a lot of her story. And as I said in the podcast, I kind of think of her as a marketer, but her background isn't marketing. I think she just kind of picked up that hat when she opened her co-working space. But a lot of you are going to love this story. Kristen is in a smaller market, but pulls members from a lot of surrounding towns. She's like 45 minutes from Boston in New Hampshire and in a town of about 16,000. She opened with 7,500 square feet. Has added, added offices since the pandemic, but now has 12 offices in the typical mix. She has some really beautiful, unique meeting rooms. So we kind of dive into all the things. Her co-working story, her product mix, what she's changed, you know, post pandemic, what's working well. Meeting room revenue, roughly 60% of her members are remote workers. So some spoiler alerts in here, but I know you're going to be interested in her story and some of the nuggets she shares on how she markets and her real focus on people first, you know, not all the operational aspects of co-working, but just really making those connections with her members and helping them to connect with others. So without further ado, here is our interview with Kristen Hardwick. She is the founder and CEO of co-ho, co-working house for long in Milford, New Hampshire. Welcome. I am here with Kristen Hardwick. She is the founder and CEO of co-ho in Milford, New Hampshire. I had to find the, the, the town. Okay, but it's short for co-working house. Is that true? That's correct. Yeah, everybody, everybody casually just calls a cow. Or the, I think, co-ho is the perfect name for a co-working space. Yeah. Okay. So we were just chatting a little behind the scenes. Thanks for joining me. We haven't caught up in a while. And I also just kind of, you know, I don't know if I really know your whole origin story. So I would just love to hear, let's kick off with like, what was your life before co-working, if that's even in your, you know, memory. And what was your co-working story? What, how did it come to be that you had to open a co-working space? I would love to tell you, I just want to take a moment and tell you that I listened to this podcast before we open a co-working space. So for me, this is like the OG co-working podcast that I listened to when I was like, someday, I'm going to do that. So it's so fun to be here and here you are. So I started my first business as a photographer back in 2009. I worked a corporate job, very corporate and finance. And I left that 2016 to be able to run my own photography studio, which focused on brand personal branding had shots that sort of stuff worked by myself in a photography studio. And I was like, I'm doing it. I'm living the dream. Oh my God, I hate working by my dress. I went from sitting on a trading floor with, you know, a hundred people to sitting by myself, you know, in my studio, I didn't have a client in that day. And I was slowly dying a duck. So then I tried, I tried the thing that we also, I went to coffee shops, I tried to work with the library, I had to work with your photographers. So also that's, yeah, I'm like, lugging all my gear and all my stuff. It was just awkward. So I was like, okay, well, I will join a co-working space. But it looks around. We didn't really have one. There was a new one co-working was. How did you know what co-working was in? Well, tell us so did you work in Boston before you became a photographer? So I, the corporate company that I worked for had an office in Boston that I was supposed to be at once a week. I had, I mean, probably twice a month, actually, I went down there. But yes. So I did know what co-working was just from, from, in the, in the big cities. So, and then, I mean, honestly, probably Instagram, probably social media. I'm just like, ow, like that's a thing we, we probably haven't those. So I looked, we had one, a couple of towns over, it was so expensive. And it was very finance tech, rowy. Like I went to one of their open houses and I was like, this is the most intimidating thing I've ever been to. Nobody talked to me. They had great beers on tap, glass, all the everywhere. And it was like, but 700 is just for like a basic co-working membership. It was so unattainable to me as a small business owner. Yeah. I just couldn't, I just couldn't do that. So, we're shocking. And I was like, well, I'll just go mine. I'll spill one. I'll just do that. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, baby. But really, truly, that's how that's how it started. I, I wanted one. I did like one that I've listed. It didn't seem like it was taking off. And I was like, I think I could do that better. And just make it more more friendly, honestly. And so I started on the path of, you know, business plan and, and listening to podcasts and doing research and then, you know, putting together the first iteration of co-working house. We opened in 2009. Oh, sorry. 2019. No, 2019. Okay. I was 19. How? Okay. No. 2019. So you were right before you were also like pre-queer. That's before COVID. Okay. I was thinking you'd been open a little longer. That is so hard because it's so the first 18 months is so hard anyway. And then anybody, I feel like we're in that generation where a lot of people I know are like just right in that range. 1000. So we opened the end of 2019. Like the end of that summer was our grand opening. So we had, you know, six months on the R&B or the pandemic hit. So that was. That was a cool, really challenging time. That's everybody. Yeah. Did you start with the business partner? I started with the business partner. And then about one year after we opened, I bought her out. She is a personal trainer by trade. And so she wanted to focus more on her business and grow that. And I want to focus on co-working. So they got it. How many square feet is your space? 