YouSaid · the spoken record

Miguel McKelvey

lines on the record: 78
first: 2018-09-03
most recent: 2018-09-03
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“No primarily because I've been doing all the hard work for the last I mean literally from nineteen ninety six or whenever it was 95 when I started architecture school and I committed to the work like I've worked nonstop since then and I don't mean like literally I mean a lot of it was hours, but I mean it more like commitment like I've been committed to the work and interested and engaged with the work since then nonstop and I think that's part of the thing is that I found something that I loved to do and I felt what it feels like to love what you do and I've never been willing to give that up and I've been on that track ever since.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, that's a great way of looking at it. I don't think I've heard it stated that way, but I think it's really true. And it's not just those things, which I think TechBoom is important, but it's also a shift in what people are looking for in their life and what their expectations are from work. Because there's a major shift happening in terms of young people thinking about going to work every day and what do they want back from that. People don't want to punch the clock anymore and then have their life start when they leave the office. They want their life to be integrated. They want to feel like there's value in what they do every day. And that's part of the environment that we create. You know, you can get that, say you're working at Google, Facebook, whatever, super cool office, you know, maybe you feel this vibe. But when you're a small company or say you're working for a bank or one of these places that isn't inherently as cool, you may not get that as easy. And what we're offering is something where you're an independent worker or you're a small company of two people or you're like a division.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But then once you cross that threshold, it's sort of like the other one's going from there. And first of all, I wouldn't complain about the fact that I get to live in Manhattan and I live in a nice apartment and I'm living, you know, I moved to an apartment with an awesome view. And that's a childhood dream to like see the New York City skyline. So I've reached those thresholds where I live a great life. And that's awesome. But beyond that, I don't have like some big ambition for money. It's not really interesting to me. It's more, again, like to be on a path where I feel like I get to continue to engage in something. That's what matters.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a good question. It's interesting to think about the times at which these things hit you. And I would say I remember calling my friends when we were first reaching a billion dollar valuation. Actually, I can remember dinner with one of my best friends when we were at 130. And he was like, oh my God, 130. Like, are you going to sell and retire? And I was like, what? Like, why would I do that? This is so much fun, you know, no chance. When we got to a billion, I remember feeling pretty bashful about even saying the words. Like I remember almost feeling like, wow, I don't want to send this in a text message because it's going to sound so preposterous. Like I want to call and only say it verbally.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, but the value is irrelevant, right? To the business problem, like who cares how much money you're worth when you're facing a business problem that is always evolving and that your primary interest is in solving it in a better way? So our primary reason for existing is trying to help other people succeed. So our problem is like if they change, we change and it's sort of symbiotic in that way, right? And that's why I think we don't really have a finish line. It's not like, hey, we're going to figure out some model and then we roll it out across the globe. It doesn't work that way for us at all. So that challenge will never stop. We'll have the learning curve forever, which is what makes it awesome. And Adam and I, when we talked about this, we're like, this is a hundred year challenge. It's not like, hey, we're building companies so we can sell it and move on. We're doing this because we think this is the most interesting and biggest challenge we can work on. And so let's just keep on it forever.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, it's a great question. One of the things that we're holding on to very tightly is the feeling that we're still figuring it out every day, that nothing we've done so far is the right answer.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I think what we did was we built fast. We built inexpensively and we turned around deals really quick and we were successful. You know, we built up credibility because each location that we did worked and we did what we said we're going to do. We weren't like, say, a tech startup where it's like, oh, there's some, you know, hockey stick growth and all of a sudden we're going to have millions of users or whatever. But we were really clear that we're going to continue to grow. And the vibe in the buildings was unique and it was super cool. And when people came in, they could tell it was something different just on walking in the door would be like, wow, this is something I haven't seen before. And that validation of both the business is successful. It really works. The sort of fundamentals of the business are really good. And then we're like, you know, we're cool guys and we have a good story and we're here at the right time. And, you know, those things all added up.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it was great, and we're still good friends with him, and everything is awesome. But that was the first step in the first money that we took as investment.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So he didn't give us the cash. Okay. But he committed to it. He gave us some of the cash a little bit to start and then a little bit more over time. And that's actually a really great story in the sense that he empowered us to think really big because we started out with this valuation that sort of validated our picture of the future, which was really big.