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Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

Like others in this thread, I don't really get the point of WeWork.

I'm 100% remote and I prefer working at coffee shops, campuses (UCLA, SMCC), or libraries -- I prefer my environment to feel less like "work" and more "creative." I also get to interact with a largely diverse group of people (as opposed to mostly tech people that work at WeWork). Going to a coffee shop is also cheaper (I buy ~2 items a day), I get to meet neighbors, plug myself into my local community, and sometimes even make small talk with cute girls.

I think a good idea might be "reserving" seats at cool spots around town (coffee shops, bookstores, etc.) -- would be cheaper than a WeWork and (I think) more desireable. Think ClassPass for co-working.

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What you describe really isn't very typical of the kind of people WeWork rents space to.

Choosing a different location each day based on whim and availability is all very well for a solo freelancer, but once you scale that up to as many as two people you're going to start having problems finding space and private places where you can talk, call clients, etc. etc. Once you start getting to 3 or 4 people, forget about it. And what about people who want dedicated hardware - a keyboard, monitor, etc?

WeWork has a valuable proposition for those groups. Rent out a small office while you're in the early stage, have everyone in a room with breakout meeting rooms and phone booths available just outside. A kitchen where you can get a coffee, prepare food, etc. etc.

I still think WeWork is an insane proposition because they cost a lot and they're not that great, but let's not pretend they offer nothing over a local coffee shop.

I think WeWork's current setup provides meeting rooms and some temporary dedicated space for companies of 4-10 people, but the environment is not very conducive for productivity. Typically, they're loud, too cramped, and with have lots of distractions.

What about the tax advantage? I'm not convinced that the co-working spaces are worth their cost, but I assume it's a lot easier to write off a co-working space over a coffee shop order.

You can write off absolutely anything. The problem comes if the irs decides to challenge it. But I think with good documentation you could make a good case for your coffee purchases being your office rent expense. You would need to exclude the portion that you would have bought anyway (for example if you have always bought two coffees a day, then you can't start claiming that 2 coffees a day is part of your office rent expense.)

All true, but my local coffeeshop has a meeting room you can rent out (or, if you buy $20/hour in drinks, it's free, just reserve it). I have no idea how often it's rented out, but it's certainly used at least occasionally. I think a lot of coffeeshops could do that, depending on their layout (this place has one room that's on the other side of the register from the rest of the shop, so it works well). No idea how that compares to WeWork in regards to price. I'm solo, so I just sit at a table.

My WeWork experience, at one of the WeWork's on Mission St., on a floor with office space rather than desk-sharers, is phone booths continuously taken up by tech-bros hogging the quiet space, lots of noise in the common spaces,and a building (not wework) security guard who took a dislike to me and made sure I knew it on a regular basis.

Meh, it was fine for what it was I guess, but I think the company I was working for left wework not long after I left the company.

> phone booths continuously taken up by tech-bros hogging the quiet space

Truth

Once you start getting to 3 or 4 people, forget about it

It can be done, remote teams much larger than that work all day every day without using their voices with each other, just Slack or git messages or whatever.

What if the money WW is burning through went to libraries to build more workspaces and conference rooms?

Where are you located? Because here in Stockholm they charge about market rate. I looked at some of their competitors and most were more expensive.

I think WeWork's target audience is also new companies looking to get office space and not just solo workers. It would be hard for a group of 6-8 people, starting work on a new project, to congregate at a library/coffee-shop daily. That's probably why leasing an office would be helpful for such folks.

They also make large offices for big companies

Yeah, this is a fair point, but aren't WeWork prices pretty exorbitant when compared to just renting some real estate through more traditional methods (i.e. an agent)?

My understanding is you can basically be "month to month" with WeWork, where I imagine other options require you to sign a lease.

There's a flexibility in duration and scalability that one doesn't get from a traditional agent/realtor.

That being said, I've seen newer, less "hip" flex spaces open to try and target that market.

They may be but corporate landlords want fairly long term leases. I recently tried to find an office for myself and had trouble finding 'official' office buildings that would do less than a 3 or 4 year lease. If I had a WeWork locally I believe I could do much shorter leases for a small office space.

I just rented a small unfurnished appartement and use it as my office. There really isn't much of a market for small offices, but there are plenty of small appartements.

That could easily run into zoning issues if the neighbors figured out what was going on and didn't like it.