75 hundred. We have three stories. It's an old building. It's so fun. It's an old brick building. It was actually originally built as a bowling alley, which nobody believes me, but town hall has. No, I mean, looking at the photos, I will put a link to your. Yeah. You if really beautiful photos on your site. I love your it's so light and bright and. It's let be you. Yeah. We started out. You know, a hundred years ago as a bowling alley, three stories. And then we, you know, it became a bank, it became an office. It has had many iterations. So we got to get the building completely rebuilt almost all of it inside. And so it's now it's a beautiful co-working space with. We've three meeting room, three conference rooms. We have 12 private offices. We have mother's room. We have, you know, an open co-working and dedicated desk. The normal stuff that you would expect some of the color. Yeah. Okay. But well, we'll get there. I'm really curious about your library. Yeah. Meeting work. Yeah. Obviously, poking around on your website yesterday. So, okay. So I'm just kind of back to the beginning. Did so first, what did your husband say when you came home and you're like, yeah, I'm going to open this co-working space because they need a place to work. My husband is actually a magical column human being who doesn't get stressed ever. And he had that point was like, cool. You already built one business. If you're going to build another one, whatever. He, he, he is big thing. He had already built me up a diagram. He was doing a construction manual labor. And he was like, can we hire a crew for the next one? And I was like, maybe I don't know. Let's even in the modern. We did. But that was his big like, for sure. Go ahead. Do it. But I don't know. I think I can, he had just started like a newer job, but he switched jobs when I wanted to leave corporate America. So he would carry the health insurance for the family. And so he would like ramping up his career and his role was a lot more. Very supportive, but also did not want to be a general contractor. For this faith. Okay. And then did you think very hard about 7,500 square feet? Like, that's bigger. You know, we run this startup school. We get a lot of people who come in who are thinking much smaller because 7,500 square feet looks like a lot of space. When you look at it, right? If you're not, you don't really know the business model yet. So was that just like what was available or yeah, let's go through. So Milford is 16,000 people. Is your how far Boston? We are about 45 minutes from Boston. So we're in Southern India. We're about 45 minutes from the Seacos. We're about, you know, 30 minutes from the mountains and we're about 45 minutes from Boston. So the way that the way it's lovely, I thrilled to be raised my children here. We are kind of situatin' in a nice spot where we are near two main highway. that most people used to commute in this area to Boston. So a huge part of our neighborhood lives here but works in Boston and does that commute. So when we were looking for spaces, we actually didn't look in Milford. We were looking almost exclusively in Nashua, which is two towns over and beautiful, great downtown, but much bigger than us. And I really thought that their mainstream was where I wanted to be. They had coffee shops, they had restaurants, they have retail, it's, they have a whole economic development team. That's already pulling people to that area. So I assumed that that was the logical step. Yeah. We looked at three properties in that town and nothing would work. And to your point about size, we were looking, you know, between 5,000 and 10,000 square feet. Okay. I used the pro forma that you had a mobile backstand and it was like, we can't really make money at a small space where like we knew we had to kind of take the leap and go a little bit bigger than we were comfortable with just so that there was enough revenue potential. So we were looking at spaces in Nashua, that nothing was really panning out. And the words didn't get it. Nobody really wanted to put any buildout money into this project because there wasn't a successful cohort in the space around here. Yeah. We were the first people that were like, no, we can do it. So when this building came up as an option and the landlord who's going to buy it offered to do, you know, most of the structural buildout and then we would just pay for all the fancy add-ons, we kind of, you know, said, okay, let's look at Milford. Looked it, I did so much research. I was so nervous about being in Milford and they're not being enough traffic or enough people here. Yeah, but it took a lot of time. Okay, but I love you were nervous. Everybody should be very nervous and try to be nervous. So nervous. Wrong people. Are you sure? Like Milford, do they have enough people? But Milford is beautifully geographically located in the middle of a bunch of other small towns that have higher, you know, higher demographic. Like how so, Lincoln? How so, the government. Yes, exactly. And a lot more population of people that have high paying jobs in Boston, but that work remotely already. So it ends up being a really great spod geographically. And I'll say that we do have some members from the town of Milford, but 90% of our members come from surrounding towns. Okay, well, yeah, that makes sense. Like kind of the 20 minute. Oh, yeah, okay, amazing. I'm interrupting for a second. Are you working on starting a co-working space? I often emphasize how important the planning stages. You've heard me say most unrecoverable issues happen well before you open your doors and they are related to the size of your space, your real estate deal, and a few other things. If you think you're going to pick your favorite co-working space and reverse engineer, what you think you see happening in there and then pick your own paint colors and your favorite furniture, you are in for a surprise. This business is really about making the right fundamental decisions that align with your individual personal and financial goals. So we want to help you avoid the mistakes that a lot of operators make in planning and launching that can really set you back in terms of time and finances. So we have got your back. We have created a free training to help you really get behind the three key decisions that we think are the most critical for you to get right when you're designing your co-working business, the model, not the colors, the model. And these insights come from years of operating, designing the model for two different locations, and then my work with hundreds of operators as they work on their businesses. So grab your spot in our training class. You can watch it anytime, it's totally on demand, and start your co-working journey with confidence and the right strategies in place. You can grab that training at everythingcoworking.com/masterclass. And then you also new offices. So you convince the landlord like, okay, we need-- - Yeah. - Yes, and I was really the way that we built it. We built it with, I think, seven private offices. And then we had two, on the third floor, we built out two distinct suites. So we each one had like reception area and then private offices. And then after the first year, so you go through year one, most of my downstairs memberships have filled, but my private offices were starting to fail and then COVID hit, and then everybody only wanted a private