NYLP: Welcome to the New York Launch Pod. A podcast highlighting new start-ups, business and opening in the New York City area. I’m Hal Coopersmith and in this episode we are talking about coworking and shared office space. We speak to Lisa Skye Hain and Brian Hain, the husband and wife co-founders of Primary, a coworking space in Manhattan. There is a 20 billion dollar company called WeWork, that you may just have heard about. So why do Lisa and Brian think Primary can excel in the competitive co-working environment? Well, Lisa was the first employee of WeWork so she knows more than a little about this space. Here she is, explaining what Primary is all about.
Lisa: Because it hit me like a ton of bricks. I said, Wow there’s no shared office space business that gives the tools to small business owners the way that Facebook, Bloomberg, and Google do for their employees to allow them to be able to take care of themselves or to make their primary focus themselves, their body, their well-being, so that everything in their life, including their business can thrive. So that was the birth place, if you will, of Primary in that I knew we could create this beautiful shared office space business where we have an on-site studio where we host Yoga, meditation, boot camp, all classes available to anyone who has an office or membership with us, complimentary. We have an on-site café where we have healthy juices and vegan pastries and snacks so that people can fuel themselves in a healthy way and beyond that, the aesthetic is really inspiring and sort of zen and makes you feel excited and happy to come to work.
NYLP: Primary currently has one location at 26 Broadway with another location to open up around Penn Station and plans for more in New York City and beyond. Here’s Brian explaining the vision for the brand and the community.
Brian: I’m a little more right brain thinking on this and scientifically how I think we’ve established it is a trifecta of setting an intention to hold certain values in place for the overall brand, and thus the community and the members in the space and I’ll share with you our values, our integrity, respect, honor, passion, love, and joy.
NYLP: There is a lot to cover about co-working, how Primary got started and commercial real estate in New York. So let’s go to the interview.
Stepping onto Launch Pod we have husband and wife co-founders Lisa Skye Hain and Brian Hain. Welcome to the Launch Pod Lisa and Brian.
Lisa: Thank you for having us.
Brian: Yeah. Thank you. Excited to be here and drinking a delicious beer from Portland, from Hazelnut Brown. Cheers to you.
NYLP: Well cheers to you too. You are the co-founders of Primary, a coworking space. What is primary?
Lisa: What is Primary? Primary is my vision and dream and Brian, as a default, is my co-founder and my husband.
Brian: As a default.
Lisa: Thank goodness he is my co-founder, we are really fantastic partners and co-founders at this point, two and a half years into this journey and adventure I would say. Primary is the dream and vision that came into my mind five, six years ago after I left WeWork. So I was actually the first employee at WeWork, a little company a lot of people have heard of at this point.
NYLP: A little $20 billion company, I think.
Lisa: I’m so grateful to have had that opportunity. I helped to open their first two locations back in 2010. It was the two partners, Adam and Miguel. Miguel’s brother Kyle, who arguably was employee number one and I was their number two. Then they hired my assistant Nathan. Then we hired Danny, who is their head of construction for their first six locations and who actually is a partner of ours who was the design and aesthetic creator and visionary behind what is now Primary, our shared office space business.
NYLP: And when did you open?
Lisa: We opened effectively June of 2016, almost two years ago.
Brian: Yeah, full opening. Can I address that default thing that you just said?
Lisa: Sure, please.
Brian: Yeah, absolutely. This is Lisa’s vision that we have launched and when she first brought it up to me, I was like, “This sounds cool, let’s do this.” And she said, “What do you think about being my business partner?” My first reaction was, “Um, I don’t know that I want to do that. I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” Having launched a couple of businesses of my own and actually working with an ex of mine as well, and fast forward, I’m skipping a lot, which I’m sure we’ll cover in a discussion here. But fast forward, it’s been amazing. It’s been an amazing journey to go from, “I don’t know if I want to do this,” to now, we are truly co-leaders and true co-founders steering the ship.
NYLP: Well we will certainly get back to you being husband and wife co-founders. But I want to talk a little bit more. You opened in June 2016, and obviously it takes some planning before you opened a co-working space. Were you looking around at the co-working environment and saying, “There’s not enough co-working spaces”? What was that like?
Lisa: Sure so I left WeWork in 2011 after being with them for 14 months. I’m originally from
South Florida, I’ve been in New York City now 20 years as of July. My father opened his urban planning landscape architecture business four months after I was born 40 years ago. It’s in my blood to be a business owner. I joke that I’ve been bossy since I was five and I’ve just finessed my leadership style over the years.
NYLP: Brian, is that true?
Brian: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Lisa: And so I always knew I wanted to have my own business. I just didn’t know for years what that business would be. So having helped WeWork get off the ground and opening the first two locations, I was so hugely inspired by what we were doing. We were creating these physical networked communities that were akin to what I had already been creating for years in this world-wide business networking organization that I’m a part of where we’re bringing together business professionals from all different industries under one roof.
When I left WeWork I knew pretty immediately that I wanted to launch my own. I just wasn’t sure how I would be different. So I shelved the idea for a number of years. I found myself out in Portland, Oregon in the end of 2013 spending some time with my mom who was having shoulder surgeries and I matched with Brian on Tinder just after I arrived there.