Yeah, as soon as you start taking meetings or hiring employees you quickly start breaking insurance, HOA, and zoning. And quickly have to register your business with the city or risk serious fines.

If it's your second home that you have your morning coffee in and have a personal office that you do non physical tasks on, and occasionally have a friend or cofounder over for a beer you're looking pretty good.

In my experience, commercial agents are looking to close big 10+ year leases, not chase down sub-leases from firms with a little extra space for 6-8 guys.

they provide a lot of "value add" through economies of scale (happy hours, pizza parties, mini conferences, stocked kitchen, random little "perks", etc) which are factored into the cost, but require no talent or time overhead for the client companies.

Think of it as "sexy startup office as a service."

Not saying it's a worthy or necessary service this world needs, but I think that's the value they provide and what companies pay for.

Sexy startup office as a service is exactly what it is.

The prices are eye-watering, however, and don’t seem to come down much with scale. (A three-person office is about three times the price of a one-person office – at least when I last checked.)

WeWorks "scale" is 10-person company got their Series A and wants a (semi) custom build-out for 90 people + (private) conference rooms, or a well-funded startup wants to setup satellite offices.

Renting from a coworking space (We've never used WeWork but have multiple others) is generally month-to-month with a one-page contract and I can pay with a credit card.

Getting an office lease is a huge process with a stack of contracts, pushy agents, ridiculously long leases, misleading prices, hidden costs, furnishing, and establishing all the necessary services. And if you're a small company, the owners are expected to personally financially guarantee the lease.

True, but buying a property is much more cost effective than AirBnB isn't it?

The standard in (US) commercial real-estate is triple net [1] at 10+ years. Everything else is basically a sublet in someone else's office...e.g. WeWork.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NNN_lease

You're using 2000s logic! Heroku is much more expensive than pretty much any other hosting model, yet people brag about their H/DO/AWS/etc. bills.

I found a non-weWork type small office building, 250 private sqaure feet, one year minimum lease, cooler neighborhood and 75% the cost of any of the WeWork (et al) type places. We've got a 12 person conference room and three more counting the coffee places and restaurants that have private/reserved area that are all within two blocks. I just didn't want to be "downtown"

leases are really messy. In the US you have leases with lockin, and in places like Japan where you can't force someone to stay in a lease, they instead force you to put up something like half a year's rent(!) as a security deposit.

I believe the majority of We Work rentals are now to large companies.

I've worked for extended periods of cafes. Heck, I'm working from one right now.

It doesn't work for 100% of your time. 20-40% maybe but not more than that.

There are many issues with cafe work:

- Lots of cafes are bothered if you stay for extended periods of time.

- Unstable or No wifi. You have to rely on Data unless you have it unmetered.

- Not always you'll find a charging outlet for your computer. Granted, I don't have this issue with the mac.

- Sometimes, you don't find a free/available place. So... you go to search again.

I think cafes are good for breaking the mood. But not a workplace for remote workers.

I don't know about you, but I have to use the bathroom 1-3x during the day and I hate leaving my laptop to the public while I go, but I also hate packing my whole setup up and sleeping my laptop.

That's another problem. I've several cafes where I put some expensive Apple gear and disappear for a while. It depends on the cafe and the relation you have relatively to the owner/waitresses and the clientele.

Isn't this what security cable locks are made for? Granted these days fewer devices feature a Kensington lock though ofc.

> It doesn't work for 100% of your time. 20-40% maybe but not more than that.

It doesn't work for 100% of your time. Obviously it's going to be different for different people.

As much as I love occasionally getting stuff done in a cafe, I find using laptops without an external monitor and keyboard at the right heights gives me posture-related problems if I do it for more than a couple of hours at a time.

If I were running my own company and employing remote staff I'd have to think about the workplace health and safety implications if they were regularly working in cafes.

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/imgprod/S/E/SEVOEM9488__3.jpg

I'm sitting in a WeWork Lab's space right now (it is their startup focused program).

Super useful to level my focus, the people around me are in a wide mix of fields not just technology, and having a proper reserved space is a huge boon to productivity. I can have a real monitor, an ergonomic keyboard and mouse, and multiple machines setup.

I value my back, neck, and wrists far too much to work from a coffee shop every day.

WeWork Labs also offers some great benefits for startups, the mentors alone have been a great boon.

From my experience, 80%+ of WeWork people are in tech (but I've only been to the Santa Monica one and the DTLA one, so take my experience with a grain of salt).

