During the last major recession (2007-2009 financial crisis) I profiled Regus in Cupertino CA in the Silicon Valley and it's a sweet spot for companies downsizing (and it was also a social gathering for tired old guys that wanted to get away from momma and play business by day). And it was right next to a Indian lunch buffet!!!
In the old days when knights were bold and kings owned all the gold, the co-worker space pitch in my eyes was to avoid the sticky Starbucks table syndrome.
Use Case: Relationship with Regus
They are everywhere. There are now 4,000 locations in 120 countries.
- Gold card. I’ve had the gold card for nearly 20 years, and I can walk into any office in the world and snag a lobby cubicle to do good business. The gold card is like an airline lounge membership for a modest annual fee (but no booze).
- International travel and events. When I used to land in London at 6am local time after an overnight flight from Seattle over the North Pole, I’d camp out and power nap at a Regus office because my hotel, following strict British rules, wouldn’t allow check-in before 3pm! I also used the Dublin office for a small SMB Nation event preaching the Windows Small Business Server movement.
- Start-up Alley. These are my people! These individual offices are often rented by start-ups to have a real address and a real nice place to host business guests for meetings (and again avoid the Starbucks sticky table syndrome). I was a shareholder in a startup called AttachedApps that was trying to be a baby CRM in the SMB space and its life was inside the Redmond, WA Regus facility. Another A.I. startup I have a relationship with rented a co-worker space for an executive in Steamboat Springs CO!
- Accelerators. Business and technology “accelerators” thrive in co-worker spaces. The hallway water cooler conversations are priceless.
- Covered Concur + Regus partnership. In 2013, I covered the story that Regus entered into a partnership with the expense management software company Concur (that was thereafter acquired by SAP).
Additional Use Cases
- Creating culture that drives the co-worker movement! OfficeXpats is based on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Owners Jason Omens (a local MSP) and Leslie Schneider started this thang 14+ years ago and is remarkable by its commitment to the community. I’d offer that OfficeXpats has served as a launch pad for many motions including Schneider’s elevated profile leading to her election as the local mayor!
- The HUB in downtown Seattle where my sista directed a not-for-profit that supported girls’ education in Afghanistan. It was located right next to a light rail station for easy ingress and egress! I believe it closed during the early days of the pandemic when folks isolated at home - a direct threat to the co-worker market.
Evolution
- WeWork. This relatively early entrant got hit with non-sense stuff as it hit a speed bump driving on the growth freeway. See the coverage by The Atlantic pub in the “WeWork’s Perfect Storm”
- Airport lounges. I did a double-take one fine day at SeaTac airport when in Concourse C I noticed a Regus facility next to Beechers gourmet cheese. Made sense to me and I popped in. I surmise this endeavor didn’t “hit” as I personally didn’t see another one and on a future trip its was gone. But props for trying!
Sector shakeout
Has the co-worker movement peaked? Or has it evolved? There was one co-worker closure (boohoo) in my one-horse town (Dripping Springs in the Texas Hill Country outside Austin) and one recently opened (est 2023) called FUSE. The evolution displayed in these pics are telling a story. The co-worker movement created a subset of entrants as independent co-workers spaces. The new landscape with big players entering like FUSE are fancy pantsy places with pretty people. It’s analogous to exercising at the YMCA (with us normal people) v. the hip-and-cool Orange Theory where the fine ladies wear makeup to workout.
Fig 1: Old school grass roots “workplace” has closed.
Fig 2: Hip-and-cool FUSE
My Free Advice
Many co-workers spaces are good community citizens and host public events (yay) like the February 19, 2026 networking Happy Hour at FUSE in Dripping Springs. (Join me!)
Contra Co-worker Strategy
The smart money in the MSP community own their building - a nice portfolio addition and waaaay beyond the myopic thinking of the majority of MSPs. One MSP in the Southwest owned the office building his MSP was based in and rented from himself as the landlord. When he sold his MSP, the new owner continued operations in the same space, leasing the office from the dude. Sweet.
Conclusion - a chippy thought lol.
There must be an unfulfilled fantasy to have a nooner in a rented hourly co-worker office instead of a no tell motel. Asking for a friend and flames kindly ignored!