Brian: She’s answering all of your questions ahead of time here, as I’m sure …
Lisa: No, no. There’s lots to talk about here. I said, “Oh, maybe I’ll stay in Portland a little longer than originally anticipated. But going out there, I found myself eating cleaner, greener amongst greenery, trees. Brian is a retired triathlon coach and endurance athlete. I was doing more yoga and meditation, being more mindful, and as a 15 year New Yorker, at the point, which I was, I said to myself because it hit me like a ton of bricks. I said, “Wow there’s no shared office space business that gives the tools to small business owners the way that Facebook, Bloomberg and Google do for their employees to allow them to be able to take care of themselves or to make their primary focus themselves, their body, their well-being so that everything in their life, including their business, can thrive.”
So that was the birthplace, if you will, of Primary, in that I knew we could create this beautiful shared office space business where we have an on sight studio where we host yoga, meditation, boot camp. All classes available to anyone who has an office or membership with us, complimentary. We have an on sight studio, or café rather where we have healthy juices and vegan pastries and snacks so that people can fuel themselves in a healthy way. Beyond that, the aesthetic is really inspiring and sort of zen and makes you feel excited and happy to come to work. So it’s a combination of those things that have come together.
I did not just wake up one day saying, “Let’s open Primary.” Like many dreams, it was something that was thought up six years ago. Now it’s open and a full-fledged running business.
NYLP: So the differentiator is the focus on health?
Lisa: Giving people the tools they need to be able to take care of themselves at arm’s reach. We are not a business that, ironically, initially when we opened, people thought, “Oh they’re opening a shared office space business where health and wellness practitioners can come together.” No. That’s not what we’re creating at all.
In fact, we have a hundred different companies across probably 300 members. There are probably only 2-4 sort of health or wellness related businesses there. It’s everything from branding, marketing, CPAs, executive coaches, personal stylists, data, analytics, you name it, health care companies, where again, the space itself serves as a recruitment tool. As the business is growing, they can hire people and say, “By the way, come work for us and we’re in this beautiful office space where you can take yoga if you want at noon, etc., etc.” That is the differentiator that we have the tools on site.
NYLP: So I want to read some names out there. WeWork, which you mentioned, General Assembly, Ally, The Wing, there’s a lot more. This is a very competitive space. You’re differentiator, which you mentioned is the focus on health. What’s to stop all of these big names with big money behind them to go into your lane?
Brian: Oh, it’s happening.
NYLP: It’s happening?
Brian: Yeah, it’s happening. It wasn’t long after we launched that we found out that WeWork had a WeWork Wellness Program.
Lisa: It was before we launched. Just a month or two before we opened.
Brian: Yeah it was right … yeah exactly. It was right before we launched. Now they’ve come out with the kind of mature version of it, which is Rise by We, which is a different product for sure. It’s a high end boutique fitness facility, much like Equinox. Our reaction to all of this was, “Let’s put our head down and do what we do best and see where the chips fall.” And we’re pretty happy where the chips are falling right now.
Lisa: 100%. I’ve always been a big believer, and anyone who knows me knows that especially being in New York City for two decades now, there is competition everywhere that you turn. So I have always been known to be someone who likes to function from the space of abundance. I’m a big believer that there is more than enough business out there for all of us. I think that the way to be successful and find success is to have sort of, as Brian said, head down, focus on executing at a high level, know that the cream rises to the top. So the mantra is, “Be the cream.” Whatever we can do to do that, is what we’re up to right now. Certainly we are peripherally aware that there is competition and in the market there are people who are doing similar things in the market. We’re committed to doing what we do very well.
NYLP: So you were the first employee at WeWork and you have certain insight as to this whole coworking environment. Why do you think coworking has taken off, and is not just a flash in the pan, that it’s more of a trend?
Lisa: Well, sheer numbers and data alone will tell you that it’s not a trend. This is an industry that’s been growing. I’m sure the numbers have even been increasing. But, 300, 400 plus percent a year globally for 8 years now, 9 years now. This is something that now traditional commercial landlords are looking to as a solution for vacancies that they have in their current buildings. Landlords are launching their own shared office space short term, fully furnished, turnkey office space rental concepts as well. So this is a shift in an industry globally. Period. I don’t know that there’s any … to me it’s not a trend anymore. This is 100% the way of the future.
In fact, we were looking at a space that we would really love to take a few floors in that’s here in central Manhattan, and we offered, the landlord countered, we countered again. There was a big pause and silence. We were saying to ourselves, “What the heck is happening over there? Are we up against a few other competitors?” The next thing we know, a month or two later, we get an email saying, “The landlord would like to have a call with you, Lisa.” I get on the phone with her … P.S. her. I love that it’s another woman. Not a lot of women in commercial real estate so it’s always nice to have another woman on the other side of the table.
She said, “I want to tell you that I apologize for the delay in countering. I will have you know that 75% of the offers that have been coming into my vacant space, my floors and my building, have been coming from coworking spaces.” It made me pause and say to myself, “wow. I really need to educate myself on what this business is and how it’s going to impact my business in the years to come.” Because what traditional landlords are accustomed to is having tenants who will come in who are credit secure tenants ready to sign a 5, 10 … 5 is minimum. Usually 10, 15, 20 year lease. And she said to herself, “I need to know what this market is where now my end user is someone whose end user is signing a month-to-month contract whereas first blush that seems like it could be a pretty volatile business in a down turned market.” So she said, by the way, that she went to a number of our competitors here in Manhattan and that we had absolutely created the nicest space she’s seen in Manhattan. I would be remiss to mention that.
Brian: Of course. Consummate PR here.
NYLP: You’ve hit on another point, Lisa, which is the point of your prospective landlord is, what happens in a down turn? Because co-working has expanded as the economy expanded after the financial crisis. Coworking hasn’t seen a recession yet.