I have a home office for when I need to be "in the zone" -- 3 monitors, ergonomic chair, etc. The benefit here is that you could even write off part of your rent (if you're a contractor/freelancer).

I'm in a New York one and we have a lot of financial advisors, small funds and lawyers, along with tech.

I'm in Seattle, the people behind me are in home construction, in front of me is a company working with boutique spirits, there is at least one healthcare company here, an IoT company, and a mix of some other fields.

With entire teams being here, it isn't all programmers. Sales, marketing, biz dev, and engineering are all sitting together and participating in the community.

As for @ home versus at an office, I am far more productive at an office. So much so that I have a nice home setup (I have one ultrawide instead of multiple monitors!) but it is worth it for me to commute 40 minutes to get here.

(I of course have friends who prefer their home versus an office environment!)

Its one reason I hate cafes in America, its full of people working on laptops, its a horrible atmosphere. As for campuses I'm surprised you're allowed to hang out there all day. Libraries in NYC are mostly for homeless people.

I'm a UCLA alum, but even so: it's a public school, so anyone can (theoretically) hang out. USC is private, so I don't think I could work there.

> its full of people working on laptops,

What, in your opinion, should people be doing in cafes on weekday afternoons?

Drinking coffee and talking to their friends.

I think that works mostly on TV series.

Not that students don't meet friends on afternoons to go for coffee, but it is rare. Especially when meeting somewhere else for free is, well, free.

People don't pay for a coffee nowadays, they pay for a place to sit and use the wifi

Wow, that must be the most American thing I've heard in a long while.

It is. Unfortunately, American society has finely tuned itself to money/business oriented thought processes. So much so that most people here think its awkward to just spend an afternoon at a coffee shop talking.

Same in Singapore tbh

To each their own. I adore this atmosphere.

> Libraries in NYC are mostly for homeless people.

No they aren’t that’s ridiculous.

Agreed. Not sure where that comment came from, but I've lived in NYC for 9 years and never seen homeless people at the library whenever I've worked from there.

The comment was an exaggeration to be sure, but I've seen the occasional sleeping homeless person at a library in the West Village. They get asked to leave pretty quickly though.

I've come to avoid having dates or catching up with friends at certain coffee shop-style places after a couple experiences where we were literally surrounded by people silently on their laptops. I prefer to have conversations without an audience of strangers.

And this is probably me getting old but I don't know how people can spend hours hunched over a laptop in café seating, as opposed to an ergonomic office chair and monitor at eye level.

>And this is probably me getting old but I don't know how people can spend hours hunched over a laptop in café seating, as opposed to an ergonomic office chair and monitor at eye level.

Ask any orthopedist, it catches up to them. We can all buffer it for a certain amount of time, but anybody who does this for a long time will develop issues.

> where we were literally surrounded by people silently on their laptops.

That doesn't even sound like coffee shop is the right description, that's an office that sells coffee.

> And this is probably me getting old

I realised I was having posture issues with extended laptop use at approximately age 23 or so.

A good number of non-chain cafes in NYC have restrictions on laptops during work hours, weekends, or whenever it's really busy (common sense rule). Also anecdotal but I haven't had issues with homeless at the libraries. There's even a huge, policed library / research center in midtown that has dedicated quiet rooms, highly recommend.

Shout out to Abraco on 7th and 1st - they put tape over their outlets which says "no laptops - it ruins the vibe"

In addition, WeWork's locations (in Houston) are not out in the suburbs where many of us remote workers live. Instead they're deep in the city, where I have to fight traffic to get there. Traffic is precisely the reason people out here WFH. If I'm going to make the ~1hr drive I might as well work at one of the many funky coffee shops, cafes, or libraries the city has to offer. Hell, I could just camp out in one of my clients offices, they don't mind giving me a desk for the day.

Alternatively, if WeWork had a spot out here in the suburbs where I could escape the noise of my lovely four year old without having to fight traffic, I'd be game.

I'm not sure why this is apparently a statement worth downvoting. Personally, sans toddler, I'm fine with working out of a home office. But I have tons of colleagues who don't live in city cores who use companies like Regus for working space and conference rooms. There's probably more need in cities but at least some office space companies are in the suburbs as well. Don't know about WeWork.

What suburb are you in? An open secret is they're working on a Woodlands location. Not sure about other suburbs though.

Cypress, Woodlands wouldn't be bad. I could do that.

