About This Episode
In this episode, host Frank Cottle sits down with Jessica Knapp, VP of Growth at WorkSpace Geek and one of the flexible workspace industry’s most data-informed voices. Knapp brings a rare dual perspective — she has worked on both the operator and software sides of coworking, including as employee number one at OfficeRnD and across multiple CEO roles in SaaS, with experience spanning New Zealand to the United States. She spoke at GCUC 2025 on AI and coworking.
The conversation ranges across why institutional customers are moving into flex, the “amenities gone wild” trap, the lost service era of the industry, the untapped network effect of coworking, secondary-market growth, what AI frees operators to do, and her Monday-morning advice for every operator: look at your data, and amplify what’s working.
Key Takeaways
- Large corporates are increasingly buying coworking memberships and implementing flex space for their teams — Knapp calls the industry’s maturity “no longer just that fun neighborhood place,” now offering high-low optionality from local spaces to global networks.
- Frank Cottle notes Alliance Virtual Offices services 315,000+ accounts, with roughly 75% institutional-grade customers — his evidence that the institutional trend is industry-defining. (Company figure; attribute to Frank.)
- Knapp’s warning to operators: “amenities gone wild.” The best spaces listen for repeated community requests before adding amenities — hospitality married to business savvy, not amenity sprawl.
- The industry’s missed opportunity, per Knapp: the network effect. A single industry conference room of 300–400 owners and operators represents an estimated 500,000–800,000 workers of shared buying power that nobody organizes.
- The giants (IWG, WeWork, Industrious) hold only ~15–20% of a hugely fragmented industry — the average operator runs 2.6 centers (Frank’s figures) — and the biggest growth is in secondary markets and hyperlocal spaces.
- On AI: automation of billing, tours, and follow-up frees humans for hospitality and community — while a rising “analog rebound” (exploding events, experiential demand) means community builders will be the hires that matter.
Why This Is Important to the Future of Work
Agility is usually discussed as a lease term. This conversation reframes it as the whole operating model: five generations in the workforce with different needs, corporates decentralizing into flex, secondary markets booming because nobody wants a commute, and AI absorbing admin work just as demand for human experience explodes. The operators who win won’t be the ones adding the most amenities — they’ll be the ones reading their data, listening to their communities, and amplifying what already works. That’s the playbook this episode lays out, from someone who has seen the industry from both the front desk and the software stack.
Agility and the Flexible Workspace
Jessica Knapp [00:00] — What I think the missed opportunity is — and I talk about this all the time — is the network effect of co-working. Think about a GWA or a GCUC conference: people in the room, owners and operators — that is an enormous amount of buying power, and there’s an enormous amount of shared buying power there as well. That’s why I always talk about, if people aren’t looking at the co-working or flex space vertical as part of their strategy for sales, they probably need to reevaluate that, because it’s incredibly productive. There are so many human beings who work within these spaces, in this industry.
Frank Cottle [00:33] — Jessica, welcome to the Future of Work podcast. I’m really excited to have you here today. It’s not often we get to focus just on the flexible workspace, and I know your expertise is perfect for this conversation. Today, as we talk about the future of work, I really want us to focus on the topic of agility — how important agility is. And the foundation of agility really is in the flexible workspace and the co-working industry as it relates to officing. You see a lot of data because of your company’s work across the entire spectrum of the industry. What trends are you seeing that are driving the agility issue, or driving the industry — driving people to consider flexible workspace as a solution as opposed to conventional workspace?
Jessica Knapp [01:28] — Oh, that’s such a fun question.
Frank Cottle [01:32] — Three questions all at once.
Jessica Knapp [01:34] — No, it’s great. I think there are two interesting contributing factors: one that’s coming internally from inside the industry, and something that is coming from outside the industry, where the market is driving that demand.
Frank Cottle [01:50] — Let’s focus on what’s coming from outside, because that’s what expands the industry.
Jessica Knapp [01:56] — That’s exactly right. So obviously there has been return to work and return to office and things like that. What’s really interesting and exciting for the flexible workspace industry is that we’re seeing a lot of people picking up co-working memberships for their staff. We’re seeing large corporates implement co-working spaces for their teams as well. I think Hewlett Packard just made a big statement where they’re going to be moving people remote or into co-working. So it’s interesting to see some of these macro factors that drive growth inside the industry. That behavior has been really interesting to observe.