Brian: The company that saw the biggest recession, Regis Executive Offices, still within that coworking vertical, if you will.
Lisa: Well, sorry I’m going to interject here to also just sort of lay the foundation in terms of terminology here, where co-working is a newer word that’s been used over the last decade. So maybe since 2010-ish, 2008-ish. What we have historically over the last 30 years, 30 years ago, providers like Regis, who were known as executive suite providers, where they did provide fully furnished, turn key executive suits to companies have been around for decades. Where WeWork really shifted the industry is that they then created fully enclosed “executive suites” but that had glass walls. So now you’ve create the feeling of coworking, which by is a large open space where people are working together in one room, but suddenly an executive suite provider, like WeWork, becomes known as coworking because of the glass walls. Thus, the landscape and the foundation for the coworking business really has been laid by them. Going back to 2008 in that down turn market, Brian..
Brian: I’ll use the term, “shared workspace” as the true kind of parent to this vertical. In the shared workspace world, the 2008 downturn, Regis actually saw an uptick. The data, and you can find a few articles on this, is that large companies contract and they go into middle sized companies and they need to downsize their large offices, sublet out and they need to find some temporary flexible offices. That’s exactly what they did. They moved into the Regis’s and those smaller organizations, mid-size to small size, they’re also going to contract and the really small guys will move out and move into other flexible space or their homes to work. It’s really when you see from the top down the largest companies starting to flex, they’re going to flex into the most flexible spaces. That’s really your answer as to, how will it affect shared workspaces when there is another down turn.
NYLP: And another important ingredient in your business is the lease, or in any shared working environment is the lease. WeWork has this valuation and they just bought their first building. You guys are as valuable as your lease. What happens in flexible working spaces when the lease is up?
Brian: Great question.
Lisa: I guess we’ll find out in 10 years.
Brian: The object is the space and the brand for us. Essentially, you want to carry that with you as long as you can. So when a 10 year lease is up, and a 15 year lease is up and by the way, we have a 10 year lease in our current flagship location, we would look 3 years before to really secure that space for a longer period of time or be making a shift in a close by location, especially here in Manhattan. But at the end of the day, we just have not experienced it, so we can’t speak that intelligently to what happens when we really get the screws tightened on us.
Lisa: Call us in 8 years.
NYLP: We’ll do the follow-up episode then.
Lisa: Totally.
NYLP: So the other thing that your landlord pointed out was that your space was better deigned than everyone else’s. Without, you don’t have to knock on the other people, but what makes your space better?
Lisa: I think feeling of course is the first word that comes into mind. It’s something that we talk a lot about with our team in the space is the feeling. It’s something that consistently with the tours and prospective members that come through, they comment in the first five, ten minutes that they’re in the space, they say kind of with an exhale, “I just love the way it feels in this space.” So I would say that a combination of the live greenery and the preserved moss walls, and the people that we have in this space on our team who greet people warmly, make them feel welcome and included in the space, it’s a combination of those factors that make the space feel different and “better” than other spaces that she had seen or been to in the city.
NYLP: Okay. How do you get that feeling? How do you get people to have that feeling?
Lisa: That’s the million dollar question, sure.
NYLP: Or the $20 billion question, which I think is the WeWork valuation right now.
Brian: I would say for us, I’m a little more right brained thinking on this, and scientifically how I think we’ve established it is a trifecta of sitting in intention to hold certain values in place for the overall brand and thus, the community and the members in the space. I’ll share with you our values are integrity, respect, honor, passion, love and joy. Those are really aspirational. It’s easy to say that but..
NYLP: How’d you come up with those?
Brian: Little work shopping of course. We had some help along the way early on. Some great connections of Lisa’s. So when setting up those values and setting the intention that this is how we’re going to build our team, this is how we’re going to build our brand, we’re going to hold true to these values, you then design the physical space around that, you design your staff around that, you design your community around that. So the trifecta to me is really setting the intention, physical design, and then community design.
People have talked about curating the space. Curating the space for membership. It was actually a discussion for us very early on before we opened. Would we do an application and it would be a little more exclusive or not? We really looked to the values and said, “well that’s just not who we are. We’re not an exclusive group that doesn’t speak to our values. We want everybody that-”
Lisa: Inclusivity.
Brian: Yeah, “wants to share these values.” Inclusivity, exactly, “to be a part of this.” So that was a natural point to us to be able to look to and we discuss it often, in how the space is curated. So people that come in and feel that it’s a place with respect and love and integrity, when they’re out of integrity or they’re not very loving to their fellow member of the space, it’s not going to feel right for them.
Lisa: They’re not going to be drawn to the brand and to what we’re creating. That’s what we certainly say also as we’re giving tours and creating the community right now. We are characterizing what we’re committed to creating. The more that we can do that, the more that we’re drawing the people that are a great fit to the community and will help is to create that feeling.
I think it’s important for us to mention also inspiration certainly that I have and that I share with Brian and with our team a lot, which is the good fortune that I had being an employee at Union Square Café the first 3 years that I was in New York and working with Danny Meyer who is an icon in the restaurant industry and hospitality industry and known for creating a feeling in his restaurants. I think that the human capital component, hiring great people, which he talks about in his book “Setting the Table”, is key to having that Midas touch that creates the feeling. He hires people who are what he calls 51 percenters. 49% of what they possess are technical skills. He believes that you can teach someone what the vitals are in wine or the ingredients in a dish, but you can’t teach them to care for people and to want to go above and beyond to meet and exceed customer expectations. So he really looks to hire 51 percenters and that’s certainly something that we’re looking to do as well.