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so he said, yes, he said, okay, I want to be a third partner. And so I'll commit to that. Which I think at the time was a little bit scary, but at the same time, it's like, wow, that's a real empowerment to say, okay, now we're going to have all this cap.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But he ends up calling, I think that later that day or the next day after the meeting and saying, hey, I don't think we're going to get that building, but I want to partner with you guys. And we're like, well, we don't really need a partner. We got money. We're building our own thing here. He said, yeah, but what will it take? You know, whatever it takes, I want to be a partner with you. And so, you know, we were like, why not? Let's throw out a number and we'll make it outrageous. There's no chance they'll say yes, but if he does, then hey, we're fine. Like we did pretty well. And we had no building. We had no signed lease even, and we proposed the $45 million valuation. And that's pretty high for a business that is unproven.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, so part of the story, which we didn't talk about, is before we even built the first location, we actually had an encounter with the potential investor who was in a room for one of these potential real estate deals. So we were pitching a building. We really wanted to get this cool building down in Canal Street. And the owner of it was like, you know, I'm not sure if I'll give you the building, but I got this friend who might be interested, and he's going to come over. So this guy shows up in the meeting, sits down, doesn't really speak to us. I'm going to shake hands, but these are like Orthodox Jewish guys.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think when we first opened the first floor we were probably in the 70 to 80% range and then within the first couple months the first two floors were pretty much full”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. Seven years ago, how quickly things changed? I mean, back then we did all incandescent lighting. To do that in a workspace at the time, it just didn't exist. You had like a cool Brooklyn restaurant in an old auto garage. You had other people, say, doing boutique hotels with that vibe. But in workspace, no one did that at all. So it was totally unique. There was nothing like it.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so when you walk in, you basically have an old wood floor, which we refinished and had a lot of that cool character, 100-year-old wood floor. You have exposed brick, which again we soda blasted to sort of bring back to that rustic sort of vibe. We had iron columns that were cool and had character. And then what we sort of inserted into that was sort of a sharp modern glass and aluminum system. So you have this play between the old and the new. And then another thing was from the very beginning, I didn't want it to have an office-y vibe at all. And again, this seems not like a big deal now, but back then we did.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As the tires like running on the back of the wheel well. But that was what we were doing. It was like every step was like, we're going to, and we rented the equipment, the soda blasting equipment, just to do it ourselves. We had a compressor on the streets of Manhattan just sitting out there like the compressor's running out there. And there's all this baking soda billowing out of the windows upstairs. It was awesome.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we have to buy baking soda by like the 50 pound bag, and you need bags and bags and bags of the soda. So I remember we would like rent zip cars, drive out to this place in New Jersey, load up the car with these bags of baking soda, and we'd put so much in there that it would be riding on the wheels on the tires. So we'd be like driving back from New Jersey through the tunnel. And you'd hear this like,”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, all of it. So we had to get a hammer drill and drill into the brick to hold brackets to hold the wire. We had to, I mean, that was so much fun. It was like, it was crazy, but it was also like, we're really fully engaged and we had to, you know, teach ourselves how to, you know, connect patch panels and program switches. And, you know, so we put in that whole infrastructure. I remember one of the things we had to do was actually, it's this thing called soda blasting, which is if you want that cool, like, exposed brick and it's been painted. You have to blast the sandblast the paint off. There's thing called soda blasting where you use baking soda to do that.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I'm like, hey, why don't we look into how this actually works? And the way his brain works is then to break it down into the most micro parts, basically every cable run, how long is it? How many terminations, you know, how do you do terminations? And I mean, I remember he estimated it's going to cost us $8,000 in materials and then, you know, whatever, like 50 hours of labor, whatever the number was. It was some crazy small number relative to this $100,000 price. And so we're like, well, it's not rocket science. Like we can do that ourselves. And so we just did it ourselves.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there was a limit to how much they would build versus us. And so we had some responsibility. One of our responsibilities was IT wiring, all the cabling. And so we were out there getting bids for IT wiring. I remember we got one for $100,000 and one for like $87,500. I remember getting those estimates and being like, $100,000 is a pretty round number for wiring. Like, shouldn't you have a more detailed calculation of how much that costs? So my little brother and I, he's background in, he was pre-med and he's like kind of a research scientist in his brain. And he had moved out to help us. It was me, Kyle Anadam at the time.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so we were more conservative back then in terms of our investment. You know, we did a lot of the work ourselves. I mean,”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so we had the money from the Green Desk sale, which was enough for the security deposit. And, you know, again, we're coming out of financial crisis. So it's not like this landlord has a ton of other options. They're not like, oh, there's all kinds of companies clamoring to move in. So we're in a good place from a real estate perspective because we're saying we'll take your whole building and there's not that many other tenants for it.