The Institutional Customer Trend
Frank Cottle [02:47] — Well, you know, it’s interesting you say that. We have Alliance Virtual Offices too, apart from Allwork — we’re servicing over 315,000 accounts, so we’re the largest office provider globally. And 75% of our customers are institutional-grade customers. They’re not onesie-twosie things — they’re large, institutional-grade customers. So if I’m seeing a 75% structure there, across the whole industry that has to be a major trend that is starting to raise itself at the industry level. Why do companies like Alliance Virtual, or IWG, or WeWork — why are we seeing that trend of major institutional structures, where a lot of the smaller operators, even though they have great locations and honestly, from time to time, much better services than some of the largest operators — why are they not seeing that institutional trend the same way that we are?
Jessica Knapp [03:57] — I think one contributing factor, obviously, is mass and scale and availability. An institutional large corporate customer might be looking for something in major metropolitan areas. Typically the WeWorks and Industrious and Alliance, things like that — you’re in major cities where they can put their people. So that’s one thing, and I think that’s a pretty major contributing factor.
I also think — and this remains to be seen — that we are seeing a maturity in the industry as well. Co-working is no longer just that fun neighborhood place where you can go get a coffee and meet some people. And yes, it is very much still that — it’s just the public has maybe taken a little bit longer to catch up to what we’ve known all along, right? Now there is a lot more optionality available. Say I run a company, I’ve got 100 employees, they’re all remote across America. I have options: I can choose to put five of my employees who are in St. Louis into a really great local co-working space, and they’re really happy there. But I also have 50% of my team in New York — I can put them into a WeWork, and then they’ve got locations all over the world. So that sort of high-low optionality is really great for the end user and for the customer — for people who are looking to find a good work home.
Frank Cottle [05:42] — I agree. We sort of have a “10 offices in 10 countries and 10 cities in 10 minutes” concept — our industry should be able to serve that way overall.
Jessica Knapp [06:04] — But that’s what I like about flex: we can do that. There is something for everybody. We’ve seen this emergence of wellness-focused spaces — you can go and get red light therapy, or a therapy session, or go see a doctor, and also get work done and have a meeting with a client, and stand at a standing desk or a walking desk, or get a ketogenic lunch delivered to your desk. We’re seeing all of these options available, and I love that our industry has driven that behavior for the end user, for our community.
Agility Is More Than Short-Term Leases
Frank Cottle [06:35] — Well, when we talk about agility, we’re usually referencing short-term leases, things of that nature, that large companies — all companies — need. We all need to be agile today; no company, large or small, can do well without it. But from what you just said: delivered keto lunches, that’s a form of agility. Stand-up desks, that’s a form of agility. All the things you want, tailored to your particular need, rather than just being in a cube farm somewhere — all of those are forms of agility that are critical to the way a five-generation company, with five generations of team members, needs to be thinking. Because we don’t just need agility for economics, or for liabilities, or for the balance sheet — we need it because we have five different generations of people in the office today, all working together, and they have totally different requirements.
Jessica Knapp [07:54] — And the beautiful thing about that agility is that there’s a home for everybody. So there’s the agility, but then there are also the hospitality components that come along with it, and I think marrying those two things together is where we really see the growth. As millennials, Gen X, Gen Z start to grow up and take higher positions in companies, they’re becoming the decision makers. Having the freedom of choice — to choose what space is going to work best for you and for their team — they get to do it in a different way. And that choice, in flexible workspace, is being agile: being able to pivot and offer these things to best service their customer. That’s a really interesting moment in time for our industry.
The Lost Service Era
Frank Cottle [08:40] — Well, all commercial officing in one way or another — which flexible workspace is part of, really — has been trying to wed concepts of hospitality and services for decades and decades. And as I look out across the flexible workspace industry, I see different brands doing different things, but I don’t yet see the return to the old service models that used to be around before — I’ll say before even the mid-90s is when the services were around. That’s a five-generation thing; I’ve seen that, and a lot of people haven’t. It was really a service-based industry that maybe was real-estate dependent, and now I think we’re part of a real estate industry that’s trying to get back to services. What’s your view on that? And you see the revenue that’s generated by centers — how do you see the ratios between workspace revenue in all categories versus service provision in all categories? Because that’s really the telling number.
