191–200 of 212 posts
This is not OK.
By taking an old stodgy business (commercial real estate) and bringing it in conformance with modern expectations of design, ease of transactions, lease length, and vibe. The real estate owners couldn’t be bothered to do this because they make too much money by doing nothing to bother with doing something for an extra $47b (a rounding error on the value of global commercial real estate) The huge fundraising rounds ar…
So many of these unicorns seem so stupidly simple in hindsight. I'm in St Petersburg right now and the taxi outside the train station quoted an initial rate of EUR 50 to drive a grand total of 6km (after haggling, "just" EUR 30). I booked an Uber (operated under Yandex Taxi in Russia now) and the total price was just EUR 5 Take stodgy, often scammy, and downright consumer unfriendly industries, add transparency and a…
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You are confusing unit economic vs profitability. They are very different things. If I manufacture a widget for $1 and sell it for $.50 then my unit economics are negative and, unless I manage to either lower manufacturing costs or raise prices I am in trouble forever. If I manufacture a widget for $1 and sell it for $1.50 then my unit economics are positive. My company might still be unprofitable due to other expens…
I am aware of the difference. If you look at their numbers, their literal unit economics are negative, if you employ normal EBITDA. They don't, they employ a so called "adjusted EBITDA", which last year flatout discounted 150 million in marketing as non-recurring trying to make the argument that you just made. But this is hilarious number fudging, because obviously a lot of marketing budget is recurring and goes towa…
I don't think you are aware of the difference. EBITDA takes overhead into account and is not unit economics.
I was a member at WeWork for over a year. The company doesn’t have a direction. WeWork seems more like a hip place to look cool than get stuff done. A few experiences I’ve had: 1. WeWork holds lots of events like “Dog of the Month.” Meanwhile, there are empty desks everywhere and the printer doesn’t work. 2. I cancelled and no one ever followed up to ask why or try to keep me as a customer (see above). 3. The spaces…
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The VC will cash out with the IPO. That’s the new strategy. Drive companies to valuations higher than the market cap of many S&P500 companies and then sell them to the “free market” (Uber, Lyft). Great deal for the involved VCs and banks. Is the end result a sustainable business...? who knows...? who cares...?
47b$. Wow, even AMD making real products is not even worth that. How does one hedge an s&p 500 fund that buys all these stupid unicorns?
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The ones I saw were very busy, and, filled by large corporates that wanted to be hip. I think for them value proposition is that they are able to hire some hipster people who don't want to work in the old buildings and also build some marketing stories around their "labs". That said, I "worked" in a WeWork for about 6 months and it was just terrible. Tiny offices, lots of visual distractions, lots of noise, many part…
> it was just terrible. Tiny offices, lots of visual distractions, lots of noise, many parties. I wouldn't ever do it again. Same (London, Shoreditch). Additionally we had relatively frequent and loud noises from the ceiling ("eeeeeNNGNGNGNGNGNNG") which they couldn't fix. But not once did they suggest we move offices to any one of the 30+ empty ones downstairs.
The biggest revenue opportunity for WeWork is big corporations opening smaller office location in cities where just want to staff a small field office or operations office. Example, Uber opening an office in let's say Columbus. Now instead of Uber going on a real estate hunt, they can simply rent out space in WeWork Columbus which gives them flexibility to scale or shrink depending on business. It is essentially abst…
This probably true, and there's a company similar to WW in Montreal who did a presentation indicating that as well. The thing is: there's very little competitive advantage in that. Having 'cool decor' is less valuable to larger companies, and it's not as though other entities can't duplicate that if they want. Other, more established firms can inch their way into copying some of WW's mojo, and compete on price, which…
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The cost of driving a marginal mile is probably more like $0.15-$0.20/mile. The total cost of ownership of a newish car is $0.50-0.60/mile. If an Uber driver is driving with a car that they were already going to own anyway , they only need to cover the variable costs.
Not sure I understand your math here. A car depreciates faster if it is driven (more repairs, needs to be replaced sooner). Just because I already own a car doesn't mean it's only the cost of fuel to drive it.
I'll just go on the record to say that I think WeWork is the biggest deck of cards that is begging for a collapse. I've only been to a handful of locations, but they never seem busy and I'm not sure how they're making rent. Plus, not to mention, back in my day, when you did a startup and got funding from your rich uncle (not Uncle Rich), you grew your startup from your apartment, and when you outgrew that space, you…
WeWork, of all of the overvalued unicorns that exist today, will likely be hit the hardest during a recession. Just watch.
I have the next billion-dollar business idea, an " Airbnb for coworking spaces". Convert your existing house to a co-working space. Looked at Wework, already pay too much for rent in the Bay area. I work from home, and would not mind the company. Got good coffee and great beer as well!