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he's good at making connections with people. Once that door is open, like if he sees a crack and he can get in there, then he's never going to stop until”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we looked in Manhattan a lot. We did have a non-compete with our Green Desk partners. A limited number of areas we could go. So we were looking in San Francisco and also in Manhattan. It was tough. I mean, we had a lot of conversations with people who were like, again, who are you? You have no background in real estate. And also people looking for big credit tenants. I mean, especially in that environment of the financial crisis, a lot of landlords had been burned even by credit tenants who broke their lease and went bankrupt or whatever. So very few people wanted to work with us. And we looked at a ton of spaces and everyone just said, why? Who are you? And so really what happened, I mean, it was a friend of a friend of a friend knew somebody and somehow we connected for this building in Soho. And it was really a relationship sale. You know, Adam, again, like had his persistence and he was willing to go over and over and over to the owner and just convince him that we were the right tenant for this building.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I think it took a while to get there. What actually happened, I think literally in the middle of the night, Adam's friend Andrew just literally came out with it and he said, it's we work, it's we live, it's we sleep, it's we eat, it's we like just flowed with this whole thing. And it was a dialogue that was months old that just happened in a moment for him in the middle of the night as soon as we heard it we're like, that's it.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the problem that we had in trying to reinvent the business is like, what do you call that? What is the name for a community-oriented business? Know without it sounding too. Be open and connected to each other but doesn't have these words in it that sort of sound too like over the top in terms of, you know, saying, hey, let's all hold hands.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I think one of the things that we learned at Green Dust that was super important was when it was really working. What was cool was the connection between people. And the things that you would hear people say to each other in support of each other, even though they're in completely different industries, just late at night. There's across the hall people having these really cool conversations about life, about business. And then there's also something that happens of almost like accountability because one of the things about being in a small business, especially on your own or if you're owner of a small company, it's like no one's watching you to see if you show up in the morning, right? But one of the coolest things that happens is like, you know, people become accountable to each other, even though they're not working for the same company. So if you don't show up for a couple days, someone actually asks you, like, hey, where have you been? So that's one of the cool things that happens is it's this sort of like”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he did that, so that was good for him and a good result. For Adam and I, it was enough to say, okay, let's switch focus completely to this business.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wish I remembered the details, but I mean, we must have gotten like somewhere between half a million and a million dollars each. I mean, it was a good amount of money, and I think it also presented a challenge in that we had to ask ourselves, like, do we take this money and put in the bank or do we, you know, sort of go forward and invest it in the next thing? And I think for Adam and I, it was clear, like, we're onto something big here, and let's roll with it and keep going. And I think for Gill it was a little bit different. Like he saw this money and was like, hey, I can move back to Israel and I've got a bunch of money in the bank. And hey, my life is good.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So he sold, so he sold to them. They got a great business, which they're still operating. And we got some money to start over again.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it was in their interest to use all the real estate in their own portfolio. So they're showing us other locations in Brooklyn. We're thinking about building a big brand and thinking this is like a worldwide phenomenon, like we're going to change the world. We're doing something really cool. And they're thinking, let's fill up all our existing buildings that have vacancy. And so as soon as we started talking about other bigger things, it just showed this is not a partnership that's going to work long term.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so the challenge there was it was a good business definitely right off the bat and we were profitable but the problem is that it's capital intensive so we did the first building under our 50-50 agreement and we started thinking big. We're like this is amazing everyone loves it we're going to grow and we started looking at Manhattan looking at San Francisco thinking of other locations but they had a portfolio that they already owned the owners of the building”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, he was an architect, so he helped with that. But he was still working at American Apparel or with the firm that did that. And then Adam was still working for the baby clothing company. So I was basically the operator. So I did all the stuff to get the business going. And I really was, you know, there, whatever, 18 hours a day putting the whole thing together. And really running it as a very small business.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you had five floors. So I think that building was about 350 members. You know, it filled up very fast. And then we expanded back to 68J, which was the cool thing because we went back to the building. They wouldn't let us have in the first place and started building out more space there.