Jessica Knapp [10:04] — It’s been interesting with WorkSpace Geek, because a lot of our clients are mostly serviced offices, and they operate in a way where you have an office and that’s sort of the way it works. They are full and busy and productive, and they’ve really honed in on their cost of goods — they know what their margins are, and they are agile in that they pivot and change spaces based on what the market is demanding.
The ratio is interesting. I sort of categorize this industry in two ways: “we do this one thing, you come in here” — a little bit old school, maybe — and then we have more co-working, where you have yoga, you have coffee, you have whatever. Neither is better than the other; there is clearly market demand for both.
Where it gets interesting for me is when you are a more hospitality-driven, very service-driven flexible workspace. I’ve found it really interesting: a lot of places want to add all of these amenities — I call it “amenities gone wild,” if you will. You think, “oh, I’ll do this and I’ll do this and I’ll do this,” and sometimes there’s an uptake, whatever. I find the places that do it best listen a lot to their client base, their community. They hear what people are asking for, and they let there be a repetition of those requests before they really implement something — because you still have to run a business and pay the bills, right? So marrying the hospitality with being really business-savvy is where I see people doing it the best — that’s the inflection point. You can bleed into your margins when you start offering more and more amenities, but there are also things you can do that have high impact and don’t cost you a lot in terms of margin. I find that tension really interesting to observe.
Where Did the Service Revenue Go? The Virtual Assistant Question
Frank Cottle [12:21] — Well, as I go back in time — business centers becoming serviced offices, co-working growing out of that — they very heavily provided clerical, secretarial, and administrative services, as well as meeting room services, which everybody still does today. They represented 15, 20, 25% of total revenue. That’s evaporated. Those revenues within the industry are hugely diminished, replaced by what you’re saying — amenities, things that attract people, a variety of what I’ll call self-serve that don’t really generate revenue. And yet the fastest-growing independent employment structure, in the United States at least and probably globally, according to Upwork and a few others, is virtual assistants. So why aren’t centers — with all of their critical mass within the center itself, 100, 200, 300 customers including virtuals — establishing their own virtual assistant structure, effectively, and servicing their clients to help their clients grow their businesses, more so than just providing amenities?
Jessica Knapp [13:50] — I mean, did you just invent a new business, Frank? Is that going to be the next thing you do?
Frank Cottle [13:59] — No, it’s the old business. It’s the old business.
Jessica Knapp [14:01] — Well, this is what’s fascinating: there is very much a return, if you will. I think it’s happening in really hyper-local ways, in terms of flex offices that help grow their customers’ businesses or provide business services. There are a few examples of it, but it’s not necessarily baked into some of the larger organizations either.
What I think the missed opportunity is — and I talk about this all the time — is the network effect of co-working. Think about a GWA or a GCUC conference: you have three, four hundred people in the room, owners and operators. They probably represent somewhere between half a million to 800,000 human beings, depending on who’s in the room. That is an enormous amount of buying power, and there’s an enormous amount of shared buying power there as well. That’s why I always talk about this: if people aren’t looking at the co-working or flex space vertical as part of their strategy for sales, they probably need to reevaluate that, because it’s incredibly productive. There are so many human beings who work within these spaces, in this industry.
A Hugely Fragmented Industry
Frank Cottle [15:22] — I agree with you. It’s also hugely fragmented, though.
Jessica Knapp [15:26] — It is hugely fragmented, yes.
Frank Cottle [15:29] — We all talk about the big guys — IWG, WeWork, Industrious, a few others. They have maybe 15, maximum 20% of the industry. They’re big, they’re noisy, they’re powerful — because everybody else is a two-center operator. 2.6 centers is the average across the industry. So the difference between 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 of those 2.6-center operators versus one 5,000-center operator, in terms of voice, is massive. I think somehow, as an industry, we need to reverse who’s heard and how it’s done, and consider that when we talk about how big the industry is and how much it really is.
When we talk about community — you hit on community and the co-working centers — I would say the flexible workspace industry is built up of different brand structures. Serviced offices are one, and their brand promise is a professional image and services. Coworking would be business growth through a collaborative community — incubators, accelerators, et cetera. There’s a whole variety of different structures. Coworking and serviced offices are the two largest by far. Coworking is, I think, becoming the most recognized in terms of the industry itself — and therein lies some confusion, because everybody says they’re co-working when actually they’re really not.