office. - Yeah. - No, we wanted to work out in the open space. So we had in the open space, wanted private offices. So those two larger suites were kind of unrentable, as they were, people didn't want huge suites. They wanted individual offices. So we broke them up and now those are all filled as individual offices. - Okay, so you, did you build, was that like drywall? And-- - Drywall? - We added doors, yeah. - Yeah, okay, got it, drywall and doors. So you kind of did that after the fact. Okay, I'm curious about your dedicated desks because they're so cute. And they're, I don't know if you had, if was that what they looked like when you first opened doors at like a post pandemic sort of vibe, like they've got the-- - We have a little panel. - Yeah, there's the panel. They're actually sound insulation panels. - Yeah, totally. - Yeah, and so we added those, probably two years ago, we were pretty full, you know, so we have six together. And it's like a little, you know, I don't know what to do. - A pot. - I did not want them to look like cubicles. I did not want to put cubicles up. But six people on Zoom at the same time is a lot of noise when they're looking at each other. Just didn't work. And we're like, okay, I didn't think that went through. So adding those sound panels to the back of everyone's desk really helps so that it's just enough a little buffer but they all still feel like they're sitting together and they're, you know, sitting on the open. But yeah, those are purely just sound. - Yeah, but it gets a little privacy too. - It does. - It's just a sense of like your own individual space. - It does act as a point of view. - Yeah, and let them put their, you know, their own little thing with their pinboards. So they could, you know, tack up their little stuff as if it was a cubicle. It's just more open. - Yeah, so you still sell dedicated desks like that you have a demand for those. - Correct, yep. So I have six right now, two are available as I've said before. So, so not a do you know them? - Yeah, some people sell them, some people don't. So, you know, I'm always curious. And then do you provide the extra monitors or do people bring those? - People bring those. So we, the dedicated desks with the a set to stand desk, the ergonomic chair, and a file cabinet. The way that we have had successful marketing them is when I give tours, I kind of point them out to people that might be introverted. You don't have to come in and figure out where you're gonna sit every day. Like, it's really calm, what's calming and comforting to know that like you have the same desk every guy that works with all the people. - That's actually really a great insight. Just that like sort of, like some people are totally comfortable with that awkwardness of, you know, especially initially. - Yeah, and you're right. Some people like that could be enough of a barrier. Like, I'm not going, 'cause I feel tired. Like, my, my, my, yeah. - It really does matter, yeah. So that's, we, I mean, we have a couple people that have them that are very extraverted. And it just kind of works. And anything is, we at one point had five desks filled and only one desk open. And the five people there were scheming amongst themselves over who would take the sixth one because they wanted to kind of control the energy and that, you know, the violence. - Of their life. - I was like, you guys just let me know, just let me know who I'm. - Yeah. - Let me know. - It's really fun. - It invite only dedicated desk. - We're like, we're gonna have an application process. - Right. - Yeah. - So funny. - Okay, then how do they still, do they make calls from their desk or do you have phone rooms? - So we have two phone moves. When we give tours, I always tell people that the open co-working area on the main floor is like a coffee shop. You're welcome. - We take phone calls and zams. We ask that you wear headphones out of respect from the people on the other side of your screen. - Yeah. - And that if you need more privacy, we have two phone moves that they can bother you. - And the phone moves are standard. They, you know, big guests and the sound insulation and everything that everyone else is phone moves have. - Do you, are they reservable? - They're not. - It'll first come. - Just first come. - Yeah. - Okay, cool. - Yeah. - And we've never really had a problem. - With that, so. - Perfect. - Okay, I'm curious about your meeting rooms because that's another thing you went bigger on the meeting rooms in a smaller town. So, and one of them is a library, which is like a like more of a lounge. - Yeah, okay. - I'll let you kind of cover your inventory, but I'm just really curious. 'Cause meeting room, we were just at the GWA conference last week. And I know this, but it's always fun to see the data. Like on demand, you know, bookings are really what's growing over time. We got balloons on my screen. - I think that's it. - I know. - And it's, you know, as I'm excited about meeting rooms. Meeting rooms, you know, day offices, things like that. So you went, yeah, to talk about your inventory and how your meeting room business is going. - Meeting room is this. So if I could say that there was a thing I was not terribly intentional about, 'cause it didn't know. - And now to be intentional, it would be meeting rooms. We've definitely involved this, probably the most of our business models with big opens. So the library is warm and beautiful. We have leather couches in there. It's got big windows and it's filled with plants. And a bookshelf, which is kind of one of the first things you see when you walk into the building, 'cause it's actually right at the front of the building. And we use that for happy hours. We use that for book club. We use that, you know, this morning we had AI insights and innovation. So that's like-- - Ooh, nice. - A casual, comfortable, sit around and chat. - It's so pretty. I just, I love it. - It's so, it really is like really night. And that room, it's warm, which is because the window's in the, in the plan, so it's just kind of a good vibe. - I mean, it's really, yeah, nicely decorated. I shouldn't use the word pretty because it's really like perfectly sort of gendered. neutral. I mean, it's got the leather, but I just, I don't know, I just love the vibe. Yeah. It's so funny because the rest of the building is all white and wood tones and navy blue carpet, but that rib is painted navy blue. It's dark and it's got dark furniture, but the light in there really does. It's that well. So it's a great room. So we use that one a lot. That's where we hold a lot of our events and that's actually