NYLP: So you establish these brand values. What was it like recruiting those first members that shared those values and how did you find them?
Brian: It was easy.
NYLP: It was easy?
Brian: Yeah, the first group was easy because it truly was the BNI group.
NYLP: What’s BNI?
Brian: I have to differ to Lisa here as she’s the BNI expert.
Lisa: BNI. It’s a global networking organization, stands for Business Network International. It’s been around about 30 years. It’s in, I don’t even know, 72 different countries, about 230,000 members in the world. 1,500 or so here in Manhattan. It’s a networking organization that is differentiated from others because there is only one professional per industry per chapter that’s formed. The very simple philosophy of the organization is, “Givers gain.” So there’s a sort of understanding or philosophy that’s characterized to new members that are coming into the organization so that they know and agree and subscribe to the idea that if I give to other people, naturally it will come back to me. There’s not expectation that if I give to this person they will give back to me.
This is a networking organization I’ve been a part of for the last decade as a leader and seen a lot of success there. A lot of learning for myself as a business professional and no doubt that when I launched this company with Brian, a lot of the people who took space with us, a lot of the vendors who helped us to get off the ground came from this networking organization, from BNI.
NYLP: This is a very capital intensive business.
Brian: Absolutely, yeah.
Lisa: Yes. Especially in New York City.
NYLP: How hard was it to raise money?
Brian: Also easy.
NYLP: Also easy?
Brian: Also easy.
NYLP: How much money did you need to raise?
Brian: For our plan, we needed to raise $6 million and we raised it. I say, “also easy.” So caveat to this, we’re currently in Series A round and looking to expand. Not quite as easy as the initial seed fund. But this is coming back to the origin story for Lisa and her experience with WeWork, her connections, her kind of powerhouse stature in this marketplace was the boost for our seed fund. There’s an existing relationship there, where cards just lined up.
Take a couple steps back. We got married in October of 2014 and went on an amazing trip for our honeymoon, about 3 months. Towards the middle of the trip, Lisa started discussing, “What’s next? What am I going to do?” We had already been talking about the idea of a shared workspace. But we certainly weren’t looking at is as, “Okay let’s go to New York and launch this thing.”
Lisa: We were thinking about Portland.
Brian: Yeah, we were thinking about raising a family in Portland, coaching other potential businesses. It wasn’t this. Then just really serendipitous, when we got back from the honeymoon, very soon after there was a phone call that went out to Lisa about coming to New York and looking to potentially join another shared workspace to help them grow their brand. We flew out to New York and spent, what? A day or two with them, exploring their locations, having conversations with them, and it just wasn’t a great fit. Wasn’t a cultural fit between the leadership of their business and us.
Then simultaneously, WeWork reached back out and there was a conversation between Lisa and … can I say who? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lisa and Adam. Lisa and Adam where-
NYLP: One of the co-founders.
Brian: One of the co-founders at WeWork where he asked her to come back to WeWork to take on a special project to help create community and take a look at what was going on in community building within the organization. This was where the light bulb really went off for her where she said, “I have this idea. I’m being asked back to WeWork. I’m being asked to potentially join this organization. I need to launch my own.” The gentleman that actually arrange the visit with the other shared workspace to come work with them is out seed investor. Lisa called them up and said, “listen, I don’t want to do that, but I’m ready to launch my own.” And he said, “Come back to New York and I’ll fund it.” So that is the short version.
NYLP: That’s a wonderful story, but one of the things that..
Brian: Doesn’t always happen like that, of course not.
Lisa: We’re lucky, very lucky.
NYLP: It seems like it’s all been easy. But it can’t be.
Lisa: Oh God no.
Brian: We’re glorifying it, it’s a podcast. We’ll get down and dirty.
Lisa: Ph my God no. I’m so happy to share the-
NYLP: Yeah, what is the hard part?
Lisa: -the book. Oh my God. You know, our broker who represented us in the ten year lease at 26 Broadway said to me at one point along the way, he said, “I hope you’re keeping track of all this because this is a book.” We just had so many little walls that we hit in the journey of trying to open this business and get it off the ground. So many learnings. It’s probably why we’re so excited to go into expansion mode because we’re so clear about how we’re going to do things better and more efficiently and be more effective and fuller, faster, more profitable more quickly. A month before we opened we found a major, major error in our financial model where we over projected a huge part of our revenue. One that … yeah right, where is the podcast going to go out to? I don’t know but-
NYLP: The whole world.
Lisa: One that effectively, I don’t know if we would have signed this lease if we had found the error before we signed the lease and..
Brian: We would have done a very different deal I think or at least taken pause on this. But it all worked out in the end.
NYLP: Which one of you was responsible for the financial model?
Lisa: Oh gosh, everybody. Who wasn’t?
Brian: I would say one of the painful things about that is we actually had a … currently have an outsourced CFO, we had a different outsourced CFO. Resume was sterling, former Goldman employee, did this for a living, outsourced CFO worked, modeled a lot, and nobody picked it up. Nobody picked it up.
Lisa: Apparently this happens. I’ve certainly leaned into another of other entrepreneurs and business owners that I know at this point and said to them, advisors that I had for the business now at this point and I say, “Do you check every single formula in your financial model that you’ve paid thousands of dollars to trust an expert to create and put together?” And I’ve had varying answers. I’ve had one advisor who says, “Oh yes, I check every single formula.” And I’ve had people who say, “absolutely not. I don’t check every formula, that’s what I’m paying that person for.” So I know that it runs the gambit, it just depends on the type of person that you have at the helm or whatever it is. The bottom line is that we didn’t check every single formula and unfortunately the formula that was not correct..
