Discover the secret insight behind WeWork's business - Product

BottomUp - Skills for Innovators

001 - Case Study - WeWork - Product

Mike: [00:00:08] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast It's a very fresh a very new episode one of the BottomUp podcast I'm your cohost might pass ins and as always, I'm joined by the man in Brooklyn himself Mr. Chad Owen

Chad: [00:00:24] This is a it's feeling a little different here isn't it Mike

Mike: [00:00:28] This is a brand-new podcast Chad and I am so excited about this How are you feeling embarking on this new journey together

Chad: [00:00:37] Great. So, if those of you have been following Mike and I and the Moonshots podcast this is our second venture into podcasting And what we want to do here on the BottomUp podcast is get very practical And transfer some of the skills that Mike and I have been picking up over the years doing design thinking and working with clients and deliver some short less than 10 minute episodes With some bite-sized skills practical tools and tips all so that we can work in this new B world

Mike: [00:01:13] Absolutely And we have collected so many methodologies frameworks and tools what we really hope for everyone that listens to this show is that they can get one practical thing from each short compressed episode That they could literally press pause on the podcast and start doing at their desk so that they can create better products And Chad we've got an absolute cracker today It's based on one of the case studies that you can find on bottomup.io But where shall we begin this adventure Chad

Chad: [00:01:49] So we're in November, 2019 and one of the startups that's been in the news the most recently has been WeWork and We're going to spend the next four episodes going through four different areas of WeWork's business a decoding it to figure out what we can learn about WeWork's product what we can learn about their people their promotion as well as their profit or lack thereof As I'm sure many of you have been reading about lately

Mike: [00:02:24] yes So this this show is not only our first in the BottomUp podcast but it's solely gonna deal with the WeWork product So let's jump straight in I think Chad the thing I want to propose to you that without question we're not going to think about the fact that they had buckets and buckets of money we're just gonna focus on the product itself And the truth really is WeWork is a great product Right

Chad: [00:02:52] Yeah I'm recording right now from a lovely conference room here in the dock 72 WeWork building in the Brooklyn Navy yard and I've been a member for almost four years now And as a consumer I must say I do enjoy working here much more than working up from my cramps tiny Brooklyn apartment

Mike: [00:03:14] Well not only that I think it's a far cry from how we were all working just 10 20 years ago I mean if you think about how almost industrial age factory like workplaces have been really up until the creation of WeWork It was all about being in a cubicle It was all about a lot of gray and I'm hardly the most inspirational place but right now we live in a world that is firmly in the digital age firmly in the knowledge age And if you want the best knowledge the best insights the best ideas from your employees then you've got to create a great work place And what I propose to you Chad is I think the big product insight that we can take away from WeWork is they found a very old dusty industry that was all about the gray cubicle and they went in and totally disrupted it is exactly the same as Uber did to an old dusty industry called the taxi industry WeWork in this case went in and totally re-imagined The workspace and I think at the core of this and this is something I mean you're such a great test case because you've actually been working in these spaces and you're in one of their premier showcase properties Now what I propose to you is that from a product insight They discovered that people have different modes in the journey during the day or the week in the office Sometimes it's about focus sometimes about learning or collaboration or socialization and they designed very intentional spaces to that And this is why it was so radical In contrast a stark contrast to the world of the gray cubicle So tell us Chad you use this product every day Tell us about these modalities Because I think what we know is that it was this that created such an exceptional product

Chad: [00:05:22] Yeah So even some even a creative like myself would be you know stuck at the kitchen counter and essentially have you know only one place from which to work But I would say one of my favorite parts of the WeWork buildings is There's no fewer than a dozen and sometimes even 20 different kinds of workspaces that you can work at So whether that's by the cold brew taps working at kind of a high top bar or it's like a cozy little booth next to the eating area or it can be you know an enclosed conference room And then of course you've got your private office spaces as well But when this building first opened it was fun for me just to go and explore all the different types of workspaces and it can be subtle things is as simple as in a conference room Why not have a standing high top table as opposed to a you know a seated table So even just the standing and working in in discussing versus sitting I think they've done a really good job at diversifying those different workspaces

Mike: [00:06:27] So a massive really a massive change in an industry that had essentially been the same for close to a hundred years But the there was another big part of what was so radical about the WeWork product which is it liberated companies from these massive 10 15 sometimes 25 year Corporate or commercial leases it liberated them from the idea of at a minimum in traditional leasing of commercial property you would have to take an entire floor which means that if you're not at 30 40 or maybe 50 people you were in a no man's land And they came along and offered this idea of fractional ownership meaning share your space With many others so that you could enjoy all the perks of a large company even though you're small Now this next thing about fractional ownership is really big because by doing so not only were you able to get a really nice space with all these modalities that made you more productive but what WeWork could in turn do is offer you effectively a lease That was 66% less than the standard lease which included like the build out in the operating of the space So they literally came along to the world and said you know what You can have an amazing space and you can have it for 66% the less than what you would normally do I mean Chad

Chad: [00:08:05] it's month to month You're not locked in for five 10 or 25 years Just have to give 30 days’ notice

Mike: [00:08:12] Exactly I mean that is like I can't say no proposition so often one of the things I think about is that when your proposition is so good everybody like can't say no but they almost want it to be true Great.

Office A third the price and month to monthly so that if things change you can shrink or expand exactly how you like no waste whatsoever Now we're going to put aside the fact that WeWork as a business It's profits paid a huge price for offering this That's in a that's going to be an episode four so a little teaser but this is an amazing offering

Chad: [00:08:55] It's a no brainer Like you said it's like irrefutable Like again you ...