if we have, you know, like we have different people that book that room for monthly marketing chats or, you know, there's a, there's a women's group that will use it. Any sort of now we think people kind of prefer that room versus the two traditional competitors. Yeah. Now, the conference rooms are great because we have one that is smaller. It's each eight. It's got beautiful glass doors, a whole wall of glass in the front of it. Shadowed to my retired contractor because we found an image on Pinterest that was like a steel wall. We want this. He was like, oh, I can't see that but I'll build it for you. What a wood. So he just just ripped out a whole wall for us and built this wall of glass and it's gorgeous. So that's like a really beautiful room. And that gets used probably the most because it's just the right size. Like eight person conference room works well for four people. It works well for eight people. It's just really like the most popular one. And then upstairs we have what we call our boardroom, which is the biggest room we have. And in there instead of a traditional conference room table, we have four big work tables that we can put together to make a competent table. You can make a new, you can do classroom seating, you can pull them apart and see 18 people are there. So both rooms, both conference rooms have the same tactic with that, the big TV to project to. They will have whiteboards, a little bit of sound insulation. It's just really the layout and the size of them that is different. So they both work really well for different needs. Are you seeing more demand for the bigger room recently or yeah, I would say that the first half of the year we, I don't know, I don't know what was wrong with it. It just wasn't really, it just wasn't really being booked too much like a couple times a month and not not anything noticeable. And recently over the summer, it got used a ton. We've had people do full staff leadership trainings up there, a real estate committee, we went ahead last week and this week we've had, I'm sure, homebuilders association using it for their OSHA training. So, you know, 16 builders in there at once. We have the local teachers, you mean, uses different meetings, the local dental office uses it. Like, it's just a bunch of, like, when you need a larger group, if you don't need something fancy, that's yeah, that's the room that everyone chooses. So it's definitely sitting up to, that's great. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's, I mean, what we continue to hear from like the liquid spaces, et cetera, that there's a lot of demand for bigger rooms for people who, right, like, don't want to go to Boston and me, but, you know, maybe there's no other option, you know, in Millford, besides like Delight, Erie or hotels. Yeah. That's what when the builders were in they were talking about how nice it was to not have to go sit in a giant house, like a grand of all room, four, 16 of them totally with no windows. I mean, yeah, because that room doesn't have windows. So also so pretty though, it does not have windows. I was so worried about, you know, when we first built it, but it was outroom once. I feel like we talked about that really when you were something about that room and the windows and but it's so nicely styled and the, I don't know what you call like the style of the like lower paneling, but it just has a lot of detail and the artwork and, yeah. So our building is interesting and that we actually only have windows on the front of the building and the back of the building. So we have a lot of rooms that have no windows. So we had to be very deliberate about where we use glass, you know, what we painted, where we didn't paint and just make that we pulled that light brush away through. Yeah. So there's some tricky rooms like that room, but that room I also want to give tours, I, you know, I advertise that one as a little bit more private. So if you're doing employee reviews, if you're doing interviews, if you're doing brain storming, you know, the downstairs conference room is beautiful and has glass and everybody can kind of see what you're dying. This one's a little private. Totally. Yeah. But how do you market it? That downstairs went, so did you do all the, do you have a designer that helped you or do you do all the designing? It was just myself and my business partner. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I feel like you have such an eye for it. I mean, these rooms are so attractive and also so different from what you find in a hotel. It's like they have the, you know, tech and the white boards that you need, but they also just feel a lot more, I don't, I don't, they just have a lot of character. So we deliberately tried to date to not make this look like every other commercial. Yeah. I hate, I hate to say the Debbie word, but we didn't want it to look like we work. Like we really want to make it look like a local independent space that could fit into any, you know, downtown. Yeah. But still 100% professional. Yeah. Just that more, I don't know. Yeah. Creative, comfortable vibe. But again, like totally professional and has everything that you need, which, which I love. Hey there. I'm jumping in again. This time, I'm speaking to those of you that are either getting ready to hire a community manager or who have a community manager and you would like to support their training and development. We know how challenging it can be for co-working space operators to create their own training and development material to support their community managers. And this is so important in terms of onboarding new community managers and supporting the growth of your existing community managers. And we're getting towards the end of the year. What a great holiday gift, end of year gift to give to your community manager. So the platform is really around a couple of things. One is access to a community of like-minded folks. We have a very active Slack group with really wonderful questions that are posed every single day. And we find that's one of the biggest values we have community managers from all over the world. And this is an excellent group of community managers that have invested time and effort into getting better at that role. And they are the kind of folks that you want your community manager to be by and hanging out with. And they know their stuff. Or sometimes they go and they ask questions and we help them out. So I'm in the group. We have coaches that are in the group to support them. So we love when they ask questions for things they need help with because the other aspect of the program