Jessica Knapp [17:18] — And that’s okay, by the way.
Frank Cottle [17:20] — I agree, I agree.
Jessica Knapp [17:30] — There is a lid for every pot, as my grandmother would say. The analogy I use is a little bit like ice cream flavors: you might love mint chocolate chip, and this particular location you’re looking at is not mint chocolate chip. Or you might love rocky road — well, there you go.
Frank Cottle [17:48] — It used to be my favorite. No, I think you’re really right, and that’s why I say going to one or the other doesn’t matter overall. What matters is the individual brand promise of the individual company, and their fulfillment of that brand promise.
The Secondary-Market Boom
Frank Cottle [18:03] — So, services versus community — you can combine the two, or you can be focused on one or the other. On location: you mentioned central business districts and some of the larger operators. Actually, we see the biggest growth in the industry, and in customer demand, in the secondary markets right now.
Jessica Knapp [18:13] — Oh, the secondary market — someone needs to write something; I mean, there probably has been, but I think the data around that is so fascinating. But it does make sense, because if we look at some of these larger organizations who are providing workspaces for their teams who are remote — I mean, what’s the point? If I have to commute for two hours to get to my co-working space, I may as well just work from home. But if there’s something that’s a mile from my house, that makes far more sense, and it’s far more lifestyle-driven.
The 1979 Study: Five Minutes From Home, Curvy Streets
Frank Cottle [18:56] — It’s funny — we’ve been in this industry a long time. In 1979, we were starting to build buildings, and I commissioned a marketing study. I had no budget, by the way; it was the biggest expense I’d had so far. It was a major firm, so it was a major expense. They put out a book, and there were only three things, actually, that were important in that study.
One: people prefer — this is so obvious — to work five minutes from their residence and thirty minutes from their customers, as opposed to thirty minutes from their residence and five minutes from their customers. Captain Obvious, right?
Jessica Knapp [20:03] — It’s a waste of time.
Frank Cottle [20:04] — The second: no one likes to commute. Okay, that’s obvious too. I was living in LA at the time — LA traffic, no one likes that.
And then the other thing that was interesting, when it came to location — because we were doing a lot of traffic studies, because we were building buildings — they made this comment, and I’ve always thought about it when we look at a location: decision makers live on curvy streets; non-decision makers live on straight streets. They could have said wealthy people live on curvy streets and non-wealthy people live on straight streets — but they said decision makers. And that really influenced a lot of our development of centers and location choice throughout the years. Even today, in the aggregation side of our business, when we look at centers we want to work with, we pay attention to those three things from 1979 — and I don’t think a lot of people do.
Jessica Knapp [21:13] — I don’t think a lot of people do either. It’s interesting — obviously, I’m from New Zealand, I’m not from America. And — pop quiz: everyone at the end of this podcast has to mimic my accent and submit it to me. Everyone gets a sheep if they win.
I moved to Los Angeles when I was 24, and I used to commute from the east side — Pasadena — over to Santa Monica for my job. I was about two hours in traffic each way, every day. New Zealand is a hyper-regional place: we have a couple of larger cities, which are generally the size of a suburb in most major American cities. My office was a 10-minute walk from my house, always, or a five-minute drive — you can pop home and do some laundry on your lunch break. Everything is very close by. The socialization that comes with that is so much healthier, and everything is very neighborhood, very community, very hyperlocal.
I think people — and especially people of my generation, I’m an older millennial — want more of that. And I find it so interesting that we’re seeing that as a trend in the flex and co-working industry as well. I think commuting is such a horrific waste of time in every avenue: it’s bad for your mental health, it’s bad for the environment — there are so many things about it. Walking is good for you. Bumping into people on the street, colliding with other human beings, is very good for you — I think that’s why co-working is so good for you as well. I work from co-working spaces; I work remote in the work that I do. Sometimes I’ll have a conversation with someone who’s starting a CPG sock company, and they’ve figured out this really cool outreach marketing nugget, and I can go and put that into action in my own work. I think it’s endlessly fascinating, the people you get to bump into.
