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At the end of the day WeWork is essentially a middle man. If the model catches on landlords can make WeWork irrelevant by just adapting and offering “WeWork” st
by code4tee 8y ago
At the end of the day WeWork is essentially a middle man. If the model catches on landlords can make WeWork irrelevant by just adapting and offering “WeWork” style coworking space thus it’s not clear what the end game of all this is. If it fails it fails. If it succeeds it’s super easy to copy and cut them out of the equation.
WeWork as a company is also becoming increasingly unfocused. They’re getting into everything from schools, daycare and all sorts of other stuff. That’s never a good sign. Do one thing and do it really well profitably. Anyone can do a lot of cool stuff while burning investor cash like crazy.
- a13n 8y agoI don't agree that landlords can easily replicate WeWork. First of all WeWork has an incredible brand, and great processes/assets that let them run co-working spaces more profitably. Amazon seems like a counter point to your focus point too.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bobthepanda 8y agoDo they? What exactly does WeWork offer that a landlord couldn't easily replicate? Amazon at least has the crazy logistics network. To me, WeWork sounds more like a Moviepass type situation.
- a13n 8y agoI think you're drastically underestimating how hard it is to start a co-working space. Why would anyone want to work at your unheard of space instead of WeWork? How are you possibly going to attract people at even half their prices?
- kgwgk 8y agoWhy would anyone want to work at WeWork at twice the price?
- a13n 8y agoNetwork of people working there, perks, quality, brand. Why do people do anything for twice the price?
- kgwgk 8y agoPerks and quality are replicable if they are critical and I’m not sure brand is worth anything at all.
- code4tee 8y agoPeople just want a nice place to work at a decent price. There is no brand loyalty in this space. If someone has a nice product next door people will move. Same as Uber vs Lyft. Nobody cares what logo is on the car.
- scott00 8y agoThe way the brand and scale turns into a moat and/or pricing power is through lower customer acquisition costs than less notable competitors. If everybody who wants shared office space googles WeWork to find it, it's going to be an uphill battle for other operators to get noticed.
- bobthepanda 8y agoBrand loyalty is fickle. Back in the day you could get everything from the Sears catalog and now we all buy from Amazon as Sears trudges through bankruptcy.
- CptFribble 8y agoThe comparison to Amazon is a little misplaced, IMO. Companies like Amazon and Google have more money than $deity and can afford to blow a few billion on non-core-business moonshots like self-driving cars and molten salt energy storage and space rockets. WeWork does not have more money than $deity, so spinning out into less-related business is a sign of CoreBusinessNotQuiteCuttingTheMustardAnymore-itis.
- neom 8y agocompany.co is doing just this in NYC right now