is really around helping them get resources they need to make their jobs easier and to learn things that they can use in their role to be better at their job. So we provide some done for you resources like Google Business Post, detailed event ideas, etc. that they can just kind of grab and go and use. And we also provide monthly resources that add to our training library. So they can do our certification. And then we have a lot of electives that help them kind of get better at all the things that that go with the role. So our community managers wear a lot of hats. So we break our content into industry knowledge for new community managers, community building operations, sales and marketing and leadership. So the leadership bucket is great for our more advanced community managers. We also have virtual office and digital mail training and coffee training for anybody who needs to know how to use commercial coffee brewers. So we have some of the I'm just going to give you kind of a sampling of content that we have. So in our community building modules, we have hosting your first member events, building community with budget friendly events, member events, swipe files, our sales and marketing modules. We have tour training. We have the training on the full co-working sales funnel. So they understand what that looks like. We have social media planning frameworks. We have what else do we have three simple steps to an effective marketing newsletter. These are just some of our samples. Oh, these are some of our best utilized topics, demystifying the process of letting your co-working members use your address for their Google business listing, how to close it to our operations modules, how to set up automations, how to do a new member onboarding audit, simple ways to use AI to boost your productivity. We have over 40 courses in the program. So we cover kind of higher level topics and then we also cover things that are timely like the CMAA updates, Google business updates, etc. So we get together monthly to do official training and we also host a best practice sharing call, which is one of the fan favorites of the group and the Slack group. So if you have any questions at all about the program, don't hesitate to reach out. You can learn more and register at everythingcoworking.com/communitymanager. Now back to our episode. Okay, so tell me about, I get it's funny. I didn't realize you were a photographer because I think of you as a marketer. And I've tried to remember why that was. It's been a while. I know. So it's like a great compliment. Right. The hats that you know, I'm like, you're an interior designer. You know, my gosh. Now, so marketing, marketing is the thing that I could do over and over and over forever. I think that's what I loved about photography when I was actually doing that was we were doing photography for people's marketing. No, it was personal. Yeah, yeah, you weren't like a wedding photographer. or it was like-- - No. - You had more of that maybe business mindset for your client. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Right, and so with marketing this place, everything changes over five years, right? Like what we did five years ago is not what we did now. - But I love that point, 'cause it's so true. And that's like either people get excited about that or it's exhausting. Like, you know what I, you can't just repeat everything. Yeah. - I have a really wonderful business advice with you, this small business development center. So I'll plug that program every state has, but it's usually free advising. I'd had mine since they worked in corporate. She helped me quit that job. But so she, when we were in court, like things that she taught me when you're building a business or when you're running a business, is you have to have your floors and your ceilings, right? So like I could work on marketing four years a week and get them off me else down. So I have to have like a ceiling when I was, I've hit extra hours of marketing. - I cut yourself off. And you can put it away and go do my bookkeeping. - Or you know, the text that I am avoiding. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah. So in terms of marketing here, we've tried to really take a people first approach. I think that, especially during COVID, everybody bought the fancy chairs and the fancy desks and then, you know, all the gadgets to work at home. So the draw to come to a co-working space has to be the people and it has to be the energy here. We really focused our marketing on trying to showcase the people that work here. And the fun things we do here and, you know, to your point, it's beautiful, right? Like people aren't gonna pay money to leave their house to go sit in a dark dingy. - Right, correct. - Or something less nice than their own home, which to your point, - Correct. - The bar went up in 2020 because people were like, "That's what we did." You know, we like changed the guest room into a nice office. So it's, yeah, and it's exactly what people want, but it, but it, right. So, why are they coming? You have to give them reasons. - We have to give them reason. - Yeah. - And so we really tried to focus more on storytelling now and kind of sharing the people that are here and why they're here and, you know, what the added benefit of getting out of your house, getting dressed and maybe your house gets you x, y, z. You know, I know. We really also focused with marketing on the work life balance and having that separation of, you know, when you're here, you can't be doing laundry. You can't be answering my friend door. You know, you're just here to work, you're set down so that you can get your work done and move on with your life. - Yeah. And also just that like mental separation. - Yeah. - Yeah, I find myself, my, we have daughters, similar age, my daughter's a gymnast and she has gymnastics three hours twice a week and I find myself like, I'll drop her off and then I'll come sit in my office again. (laughs) - Catch up on this. - Yes, you know, because well, I have three hours and you know, nothing else to do. So, well, and I, I have a lot of other things that could be doing this. - I have so many other things to do. I, and I, I don't know much, since you know, COVID changed the way that we work or how much this was actually prevalent before COVID. But I think a lot of the people that work remotely for themselves or for a company, there's this expectation of always being available. - Yeah. - And so if you, you're gonna always work. - Yeah. - Like all of us can work all the time. So having that separation of, oh, I'm not at work. Now I'm in my