The Clean Air Act Telecommuting Experiment
Frank Cottle [23:25] — No, I agree. You make the point about commuting and the environment. In the United States we had what’s called the Clean Air Act, very popular through the mid-90s. In fact, we actually wrote the definition of what a telecommuting center was for the Clean Air Act, and we built a variety of telecommuting centers for the State of California’s air quality management district and ran them for the state. And no one really knew what they were doing — the government didn’t know what they were doing overall. They forced people into these telecommuting centers: all companies that had more than 50 employees at a single location actually had to file a Clean Air Act document that said how they were complying — X amount of carpooling, X amount of vanpooling, Y amount of people in telecommuting centers, all this sort of thing.
And after about two years, people started liking it. Then after about four years, the government administration changed in Washington; they no longer had the will to enforce it, and so it all just went. But there was a perfect example of benefit from reduction in commute — measurable economically, environmentally, et cetera — and the U.S. government lost the will to manage it effectively. And what employers found back at that time was that their own employees liked it, and their own employees were voluntarily doing a whole variety of things that contributed to the process. And it all went away.
Jessica Knapp [25:28] — I mean, who would have thought that happy human beings make happy employees — which then has so many trickle-down effects. It’s very simple.
Frank Cottle [25:45] — But what was strange was: the government stopped enforcing the program, and the companies themselves let it all die away. They didn’t continue to participate on their own, where they could have. That was an opportunity lost, definitely — and hopefully we won’t do that again in the future.
AI, Isolation, and the “AI Friend”
Frank Cottle [26:10] — When we talk about this — commuting and services and community — application of technology: what is AI doing inside of the services industry, inside flexible workspace today, to improve it, rather than isolate individuals who are using AI within centers or on their own — where they don’t think they need to participate because they’ve got a “I don’t need to bump into somebody on the street, because I’ve got my AI friend”? There’s a whole transition going on in the psyche of work. What do you think the flexible workspace sector’s opportunity, responsibility, reaction — how do you see all that playing out?
Jessica Knapp [26:58] — I mean, the very notion of someone saying they don’t need to go out into the world because they have their AI friend is bone-chilling to me.
Frank Cottle [27:07] — It’s there, though. It’s there.
Jessica Knapp [27:09] — I know. I know it is.
Frank Cottle [27:12] — And it’s growing, especially in Gen Z and in Gen Alpha.
Jessica Knapp [27:17] — Certainly. I will say it’s been interesting to observe this trend and change happening. I’m 41, and I remember talking to my dad — he was an orchardist; we had an orchard in New Zealand — about the way I was working, and he thought it was so cool and modern, but it wasn’t something he was able to necessarily identify with. And now I find myself having these conversations with Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who I employ and work with and hire. I find myself learning so much from the way they think, the way they talk about being in the world, the way they think about working — because their baseline is so inherently different to what my baseline was when I graduated from university.
So there is an expectation around flexibility: being able to work from home. “I want to catch a yoga class, and sometimes that’s at 10 o’clock in the morning — I can work around that and design my own schedule.” I actually think that’s really, really fantastic. However — there are some trends that show us Gen Z and Gen Alpha actually socialize in a way that’s a little more offline and agnostic. I don’t know if you’ve seen some of those viral clips of university addresses where they’re talking about AI and getting booed off stage, that kind of thing. I think there is also a lot of fear and concern from that generation, because they’ve grown up to a certain point, they’re working within the world, and then this new technology comes along that’s going to wipe out a lot of opportunity. I’d be pretty annoyed too, to put it lightly.
Will AI Wipe Out Opportunity — or Create It?
Frank Cottle [29:08] — I have to interrupt you for a second. The question: do you really think that AI is going to wipe out all the opportunity for Gen Z? Or do you think Gen Z is not mature enough yet to recognize the opportunities that it will create instead?
Jessica Knapp [29:30] — I can understand why there would be concern and fear. It’s sort of like a structure that you’re growing up and working towards — a certain structure and way of doing life and working — and that structure seems to be unstable at the moment; there is a reforming happening. I can imagine it would be a rather tenuous place to be. I think there is probably also some overcorrection and some fear, because they’re young and they don’t necessarily know. I think things will even themselves out, but a lot of it remains to be seen — and I think there’s a lot of responsibility on these companies as well.
