Five Months with WeWorkLabs

This post is being reposted from my WeWork Labs co-founder, Matt's, blog.

  

WeWork Labs is approaching its five month anniversary, so I thought it’d be fun to take a moment and look back.

 

For those who don’t know about WeWork Labs, it is an incubator/accelerator/co-working hybrid that Adam, Jesse, and I co-founded in April because of a need that we saw for early stage tech startups here in New York.  The space is a bit different than others in the City, as our main goal is to help the startups outgrow our space as quickly as possible.  

 

Since April:

• 58 entrepreneurs that comprise over 30 companies have called or currently call WeWork Labs home
• We’ve amassed a growing membership wait list that is approaching 200
• Over $1.5 million dollars has been raised by WeWork Lab startups and with more to be announced in the near future
• Startups in WeWork Labs have made their way to great accelerator programs such as AngelPad, 500 Startups, and TechStars
• We’ve had angel investors and VCs host office hours with members in the space from companies such as High Peaks Venture Partners, Softbank, Hearst, Centurion Venture Partners, and many more
• We’ve held numerous events in the space including demo days, happy hours, WilmerHales’ summer legal series, member run lunch-and-learns, and lunch with JWT’s Chief Creative Digital Officer and Director of Trendspotting

It goes without saying, if it were not for our terrific sponsors - WilmerHale, JWT, Boxee, PepsiCo, and Spencer Adler - none of this would be possible.  All of us in the WeWork Labs family truly appreciate everything that you do.

 

Lastly, I don’t think Jesse and I say it enough, but we really do feel lucky to have so many wonderful people that have helped us with WeWork Labs.  This is especially true for those in our own startups, who have thankfully not gotten too mad at us for taking on this additional task.  Thank you so much Mike, Andrew, Eric, Yin, Matt, Lisa, and Orlando for all of your help and support.

It's not about the mistakes you make but how much you treat people like people

For those of you that don't know (or don't live in NY), I'm a huge fan of VillageVines. They let me book a reservation at many of the coolest restaurants in New York for $10 and when I show up the restaurant gives me 30% off my whole check including alcohol without any coupons! It's a pretty sweet deal and Magda and I use it quite often to go out on date nights.

On Saturday night I had a lot of people in town visiting. Friends from Philadelphia, another from New Jersey (gross) and my grandparents from Pennsylvania. So I did what any other sane person should do when he needed dinner for 8 people... I booked a reservation at one of the cool spots on VillageVines. It recently opened in midtown and it's called Serra Bistro.

We showed up a bit before 7:30pm and this is where it got interesting. The host/manager was very friendly. Our waiter came over and asked what we'd like to drink and then realized we had no wine list. When he returned with them I ordered two bottles. He brought them over and opened them both, put the cork back in one and then walked away. No tasting or pouring. We did this ourselves instead.

There were a number of other issues with the meal. Two dishes came out wrong. Another was not at all what the waiter had explained to us but what happened next is what saved the meal and turned all 8 of us into fans of the place.

After the manager realized what was going he walked over and apologized. He told us the waiter was new and that they would be sure to take care of us. Next the owner stopped by and said the same thing and brought us a bottle of dessert wine. He poured it for everyone and left the rest of the bottle for us to enjoy, on the house. After this the executive chef came out. He brought us four desserts that were all out of this world. One of them was especially creative with a giant dome of drizzled sugar. They didn't stop there though.

As I ooo'd and ahh'd at the sugar dome the chef asked if I'd like to see how it was done. He invited me back to the kitchen to check it out and even let me try to make one (I failed). When I walked back out he followed me and then showed the whole table how it was done. The owner brought over a candle and placed it in the middle to make it all even prettier.

Now some would say that the free dessert wine and the desserts would be what turned the meal around but it wasn't that at all. It was the fact that the people that worked there cared enough about us to try to turn the meal around. And they succeeded. The treated us like real people and gained 8 new customers that will come back (and however many people I can send over there). They turned a bad experience into a good one by being nice.

No matter how bad you screw up just make sure you take the time to think about who was affected and how you could make it just a little bit better. An honest sorry goes a long, long way.

@Shakeshack 3 with nextNY was pretty amazing

Last week, I was fortunate enough to get invited to an event that showed me that New Yorkers could throw not only huge shindigs where everyone wants to meet the upper echelon of people but also a much smaller, intimate event where people just wanted to be people. I responded to Charlie O'Donnell's post entitled "@Shakeshack 3 Recap" with the following:

As I've mentioned to everyone that's asked me about the evening -- This was the best tech event that I've been to while living here in New York (almost a full year). It wasn't because of the caliber of people or even the awesome burgers and fries, shakes (of which I drank too many) or wine but because it felt like everyone there was both passionate about what they are working on and not afraid of mingling with everyone else.

Everyone felt approachable and no one felt above the rest of the crowd. From VC to startup junkie, people could chat, drink together and simply make new friends without having to think about an end goal. While I'm sure some people took advantage of the opportunity to rub shoulders (which is great too), most were just there to take a break from the daily grind and hang with great people.

If there's another event like this soon, I highly recommend you attend it to experience what I did last week. I know I'll be back for more.

Helping out the local rock stars at NWC

The guys and gals of New Work City, an awesome coworking space in - you guessed it, New York City - is raising money to help with the renovations at their new space.  NWC provides space, support and fun for local entrepreneurs and independent-type people.

It was started by a small group that used to work out of a small space and has now grown up to need a larger space (it's huge and is perfect for this kind of work) down off of Canal Street.  Now that they've signed the lease they are ready to make it home.  You can support these guys by pitching in a bit of moolah on Kickstarter (or using the widget below).

If you have questions about what they do, feel free to post them here or reach out to those guys direct.