Brian: And now we do.
Lisa: Yeah, right. The formula that wasn’t correct was one that was a really big impact. So we just learned, and this is as you said, a capital intensive business. So we have learned a lot as it related to the commercial construction and build out process, dealing with all these different contractors and vendors has been hellacious. New York City.
Brian: I would say that’s been the kind of biggest pain point, at least for me. The model thing was not a great experience. It was a big trip at the beginning. But the relationship with the contractors and going through the process, the build-out, was excruciating to me. Especially even in the light of, we had a lot of experience on our side. Danny, who lead the project, and not faulting Danny here. He is our other partner and he had a lot of experience managing retail build-outs and build-outs with WeWork. It’s just that it’s the nature of the business a little bit. There’s a lot of unsavory stuff. Stuff you can’t plan for. So now going through that experience the first time, I think we’re light years ahead of the game.
Lisa: The stereotypes exist for a reason. Then we also just had lots of little things. The nuts and bolts and mechanics of launching a business. Little things like, how we looked at each other and we’re like, “oh my God, if these handles fall off these phone booth doors one more time I’m going to jump to out the window from the eighth floor onto the charging bowl.” Now we know, don’t use those handles ever again. Or for example, we had little pieces of metal that hold our glass sliding doors of our offices up that we got from China and we were 26 short and we contacted the manufacturer and they don’t make them anymore so I had to contact my custom metal gentleman who I know from BNI thank goodness, who custom prepared 26 pieces of metal for us to be able to put doors on offices when we first opened.
There were, not to mention, PS we have an 8 month old and a 27 month old baby. So I’ve also been pregnant for a lot of the last two and half years. And by the way for any women who are listening, I don’t … or men who have partners who are women and they’re thinking about going into business together. I don’t recommend having children and launching a massive company at the same time. But it’s just kind of what happened for us.
Brian: Unless you have a really huge appetite for risk. Then you’re fine, go for it.
Lisa: We do. We obviously do. But yeah, so much learning. I didn’t pay myself as much as I would like to have for more than half of the year last year. A lot of learning. Now we are in a place again where, thank goodness, just over a year a half in, we are a 100% full owner offices, we have an incredibly palatable positive energy that we’ve created in the spaces by virtue of really staying strongly, clearly articulate in what the vision and mission is in what we’re creating. We’re attracting all of these great people and it’s a really great space to be in as we move into a time of expansion. But 100% we have been, just like the textbook says, experiencing days in the life of entrepreneurs. Ups and downs, ups and downs, many all in one day.
NYLP: You mentioned that WeWork looked to have you back, other co-working spaces were looking to have you. What do you think was their deficiency that they were trying cure, or what were they trying to enhance? And you can run with this question any way that you want. The other side of it is, why do you think some coworking spaces don’t do well? Or what do you think coworking spaces aren’t doing well?
Brian: I’m going to answer it on a little broader scope, what do businesses not do well? I think Lisa is a superstar and that’s why she was asked back to WeWork and that’s why she was asked to run a different co-working company.
NYLP: And you’re not just saying that as her husband?
Brian: No, no. I feel like I’m pretty pragmatic and I would say, “I can’t work with you if this wasn’t working.” But this is an adventure and it’s fun and it’s great to be next to a superstar and being married to her too. That’s just the way it is. All right, enough gushing.
So to answer your question, I think it’s a really new industry honestly. People are looking to position themselves to just establish a brand with traction. I think that’s why she was really asked to the first company that there’s not a lot of brands out there. If you go outside of New York City and you say, “I work for a co-working company.” Or, “Do you know what a co-working company is?” Most people, at least about a year ago, it’s been awhile since I’ve asked that question, but at least about a year ago, it’s a 50/50 shot if anybody knows what co-working is. And then, if they know what co-working is, they most likely know what WeWork is, but they don’t know anybody else.
So there’s not that much penetration of shared … again, coming back to the parent, shared work space, but co-working out there. It has really taken off. We’re really on the rise right now at the beginning of this wave of the industry. So it’s really palpable in New York. But around the globe, around the nation, not so much, so back to establishing brand.
The second part is, at least as it pertains to being asked back to WeWork, when you launch a brand, everybody wants to latch on to the why of the brand. Why does this resonate to me? Why is this brand presenting their services or their product in this way? For Apple’s why, I think they want to present really clean, elegant technology that makes your life more efficient. I just made that up on the spot. I have no idea if that’s what they really want to do.
Lisa: Yeah, sounds right.
Brian: But WeWork’s why, I can’t say definitively what their why is, but I think originally they really wanted to build the largest community of physical networking possible.
Lisa: 100%.
Brian: Would you say that’s right?
Lisa: On my first morning working with Adam, I met him by the way at a BNI meeting.
NYLP: Is this a podcast or a commercial for BNI?
Lisa: I know right? I literally went into my meeting and I was in the mortgage business. I said, “I’m done with the mortgage business and I don’t know what I’m going to do next.” And I said, “I’m looking for opportunities.” And that day the guest of a guest was Adam Newman the founder of WeWork and I talked to him that afternoon, met with his partner Friday and five days later started with him as the first employee and eight o’clock that morning he sent me an email that said, “Good morning. Let’s create the world’s largest physically networked community.” And that’s what they’ve done. Well done. Unbelievably inspirational. They are setting the industry standard and holding the bar very high for all of us.