The one thing I will say is I think there are two patterns emerging for me: there are people who have their AI friends, whose life is very much inside. And I also think there is a growing trend of a more offline way of living and socializing in younger generations as well.
Frank Cottle [30:28] — Yeah, I hope so. One thing — when you say these students are in an unstable environment, I would agree, because the world is unstable. The world has always been unstable.
Jessica Knapp [30:41] — I mean, I graduated right into that.
Frank Cottle [30:44] — The world will always be unstable; that is correct. So I wonder if this reaction is a first-world, U.S., pampered reaction — versus a second- or third-world “I’m going to use this to get ahead” reaction.
Jessica Knapp [31:03] — I mean, listen — I’m the daughter of a farmer. Nothing has ever been stable for me my entire life; I know nothing of stability. And I work in the startup space — again, I don’t know much about stability. So I live in that place. But the world is also not designed for my comfort, you know? Yes, I think things will settle down eventually, but it’s also very new as well.
Frank Cottle [31:29] — Well, it’s funny about farming. My dad always used to say: better to be lucky than smart, because smart don’t make it rain.
Jessica Knapp [31:39] — A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
“The Fast Eats the Slow”: The Next 3–5 Years
Frank Cottle [31:41] — So you get into that kind of environment sometimes. Well, let’s move back over to flexible work. We’re going all over the place here — but I think it’s good, because it talks to that main subject of agility, and the need for more agility in the world because it is unstable. And speed: they say it’s not the large that eats the small, it’s the fast that eats the slow. So speed and agility become two components together — your reaction time is as important as your reaction itself. I think one of the benefits of flexible work, in our industry, is that it does allow speed in reaction time to new environments and new business models, much more so than traditional real estate and officing has done. So I think we’ve got an advantage there that’s pretty strong. Over the next three to five years, where do you see the flexible workspace industry going — based on all the data you see, based on the commercial real estate data you all see?
Jessica Knapp [33:11] — I think it will continue to grow — we know that it will continue to grow. And I think we’ll see more and more niche spaces; that trend will continue to emerge. I was talking about this wellness-workspace trend — I think that will continue, which is really interesting to observe. Multi-use buildings — where there’s co-working and maybe corporate offices and gyms and that kind of thing — a more holistic integration into the way that we live; co-working really set the trend for that, and I think we’ll continue to see it happen. I think the localization, the second-tier market, will continue to grow; the demand will drive that.
From a technological perspective, we’re seeing more and more spaces that are unstaffed, or very lightly staffed, maybe with AI — and with the emergence of technology, we may begin to see more of that. As we know, flexible offices, co-working, and serviced offices all operate on relatively narrow margins, and people cost is often the thing that drives the growth but is the most expensive thing. So maybe—
Frank Cottle [34:36] — Without people, you can’t provide service.
Jessica Knapp [34:40] — That is absolutely correct.
Frank Cottle [34:41] — And service is key to a serviced office.
Jessica Knapp [34:47] — That’s exactly right.
Frank Cottle [34:47] — Hospitality.
The Analog Rebound
Jessica Knapp [34:51] — And I think there probably will be some people who give it a go — really go for the unstaffed model. But I also think, again, there is a rising trend in the analog of life. The events industry is exploding, because experiential, in-person, tactile experiences are really what people want. And I think hiring people who can create those experiences — run communities, build communities, design great programming or experiential marketing, whatever it might be — those spaces will do really, really well. Look at the growth of places like Kiln or [The Malin], maybe — they’re absolutely beautiful environments to sit in every single day, and they have excellent services as well, and they’re growing. I think we’ll see more and more of that too. So I think we’ll see those two things emerge in tandem.
Frank Cottle [35:57] — Well, I would agree. I think services will come back in one way or another. There are two ways to provide them. First, you can hire the people, figure it out, and do it yourself for your own community. Secondly, you can outsource an awful lot of the requirements through partnerships — with technology structures today, and when it comes to experience, a co-working center is an excellent organizational platform for experiences that you don’t have to do yourself, but you can organize to be done for you. And I think there’s not enough of that in the industry. I think people would like to do more, but they just don’t quite get it done or know how to do it. Maybe there’s an opportunity for a company to emerge within the industry to focus on providing that kind of service to the operators, so in turn it can be passed along to their customers.
