Thanks for taking the time here. A complex but realistic model. It’s a straightforward sell to the renter/owner/tenant, and it would be interesting to explore the exit strategy/selling that will be pitched to the tenant. At some point the tenant/owner will move on, hopefully with some built up equity.
Very close to my hunch after first reading the A16Z post. 100% that they'll be charging some premium on the community element - after all, that's one thing Adam defo successfully built with WeWork. I was also thinking that potentially there will be a kind of DAO structure. A16Z seem rather optimistic about it and when we were exploring the 'reinvent timeshare' idea with my co-founder we were looking at DAO in the first place
The DAO idea is pretty interesting and makes a lot of sense. It didn't make as many waves in the headlines, but a16z funded $70mm for Adam's crypto startup Flowcarbon earlier this year as well. So he may take some of the technical lessons learned there and introduce new governance methods at Flow.
WeWork never had the community element. Its tenants were either big companies with members that only talked to each other or freelancers that were overpaying a desk and a chair that looked good but were extremely uncomfortable. Smaller coworking spaces were more "social" compared to WeWork. Also employees were reluctant to enforce rules (ie phonebooth camping) pissing off other members. If you take a step back, you'll see that its a well designed coworking space with private offices and automations in place (ie buying snacks).
Yeah I still don't get it. So it's a REIT with a portfolio of properties where you can stay if you are a shareholder? If you ever wanted the equivalent of "selling your house," you would sell your shares? Also, they say you can "flow" between properties... Wont people just hog the great properties and not move out? Doesn't that mean that this REIT will be required to always have an excess of properties vs. shareholder count in order to give them options?
Re: hogging the great properties, that'll keep the occupancy high, which is in flow's best interests. There's actually a lot of similarities with coliving- even though short term flexibility is the big draw, long term stays are better for the business. In coliving when people want to move between properties, they have to work with what's available and sometimes get on a waitlist. Re: property vs shareholder count- there's a few levers they can pull to balance them, like valuation, minimum required down payments, rent. i don't think they'll prioritize giving members lots of options because that would mean there's too many vacancies to make money.
Thanks for taking the time here. A complex but realistic model. It’s a straightforward sell to the renter/owner/tenant, and it would be interesting to explore the exit strategy/selling that will be pitched to the tenant. At some point the tenant/owner will move on, hopefully with some built up equity.
Very close to my hunch after first reading the A16Z post. 100% that they'll be charging some premium on the community element - after all, that's one thing Adam defo successfully built with WeWork. I was also thinking that potentially there will be a kind of DAO structure. A16Z seem rather optimistic about it and when we were exploring the 'reinvent timeshare' idea with my co-founder we were looking at DAO in the first place
The DAO idea is pretty interesting and makes a lot of sense. It didn't make as many waves in the headlines, but a16z funded $70mm for Adam's crypto startup Flowcarbon earlier this year as well. So he may take some of the technical lessons learned there and introduce new governance methods at Flow.
WeWork never had the community element. Its tenants were either big companies with members that only talked to each other or freelancers that were overpaying a desk and a chair that looked good but were extremely uncomfortable. Smaller coworking spaces were more "social" compared to WeWork. Also employees were reluctant to enforce rules (ie phonebooth camping) pissing off other members. If you take a step back, you'll see that its a well designed coworking space with private offices and automations in place (ie buying snacks).
Yeah I still don't get it.
So it's a REIT with a portfolio of properties where you can stay if you are a shareholder?
If you ever wanted the equivalent of "selling your house," you would sell your shares?
Also, they say you can "flow" between properties... Wont people just hog the great properties and not move out? Doesn't that mean that this REIT will be required to always have an excess of properties vs. shareholder count in order to give them options?
Re: hogging the great properties, that'll keep the occupancy high, which is in flow's best interests. There's actually a lot of similarities with coliving- even though short term flexibility is the big draw, long term stays are better for the business. In coliving when people want to move between properties, they have to work with what's available and sometimes get on a waitlist.
Re: property vs shareholder count- there's a few levers they can pull to balance them, like valuation, minimum required down payments, rent. i don't think they'll prioritize giving members lots of options because that would mean there's too many vacancies to make money.