For the last few months, I've used https://www.getcroissant.com/ which is ClassPass for co-working spaces. I like being able to bounce around different spaces, as well as use it in cities all over the world.

This Croissant seems wonderful, for $250 one gets 120 hours, works out $2/hour

I saw their pricing and don't know if the hourly model makes sense for co-working. For comparison I've used Deskpass (and have been pretty happy with it so far). You book by the day - for $200/mo you get 20 visits (and unused visits rollover), which comes out cheaper than Croissant.

They have this in Copenhagen. It's called Soho Nomads.

I did a short video with them you might like - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXA0q-VA2VE

Ha - cool! Haven't seen your channel yet. Hope to catch you again one day somewhere. Last time we met was in 2016 I believe.

This is awesome! Video production is top notch.

This is exactly what we're building at Out Of Office. We've built a database of free and bookable spaces to work, meet, take calls, or take a break. We've collected all sorts of data you might find useful, like the number of seats, number of outlets, noise level, and other different amenities that we've rolled up into an 11-point score for each venue.

We've scouted thousands of coffee shops, hotel lobbies, parks, libraries, coworking, and other public spaces.

Right now we're only operating in San Francisco, but looking to expand to other cities in the future.

https://outofoffice.app/

Disclaimer: I work for Out Of Office

FYI, LiquidSpace is doing similar work, and offers listings for both hourly rentals and monthly rentals.

https://liquidspace.com/

Are you planning on making your service available via your website? I'd be curious to look at it when you get down to the south bay, but there's a 0% chance I'm installing an app for something I have such a passing interest in.

We're focusing on mobile right now because finding a workspace is heavily dependent on where you are or where you need to be. We're a small scrappy team right now so we don't have the resources to build out a proper web experience that we'd be proud of. We'd love to build one in the future though!

I like being able to return to the same desk every day, and having some predictability about what my work environment will look like (noise level etc.)

To each his/her own. I know very few people who could get anything useful done at a coffee shop.

"I get to meet neighbors, plug myself into my local community, and sometimes even make small talk with cute girls." can all be done at a WeWork.

Have a look at spacious.com for your last idea.

Wework is open all night right?

same location, so i don't have to have a daytime spot i prefer and a night time spot thats just open.

Also you get a say in the space cuz you pay. The coffee shop might just get rid of your favorite little corner at some point.

I don't use wework, so idk.

> Like others in this thread, I don't really get the point of WeWork.

So you can only imagine people to think and act like you yourself? It's office space without the large setup cost and time waste, what's so hard to get?

How hard is it to understand the concept of an 'office'? You know, where people go to work together?

That's We Work, it's just 'out of the box' for easy, shorter term rentals. Generally.

This exists in NYC (not sure about LA): www.kettlespace.com. Probably other companies as well.

Not affiliated with them in any way.

One less mentioned point might be that wework, among other things, sells "hippness to corporates". At least here in Berlin there are multiple extrapreneur gigs (startups composed of corporate employees funded by the corporate) rented into wework. I assume this breath-of-startuppyness is sold for more than the already usual high rates.

https://www.spacious.com/ might fit your requirements.

They have a few dedicated spaces, like Union Square in Manhattan, but mostly rent spaces from restaurants that are closed during the day I think.

Booking a place at coffee shops sounds like a fantastic idea. I’d do that in an instant.

WeWork is great for contractors operating on time and materials basis. 10% overhead + 10% profit at $1000/month is better than at $500/month. A lot of the work world operates on time and materials basis.

Why not rent out a stadium if the company will pay anything for materials

Lawyers.

If you buy two items a day ($10) and go there five days a week for four weeks it comes out to about the same price as their shared workspace plan.

Can you work on campuses without being a student?

Wework is for 'founders' and small startups burning through their or somebody else's cash trying to get rich quick.

Cue the infamous "Why not just set up an FTP daemon?" HN post...

Yeah, that's not what that post actually said, nor is it true to the context of the discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

Because "Why not just hang out at Starbucks all day?" scales so well?

Not what I was saying at all. The Starbucks comment is questioning the value proposition of a service that a lot of companies clearly value, providing an alternative that isn't realistic for more than a single person. It's a typical HN middlebrow dismissal.

My classic "FTP" comment was some feedback on a Show HN post, that I was concerned that the technology may be easy to reproduce and thus had a low barrier to being reimplemented by OS vendors or competitors. Drew addressed all my points and I acknowledged the value of the service. Completely different from this thread.

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