Brian: Yeah. I think, I’m just coming back to that answer, if they were asking Lisa to come back potentially they’re coming off center a little bit from that why and saying, “what is it that is potentially detracting potential members from our space? Are we executing on that value proposition that we put out there originally?” And quite frankly Lisa’s strength is networking. She’s talked about it here, and BNI. We’ve talked about it as it relates to Primary. So if you can have a superstar on your team that kind of brings that back to center of, this is what the brand is offering and this is why it’s offering, then why not bring her in?
NYLP: One of the things that you guys are offering that we really didn’t get to touch on is the health benefits and the fitness classes that you offer. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Lisa: Brian should talk about this. Brian started as our chief wellness officer and has become now COO, chief snack officer, according to one initial piece of press that came to when we first opened.
Brian: That was random, yeah.
NYLP: What’s a good snack Brian?
Brian: What’s a good snack? What’s delicious? Whatever’s delicious is a good snack.
Lisa: That’s our favorite type of food is delicious.
Brian: I’m not a health nut in a sense that it’s got to be super clean and not sugary or not too salty. It just has to be delicious and then you can kind of figure out the moderation.
Lisa: What are our snacks that we have in our café?
Brian: So right now we have some really good almonds, some coconut chocolate minis that we just had before we came over here.
Lisa: Really good vegan pastries also.
Brian: Really good vegan pastries from Brooklyn Whiskers. We have the early bird granola bars. Have you ever seen those?
NYLP: I have not. But that just means I have to go to your space soon.
Brian: There you go, there you go. By the way we cycle through those in the season. Good amount of beverage choices from…
Lisa: Kombucha. We’re pretty big Kombucha fans in our family.
Brian: Kombucha, coconut water, watermelon juice and a lot of other different juices from our providers. I won’t get into the product presentation here.
Lisa: But the point is, is that we have wellness as it were sort of offerings on-site, and that’s a big part of our differentiator. So it’s certainly a question that we are asked is how much engagement do we have as it relates to those offerings. So Brian and I…
NYLP: That was going to be my next question.
Lisa: Like to say … yeah see right on point –
NYLP: You’re answering the questions before they’re asked.
Lisa: Well done, well done. Well, 25% of the community are really, fully engaged, regularly attending classes, always at the boot camp at noon on Monday. There’s another 25% of the community that’s loosely engaged, periodically attending classes.
Brian: I call it once a week is the loosely engaged.
Lisa: And then there’s 50% of the community that really is potentially doesn’t care about the classes that are there. They’re maybe there, combination the location works for them, they love the ambiance and the vibe, but they’re fine leaving work and going to their gym or yoga class, whatever is in their neighborhood, running, walking, biking, whatever it is that they do for fitness or nothing. Certainly some people there. So our intention is not to, impart or force anyone to do anything wellness related, fitness related that they don’t want to do. The idea is to have those offerings at arm’s reach so that it can be more convenient. We’ve had members join who had an Equinox membership for example and they joined and said, “Oh well, it’s right here, a walk down the hall. I actually let go of my gym membership and now I just take classes at Primary.”
NYLP: What are some of the classes?
Brian: So largely programmed with yoga. And then I would say the … I’m not going to call them just boot camp, but more cardio intensive classes. So HIT is definitely on the scene right now. SO for those that don’t know what HIT is, it’s High Intensity Interval Training. It’s basically, I was actually having a conversation about this earlier, all styles of fitness really are derived from back in the day, even go back to caveman time and you link it all to that. But essentially, it’s getting your heart rate up. It’s moving in many different plains and jumping around a lot. But the higher intensity classes, the more cardio based classes, there’s about, I think four to five a week and then I think around ten yoga classes. We have a Pilates class that we just put on the schedule for the season and then a few meditations throughout the week.
NYLP: And those are all hours of the day?
Brian: Most of our classes are offered during normal business hours. We actually found a little bit to our surprise that most people don’t want to work out before lunch. Really the heart of the best time to offer classes has been lunch time until the end of the workday, although right after the workday ends, at least in New York City, six o’clock. Six thirty is a good time as well. So the majority of our classes start between [11:00] A.M. and [6:30] P.M.
NYLP: What are the hours of Primary?
Brian: Well Primary is technically 24/7 but we staff Primary between [8:30] and [5:30] every day.
Lisa: We have people who have co-working memberships or office space memberships with us that are businesses based in Australia or New Zealand or the UK, so they’re doing business with other international markets. So they’re typically the ones that are there later in the evening or weekends or what have you. But we’re also pleased to say that when we walk through the space, seven, eight o’clock at night or on the weekends, there aren’t a lot of people there. So, where WeWork’s motto that is often splashed around is #hustleharder, we would say that our motto is probably “hustle smarter.” We believe that you don’t have to work harder to be more productive and that you can actually, when you take care of yourself, and again, sort of body, mind and spirit and what have you, you can actually be more productive and you don’t have to be at work all the time.
I know that they’re really, part of their why at this point is talking about wanting to create a life for yourself. There are certainly, as it related to “competitors” coming into the market, Noehouse, The Assemblage is opening here in New York, I think what they’re doing is combining elements. They’re combining social club and workspace, hotel, co-living spaces, they’re bringing a lot of different things together. Something that we’re talking about a lot recently, is that at least at this stage, we’re not aspiring to be a lot of different things to people. We’re not necessarily looking to create a life for people.