Automation Frees Humans for Hospitality
Jessica Knapp [37:09] — Well, I think what we see as well — and you probably see it in your line of work, Frank — is that as the technology systems that support these flexible, co-working, executive offices become more mature, and integration systems are obviously a very key part of this — as they become more sophisticated, AI gets implemented even more, it allows a little more breathing room for people to actually curate, and have more fun, actually, building these communities and really focusing on the in-person stuff. Because if your billing is automated and taken care of, or your tour booking from your website is automated and taken care of, or your follow-up cadence for a new lead is automated and taken care of, that frees up a lot of time.
I remember at [NextSpace] — God, was it 2009? No, 2012 I started there — we built our own proprietary system. It took us an hour and 15 minutes to onboard a new person. And there was one day where we were so busy, we were onboarding new people every day. If I could have taken that load away and focused on my community a little bit more — obviously you do the best you can at the time with what’s available to you, and that was considered efficient; we just had so many truncated systems. I think it would be a wonderful thing to be able to run a space now with really great automation that runs seamlessly in the background, so you can really focus on the actual in-person stuff.
Frank Cottle [38:44] — I agree. That would allow for higher-quality services, which would allow for a longer customer life cycle and customer value model — would allow for larger staff structures, better training, all of those sorts of things together.
Monday-Morning Advice: Look at Your Data
Frank Cottle [39:10] — What’s the one thing that you think people can do that would be a change across the industry — or across the world, for that matter — that would impact the industry? The one thing where everybody should say, “wait a second, it’s Friday — I’ve got to go do this Monday morning, early”?
Jessica Knapp [39:24] — At the risk of sounding like a huge nerd: look at your data and your analytics. If you can wrap a narrative around your numbers, and understand the behavior based on the data and the metrics in your space, you’ll be far, far better off. And the world needs more co-working. It needs more community. We need these spaces to be thriving, and to be operationally efficient and agile. Turn a meeting room into an office — vice versa, flip it around, paint the wall navy, I don’t know. I think all of these things help co-working spaces thrive and be better. And then there’s more community for people.
Frank Cottle [40:16] — I couldn’t agree more. We have a mantra in our own company that says: get the data. Data becomes information, which turns into knowledge, and knowledge allows action. So get the data. We practice that every single day — and we started doing that in the ’80s, when we were looking at our marketing and we recognized that we looked at our finances at the end of the month, and we looked at our marketing at the beginning of the month for what we were going to do next month. Then the internet came along in the ’90s, and we reversed everything. We said: if we don’t look at our marketing first, as a forecasting structure for what we expect next month’s finances to be like, then we’re making a big mistake. So we started looking at all that data together. You really have to. And the sources of data we have today are so much better than we had in the ’80s, ’90s, even the early-mid 2000s. Companies like yours are huge contributors to that, and it’s very, very important.
Amplify What Works
Jessica Knapp [41:36] — There’s one other thing I was going to say. You know, I’m a sales girl — that’s my background. I didn’t know I was a salesperson when I got my first co-working job; I thought I was just helping people. It took me two years to realize I was a salesperson.
Frank Cottle [41:54] — Sales through service.
Jessica Knapp [41:56] — Correct. The thing that I find interesting — and I’ve worked across many startups and many industries now — is that people spend a lot of time trying to fix what’s broken and what’s not working. They don’t look at what IS working, and what they can turn up, or pour gasoline on, and really, really amplify. I think it’s our human nature — especially those who are entrepreneurial, or run their own offices and co-working spaces — we tend to want to try and do it the hard way. But it’s far easier to see what’s working and amplify that, rather than fix something that’s really broken. You can put that aside for a while, maybe come back to it later if you really want to. But it goes back to that agility.
Frank Cottle [42:46] — Yep, that’s probably a good place for us to start and stop today — we’re starting to run a little bit long. But that accelerate concept — looking at what you’re doing right, rather than focusing on correcting small things that are wrong — is probably a bit of a mind shift we all should have. It also puts us in the positive instead of the negative, and that’s a strength. So I thank you for that thought very much, and look forward to the next time we chat.
Jessica Knapp [43:21] — Me too. Thank you, Frank.
Frank Cottle [43:23] — All righty. Take care.
Jessica Knapp [43:25] — You too. Look after yourself.