car and I'm holding it. I can suck a field. That gives that nice distinction. - Yeah. So are, are a lot of your members remote workers or are they free-match? - Yeah. - Yeah, talk about your, your mix. - So, so funny. You think it's a me one thing and then, you know, I thought it'd be all business owners. And we're about 64, 60% remote employees. - I'm sure you do. - 40% self-employed. I will say though, we joke that it's contagious. Once you're, once you're a member here. - Oh. - If you don't already have a side hustle, you'll, you'll get one. - Get one. - That's your guide. - You're a guide, what? - Everybody here has a side hustle. Everybody here has a side project. It's just kind of the infectious energy of being around people that want to create and are ambitious. - Totally. I love that. The, okay, so back to your marketing. Is it, do your members come from like referrals, search, social, social media? Is that our biggest focus up to this point this year, we're switching a little bit. And then more of month referrals and local partnerships. We did a lot of first couple of years of making sure we were going to all the chamber events. We were going to the women's network events, partnering with our local coffee shop, partnering, you know, with the SVDC, the SVA, just partnering with like the local community to make sure that everybody knew that we were here and we were a resource for them. I did word of mouth referrals with a couple of realtors and that was really effective. We have several members that joined us just for a week. When they moved to get their, their con cast, their wife, I set up and then they never lacked. So that was a really, really, really, really, really, really, really, so yeah, that's so interesting. So and I did notice when I was looking at your market, like the population is growing, I'm sure you had that post pandemic. Of course, yes. Right. Why live in Boston when we could live? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Interest, you realtors that are members or those just partnerships you went out and initiated? Partnerships that went out and initiated, I think one of them, one of some virtual number right now, not like a different person. Yeah. But it's just good to, you know, be a resource for them and they can say that we calmed, you know, day passes for these people. Like, oh, you know, it's part of your welcome package. Please let them know they can come work share while they're internet's getting installed. Right. Which makes them look great and give great experience to their clients. And it's good for you because you get the trial. We try to really make sure that like, everything that we're doing with the community is really relationships, based relationships over transactions. Yeah. I swear to God, I say that six times a day. Okay, it's gotta be with the people. Take care of the people and it will work out for you. So we just kind of keep circling back to that. So when we do marketing, we try to make sure that all these partnerships I'm supporting the other business and making sure that they're going to come to the out of it because if we're going to be the hub for small business in this community, we're going to be that, you know, that foundational partner. We want to make sure that we're taking care of everybody else. What do you spend money on? Do you run, do you have to run ads or not in your market? Not really. I was just talking to some of you about this. We have run ads and I mean, they're effective in terms of clicks and impressions and stuff, but I just haven't seen them really translate well. Move the needle. Yeah. Like when I look at our clients, you know, our best members are our longest term members. Those are not for the people that come from from that. There are always people that come from word of mouth or raffles. I don't know if anybody else is doing this in their market. But if you have a pure local charity and you need a rap item, I'm the first person raised my hand and say, for sure, because people either don't turn them in, which is fine or they do turn them in. They every single one of them that has come in with a free, you know, I got a free month of co-working has converted to a long term member. So I know every time like the auction comes up for my daughter's, whatever I'm like, I know such a good way to give it. Yeah. And it also costs like, I really think that the other people that are bidding on that are people that are remotely interested. Right. Like they wouldn't be honored. They weren't even curious. So that's like an easy no brainer for me. Yeah. We don't spend a lot of money on marketing yet. I mean, at this point, our offices are filled and we'd love to do, you know, sells more conference or hours. But yeah, Facebook ads in the past have not been widely successful. No. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, which is like, good news, bad news. It's like, good news. You don't, you know, can't spend bad news. Like, there's no easy button to be like, there's stands and we'll get right. More meeting room hours booked. No, no, no easy button over here. It's still a lot of going out to the community, making sure that people know we exist. And this is how we can help. And, you know, every time we, every time we have opened our doors to invite a group to have a meeting here at, you know, a discovery or a free rate, we've gotten a book and something there. So I wouldn't say, you know, just give away all your hours, the people. But be careful. You're helping people. Yeah. Yeah. And getting the right people in the door like, you know, we have, we'll use the teachers union as an example, we let them use it at a very discount rate because my mother loves a teacher. That's like a connection I can make. Those, those people don't have side visits like those people are and can be paid for conference or outside of that meeting, right? So that's not something I would recommend other people do. But the builders association who did pay wonderful thing here, all those people that came into my room, all have their own businesses and all have their own staff and all the, you know, all work on it. They all work out of their truck. They all need conference rooms. Yeah. And that's, you know, it's an area that I would make exceptions and just kind of be thoughtful and try to be inviting people into your space that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And let them try and understand. Also, like, even with the teachers, you never know who they know, right? Who has the spouse or something like side hustle. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Do your remote workers pay for their own memberships? Do you or do you find that they have stipends? Yeah. Yeah. So we, it's so funny. We, I think about 50% of them, their companies paid for them in full now. Even some of them, even some of my private offices are fully paid for by their companies. Most people get some sort of stipend for working from home to cover their internet. But a lot of people are just paying for it out of their pocket too. Yeah. And it's worth it. Yeah. It's worth it. Yeah. Interesting. I think, yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say, I think when I think about the people that are paying for it out of their own pocket, and they work for a company, I think you, you know, you know, you know, those are the people who are sharing a home office with a spouse. Right. Right. Where two families are, you know, are both trying to, two parents and one family are trying to work from home. And it's just not great. So it's easy for them to just buy that one of the get's days here. Totally. Yeah, I love that. It's also just not great to spend them a time with your spouse. I'm always like, it was so much like experience. - Fuller's shirt, one shirt. (laughing) Back to work like balance, I think we need that, right? We need a little bit of separation. - Exactly. Okay, so you could spend most of your time on marketing, but tell me, like, what does your role look like? What is, you know, what does your day look like in your role in the business? - I mean, CEO, I mean, well, then everything from operations and marketing to community building. So I try to structure my day. I'm big on batching my work so that, you know, my brain can focus. Mondays are usually, you know, marketing. I try to get all of my marketing through the two weeks of the time done all up with anybody, regeneration, any outreach that I need to do. I generally try to do on Monday when I'm fresh, and I'm not interrupted by a million things. I will say each morning kind of looks the same, come in, make sure, reset the space, make sure everything's clean. Like, I'm still doing community manager. - Yeah, basic in-house operations, right? Like, I'm still making the coffee. I'm still recycling the toilet paper, making sure that the conference turns are set to the day. So that unglamerous stuff is still there, which is totally fine, 'cause it's not a big lift, I don't mind. And then, you know, Tuesday through Thursday is a lot of, you know, making sure leads get followed up on, making sure that new members have, you know, multiple connections. This is a big thing. I'm focusing on this year. It's working really well, is making sure that every time a new member joins, that I'm not their only connection, making sure that they have sticky connections with at least two other people, and trying to be really thoughtful about that. So that if I'm not here, if I'm taking time off, but, you know, whatever if they need something, they feel like they can ask somebody else for community, they can build those relationships because then they're more likely to contribute to the community and be part of us, and, you know, just stay around longer. So, community building is a lot of it. And then Wednesday and Thursday, so usually the day that we host a mess, and Fridays, all the more longer, I take Fridays off, which is wonderful. - The whole day. - You just don't stop Friday. - I just don't stop Friday. I'll usually hop in in the morning just to make sure that, you know, the mail sorted and just the emergencies. But yeah, we've kind of structured the buildings so that a lot, like a lot of it runs by itself. My members are pretty independent. We kind of train them that this is where things are, and this is how you take care of things, and this is how you use things. But we have a really good group that feels ownership over the building, over the space. And so I don't have to deal a lot of that micromanaging, which is great. - Totally, yes. - Yeah. - Okay, and that's very inspirational, the summer Fridays. - Summer Fridays, me. We have no eating Mondays, and we have very light Fridays. - Yeah. Okay, what does your tech stack look like? What do you have a, what kind of study do you're building and what's your platform? - Embarrassingly simple. - There are very tech savvy, complicated ways to go about this. We just switched to optics in August, which we have been delighted with. I think it's very smooth, it's great user interface. Our members are very happy. We use that, we use QuickBooks, which I think we're also using our door system does not integrate with optics. So that's a third system all by itself. The fifth thing our Wi-Fi network is a fourth system. So it's pretty simple. - That's pretty simple. - That's really okay. So it's kind of crazy how many apps it can take. (laughs) I mean, we need to talk about marketing. - Yeah. - You know, you can use their friends. - You have different letters, you've got all the, - Yes, right, right. I can talk about all the things we use for marketing, but for operations and, and member management. It's really basic those four. - Do you use digital door access? Or is it a, do you remember? - It's a RFID card. - Okay. - Which is actually not my choice. I think I would love to do digital, but when we were first building out five years ago, my landlord chose that and got me installed. So I, you know, at this point. - Totally. I know, is it, it's crazy how much everything changes. It's like now, even, you know, people are like, oh yeah, my building uses open path or it's just like, that's how it works. - All the options. - And it's probably the exact same cost at this point of five years ago. It was so cost-per-hypid to do that. That we just went to old school, you know, just RFID cards and then all my private offices have actual physical keys. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So we just manage that. And even that, I think is about to change because the like the key see, like that being able to put that on all the doors is becoming more affordable, which right when, yeah, never used to be the case. - No. Yeah. - Okay, since you're a marketer, what do you use for your newsletter platform? - So I actually love FlowDesk. - Oh. - Yeah. - Yeah, carry FlowDesk. - So that's how it's like, it's so beautiful looking and so simple. - It's simple, it's easy. They, if you wanna do funnels and, you know, different flow of sequences, it's so easy to do that. I've used constant contact. I've used MailTramp and all those have more capability, but if you're, you know, a small organization with a consumer-based under 20,000, like all that just seemed way overkill. - Yeah, I can do anything any way for FlowDesk. - Yeah. - You don't, you don't need that. But we actually, we, one of our members works for HubSpot and she's always like, I can show you how to do this. And like, I'm not bad at it. I just, the stuff, I appreciate it. Like HubSpot is kind of like a BMW. Like, there's so many features. Most people don't use them. And so they're, you know, yeah, somebody said the other day, HubSpot goes from like, free to $800 a month, like, very quickly. So. - And it's beautiful and wonderful in a great platform, but it's just a little bit more than I need at this point. - Yeah, totally. Okay, you did mention being very mindful about following up the leads. Do you use a CRM or? - I don't search you. - So Optics is pretty great. If people add to the Optics, you know, just to like, as a lead, we get notifications and it makes it real. You see for me to follow up with them. It's just kind of a habit that I built since before we had Optics, we are on a different platform that didn't, didn't know to put on me about leads. So I just got in habit of every morning checking. So it's just part of my everyday workflow now. Always be looking for those. Yep. And so when people join in the platform without reaching out to us, there's like an automated email that goes out to my mentor tour, but I still might be overkill, but I still personally reach out as the owner of the company. So are you join with love to answer questions? You know, I'll give you a personal tour and that's worked really well. - No, I think people probably, on I think some people are more comfortable with the operation side, even community managers like, yeah, either or and so they don't, they aren't as on top of the lead management, which you can feel manual and like, but that's what, you know, that's important. - But that's important. - Yeah. - We have, when we first opened, before we opened, we were doing construction. We gave what we call the heart-hat tours. And so I would literally bring people in, let them wear hats and walk them around and kind of like sell them on the beach. This is what we're gonna put over here. It'll be beautiful. And I try to still have that like enthusiasm and energy when I'm reaching out to these people. Like, oh, come in. It's amazing. You're gonna love it. Like, what do you do? We have something here to connect. I really try to make sure that before they're, they're even thinking about whether or not they're gonna sign up. They're excited about being in the space. And excited about coming to check it out. It feels welcoming. 'Cause every time I go to a different city, every time I travel, I try to visit two to three co-working spaces. And I am shocked at how co-working spaces in cities, specifically, but they all feel kind of like, yeah, we'll fake your money. And there's no follow-up. There's no question about you. There's no. - There's no. - Come join us. Even if it's just a day, like we, you wanna take a house. Come on, come here. - Yeah. - We try to really, really push that relationship, human being aspect. And that works all the way to the leads. - And keeping the energy fresh. Like, you know, like, you're like, yeah, I've been doing this for about five, six years now. - Yeah. - Right, five years. You know, and you could get a little complacent about that energy, but to everyone else, it's totally brand new. And so, yeah, I love that. Yeah. - What do you, all right? Let's see, last question's here. - No, since you've been open for five years, what advice would you give to somebody who's just starting? - That's a great question. - At the RuneScope sounding like a broken record. Like, care about the people, care about the people. We've, you know, the more you can care about the actual people in building and look at them as humans and ask about their families and what they wanna do outside of work. And knowing that helps you connect them to each other. And once they, you know, are in that spider web, it's much more, it's much easier to attract more of the right people when you're on the right people in building. - Yeah. - So focusing on getting the right people in building, more than you're focusing on your tech stack or your newsletter or anything like that. - You know what, no, it is, but I feel like it's a simple thing. And yet, right, we can easily get sort of distracted by everything else and not pay attention to like, first things first. It's about the human. - First things first. - And I love a good smart whiteboard. Like, I love the tech, we have an algorithm. Like, I love all that stuff I can get down on that all day long too, but at the end of the day, you have to make the people that are working here and you have to make them feel care about. - Yeah, I love that. - You know, thanks for sharing your story and all your kind of behind the scenes and insights. Five years is a big deal. Do you feel like five years has gone slow or fast? Oh my gosh, so like when I, yeah. And the like, when I can't even wrap my head around the fact that we just hit five years. - Right. That's what I tell everybody who's thinking about like, who's really intimidated by signing up for like, a seven year or a 10 year lease and like year of shame. It'll be like gone in a second and you'll be like, "No, no, not done yet." (laughs) - Five years. Yeah, 10 years, 'cause I'm gonna be like, "Hey, don't raise my rate. I want my rate from 10 years." - Yeah. - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - One other thing I would say, one other piece of advice I would say is to jump in and align yourself with other co-working space owners. I think that it's such an independent industry that it's so helpful to join groups and be with other people that understand the struggles and the challenges because I don't know that I would have gotten here for five years if I didn't have other people to talk me through all the things that you have to talk with. - Respective and right, what's working, not feeling alone, all the things that every different-- - All the things that you need. - Yeah, we all build these businesses for community, right? And then we still need community of our own. - Exactly, yeah. - Yeah, it's great. - Well, it was good to hear all the story. Thanks for doing it, I appreciate it. - Well, thanks for having me. - Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you like what you heard, tell a friend, hit that subscribe button and leave us a rating and review. If you'd like to learn more about our education and coaching programs, head over to everythingcoworking.com. We'll see you next week.