So to that end, we’re not a competitor to WeWork in that we are very clear that we are creating beautiful workspace where people feel inspired and productive and happy to come to work, and they’re okay to leave and go home and do the other things that they do in their life outside of their Primary hours.
NYLP: How do your prices compare to the other co-working spaces?
Lisa: They’re comparable. We’re right in there. Maybe we’re a $100 or so more than our competitors and it’s because we have the classes included. The sort of more refined, potentially very professionally polished atmosphere where it skews a little bit more adult, if you will. There’s not as many millennials in our space.
Brian: We’ve been called the “co-working for grownups.”
Lisa: Harper’s Bazaar I think called us that. We appreciate it. We’ll take it.
Brian: We use it a lot on tours or around the space.
Lisa: Yep.
NYLP: Co-working for grown ups. You touched on this a little bit, but what’s it like doing business in New York? The good and the bad.
Brian: Well coming back to the construction side, I don’t know how many times I say to different people, “commercial real estate in New York City.” It’s mostly the construction side, but a little bit on the business transaction side as well, the administrative side.
NYLP: Full contact sport.
Brian: Hal, what do you think of commercial real estate in New York?
NYLP: You’re turning this on me on my day job, but I’m the podcast interviewer, so I have to ask you.
Brian: It’s personified in New York. Everybody knows there’s amazing energy here. I constantly think, it’s so cliché, but I constantly think because I’ve only been here three years now, that if you can make it here you can make it anywhere. It pertains to what we’re doing as it related to this business for sure. We were tested in a few small ways today. But we have stuff thrown at us every day where I would say our integrity is constantly tested. We try and hold a high standard for ourselves and act at the utmost level and when you have people that are not, how do you respond to that? The way I’ve actually described it.
We have a new project manager on our team, and I say, “You can stand there and say, ‘I’m not going to stoop to that level,’ or ‘I’m not going to get into that game.’ But if everybody around you is doing it, are you just going to sit there and keep taking it on the chin?” And the answer is no. You learn that you can’t just keep taking it on the chin and you learn, not necessarily how to play the game, I don’t like that expression. But you learn how to operate with such integrity and such passion that you stand for what you stand for. And you don’t just take it. Sometimes that means you have to walk away from a deal or walk away from a conversation or just keep pushing at the level of respect that you’re demanding that makes somebody else bend.
NYLP: What’s an example of how your integrity was tested?
Brian: Today or any time recently?
NYLP: Today or any day.
Brian: I’ll give you a good small example. There’s a little bit of game as it relates to bringing in the internet into buildings. It’s acknowledged amongst many people that work in fiber internet offerings that to be in a building, you either have to be one of the big companies or you have to pay your way in. Landlords and building managers and different people, and they’ll at least comment on other people’s stories. They’ll say you have to pay up or you have to figure out a way to convince somebody in a not so ethical way to get the internet into the building. We knew about this, we negotiated an opportunity to bring in whoever we wanted into our expansion deals and we’re just facing it exactly head on right now where we have it written into our particular lease. We went through the due diligence of having the company that we want to bring into the building come out to the building and do the survey work and deliver a report that says, “We can easily come into the building and here’s how it will happen.” And now there’s pushback.
All we’re doing is just being persistent about what the lease states, that we have a report in our hands and asking for full clarity and full participation from all parties. You can see it happening in real time. When somebody is not acting with integrity and everybody or at least enough people are acting with integrity around them, they’re challenged. That person or that group of people then have to kind of show up to the table and put their cards on the table and say … and we haven’t been asked for money or anything like that yet. Yet. But they have to show their cards and say, “I’m doing something that is unsavory.” Or, “I’m not going to and here you go, here’s your access.”
NYLP: And so, you’re still waiting on internet.
Brian: We’re still … yes. There’s not a hurry.
Lisa: We are.
Brian: There’s not a hurry, but yes, we are still waiting.
Lisa: We’ll see. Check back with us in six months.
NYLP: So you talked about the pros and the cons of starting Primary in New York. Do you think it will ever expand beyond New York?
Lisa: 100%. Oh yeah, we’re already in conversations to be beyond New York. I very often say, “My vision is not to become the Starbucks or McDonalds of coworking.” I don’t want to be on every street corner where you can see the next one from the one where you’re standing. I think that there is room in the market for us to create something really special and we could have four to five, six locations in really urban centrally located metropolitan cities. So we’d love to have four to six locations here in Manhattan. We’re already looking at LA. We’ve looked lightly at Austin, San Francisco, Toronto, London. We’re in conversations with an investor right now to open a new location or two in Melbourne in Australia. So it’s super exciting. We talked to someone today about opening in Barcelona. We’re getting notes from people around the world saying, “When are you opening in XYZ city?” Which is really cool with some of the press that we’ve gotten.
People really love the idea of having a space where they can feel great at work. Our motto is, “You work best when you feel great.” So we are really committed to creating spaces where people feel great at work.
NYLP: And let’s take this back to the very beginning, the husband and wife co-founders. What’s it been like working together? What’s one funny story each that you have?
Lisa: Funny story.
NYLP: Or you can do any story. I just was going to go funny.
Lisa: Funny haha, or funny-
Brian: Funny painful. I’m trying to think of a funny …
Lisa: A story. I don’t know if I have one story while you’re thinking. I’d say that it’s been really challenging. I go back to that comment that I made that I don’t recommend that you have two small children and launch a massive company at the same time. I mean, it really has been a big test for Brian and I and a test of the foundation of our relationship. We are very happy I’m sure, to openly share that four months ago we started therapy. We said to ourselves, four or five months ago, “Do we get a business coach to help us as co-founders and partners? Or do we get a therapist?” Because for us, as husband and wife, especially with small children now, it was very blurred, the lines and the boundaries between co-founders, CEO, COO, husband and wife, mother, father. There were no boundaries. We talk about business at 11 o’clock or 1 o’clock in the morning, in bed, in the shower, in the bathtub. Do I respond to you now as your wife or as your co-founder?
We regularly say those types of things to each other. He says to me, “Do you want me to answer as your husband or as your co-founder?” It’s good to at least be able to articulate that and have that distinction. So therapy has been very helpful for us. I’m sure we won’t continue forever, but it’s been a really important part of remembering that why we’re doing this is because I had a dream and a vision. Why he’s doing this is because her loves and believes in me. He can certainly expand upon that. I think he’s also really inspired and moved in the sense that we are creating really something special in the world for people and business owners.
There’s no question, it has been extremely challenging. A lot of people look to us and say, “how do you work together and spend so much time together?” We also didn’t open a 500 square foot jewelry store. We are a 25,000 square foot office space where we’re in expansion mode. So there are days that we go home together at the end of the day and Brian says, “hey, how was your day?” Because we actually, even though our desks are right next to each other, we don’t even see each other a lot throughout the day because we’re in different meetings and so focused on different aspects of the business and a really playing to each other’s strengths. I think that we’ve had the good fortune of finding that we really do have different strengths. We’ve literally taken Clifton Strengths Finders test to see what our strengths are and how we can play to one another’s strengths. So we’ve been very lucky to that extent. But it hasn’t come without challenges along the way.
Brian: I’m still trying to think of a funny story. I can think of bits and pieces of funny moments from different events and parties that have gone on. I do remember this one in particular. I don’t know why it’s coming up. But I’ll just tell it.
One of the best events that has happened at our space since it’s been around is called the Fireside Chat. We did them last Spring, Summer time frame, where Lisa hosted a panel discussion and a couple times a one on one discussion with a relatively well known New York City entrepreneur. And you were getting ready to go up on stage to start the chat. I can’t remember who it was, but it was the most packed one, and I was in the hallway. Usually I’m setting up the AV for the events and scrambling and getting all situated. So she’s the star of the event, I’m getting everything set up and then she goes to kiss me right before she walks up on stage and there’s a bunch of people standing around us looking and she goes, “Did you just smoke weed?”
Lisa: I did? I don’t remember this.
Brian: Yeah, do you remember? “Did you just …” and it was out of nowhere. And there’s a bunch of people standing around me. I don’t even think I shared this with her, but she walks up there, she goes and does her thing, and I’m sitting there and all these people are standing around me looking at me like, “What? What was that? Did you just go smoke?” And I was like, “No, I didn’t. I don’t know what she’s smelling on my breath.” It was a funny and weird interaction at the same time. I was like, that’s just life as a married couple.
Lisa: It’s possible. You typically separate the two.
Brian: I typically separate the two. Yes. Try to.
Lisa: Taking in extracurricular social activities.
Brian: Yeah.
NYLP: Last question, and I’m going to hold you to this one. In one of your spaces will you ever have a podcast studio?
Brian: We did.
Lisa: We had one and we took it down.
Brian: Yeah.
Lisa: We literally are actually dismantling it officially to the final end on April second.
Brian: It’s 90% dismantled.
Lisa: We had a production studio.
NYLP: And you’re sharing this right now? This is terrible.
Lisa: We had a production studio.
Brian: It’s somebody’s office right now, that’s why.
Lisa: We took all the sound tiles off the walls. It looks crazy in there, we gave them a discounted fee and they’ve been using it as their office and they’re moving out. We’re cleaning up the walls and officially booking it as a real office. But we did have it. We’re a new business. We did some pivoting and we realized that due to that mistake we learned in the beginning, as many ways as we can generate revenue right now is super important for us as we expand. So we took down the production studio.
Brian: We’ll have one in the future.
Lisa: We will 100% have one and you will be one of the first, if not the first to host..
Brian: How about you christen the studio when we’re open and you can do the first podcast?
NYLP: I told you I was going to hold you to that answer, so I’m absolutely going to hold you to that.
Lisa: 100%.
NYLP: And that is a wonderful note to end things on. How do people find out more about you and Primary?
Brian: Liveprimary.com. If you’re more of a social butterfly online, liveprimary are our call signs on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. But don’t use Twitter too much.
Lisa: Yeah. You know, we’re in 2018 Hal, listen, Primary.com was taken by a children’s clothing company. We wanted to live Primary, so liveprimary.com is the URL and handle.
NYLP: And where is the coworking space?
Lisa: We’re here in the financial district in Manhattan, we have the 8th floor overlooking the Charging Bull. We’re opening the third floor and we are opening on 30th street between 7th and 8th in August and hoping to be in Central Manhattan somewhere near Madison Square or Union Square in the months ahead as well.
NYLP: Lisa Skye Hain, Brian Hain, thank you for stepping onto New York Launch Pod and sharing your time with us.
Lisa: Thank you so much for having us.
Brian: Thank you. It was a pleasure.
NYLP: And if you want to learn more about the New York Launch Pod, you can visit, NYLaunchpod.com, follow us on social media, @NYLaunchpod, and if you enjoyed this episode, you can see the transcript at NYLaunchpod.com. If you are a super fan you can leave a review on iTunes and apple podcasts. It does help people discover the podcast and is really appreciated.
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