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and that I think positive and negative in the sense that one, the world was changing very quickly and there was people who were thinking about things differently, you know, perhaps like working at Lehman Brothers or whatever is not the best thing for your life, whereas, you know, could have been before. We did have some members like that who are like, oh, I used to be ex for this company and now I want to sort of do it on my own.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think at the time we were probably starting at like $300 for the lowest end. And it went up to, say, $1,000 for a four-person office, you know, ballpark wasn't expensive when you look at the overall net cost, but also not cheap. It wasn't like, hey, this is rock bottom price or something”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I think when we first started it, it was more like we're going to do small offices. You could have like a small five foot by seven foot, one person office, a two-person, four-person, six-person, eight-person office. I think at the time, maybe a 12 was the largest we did. And that was, you know, all glass partitioned, so very open and airy. And it was really like, you know, hey, join a group of people working together, but you're still in your own private space.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so the thing that was happening back then was there were existing sort of corporate office suites, and then there was co-working, which at the time co-working is primarily tech focused. It's a lot of like, you know, engineers in a big open room, headphones on at your computer. And there was some of those. It wasn't like prevalent, but there were some in San Francisco, a few in New York. And they were primarily oriented towards a group of people who kind of all knew each other. And then they're going to come together, and then they all want to work together in the same room, and then they invite some others. Adam and I didn't come from that at all. We were in this Brooklyn environment. We weren't from tech. And we were much more interested in this like diversity in all these cool, different kinds of companies than what that energy is when they come together. That said, all those businesses are doing like real sales. They're on the phone. They're having meetings. They're talking to people. So this idea of like a big open room just didn't work for us. It didn't make sense.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember the day when we first did it, we put masking tape down on the floor to sort of show the layout of the workspaces and we posted ads on Craigslist and people started calling my cell phone and I would meet them and tour them through the building with just masking tape on the floor. And people started signing up from just the masking tape on the floor. And that just showed how different it was. One, because it was cool. And we had a list of all the things we're going to offer. You know, we're going to give you coffee. We're going to have cool events, this kind of stuff. And people needed it. They believed in it.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A company. You actually have something real here, and that was really, you know, of course, Adam sold it. I mean, I'm presented this stuff, but he's the one who...”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, basically because we had been challenged with what are you going to do? And we have no credibility, right? So my thought was if I do all this stuff and come back tomorrow, it'll seem like we were planning it for weeks in advance, right? And we show up the next day with this whole thing. And they're like kind of blown away like, oh, like, whoa, you actually...”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Environmentally responsible. I buy the domain, you know, I build a website. I design some floor plans really simple, do like a quick business model. Basically, I remember I went to Kinko's and had business cards made, had some little promotional flyers. Basically, I stayed up all night.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So he's saying no, no, no, no, for weeks on end, and then one day apparently, and I wasn't there at the time, but he says, okay, I'm not going to give you a floor in 68J. But I have this other building across the street, which I've been clearing out. You know, come take a look. And so Adam says, hey, let's go look at this building. And it's beautiful. It's like perfect, you know, Brooklyn warehouse building, exposed brick, exposed timber, you know, beams and columns, big windows, views of the water. Literally like, you know, ideal building for the cool startup Brooklyn vibe. And they're basically like, okay, here's the building. What would you do with it? And I'm like, what are we going to do? Adam's like, I don't know. I'm like, okay, I'll figure it out. So basically I go home and I start thinking of a concept of a name. Come up with Green Desk, which is office space oriented towards people who are.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and we had no business plan. We had nothing. It was a very simple idea of, hey, could we break up this space in some way? I mean, no real plan. It was just a simple concept.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so he started going to them and saying, Lisa, that's a whole floor. And at the time, I don't remember a floor plate there, but it might have been 10,000 square feet or 14,000, 15,000 square feet. And they're just like, who are you? You're like the baby clothing guy who can't even pay your rent on time, you know? Why would we rent to you? It makes no sense. Like you don't know anything about it. Like, we're the experts. We own 100 buildings. Sure enough. And they just kept saying no. But credit to Adam. And this is part of his innate ability to continue to press even when people say no, he just kept going back and back. And I don't know every week for probably weeks on end. It's not like the...”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so they were like redeveloping the building over time. They were kind of going floor by floor and trying to move people around because they wanted to make more rent. So they were kind of like improving because it was really crappy. I mean, it was in bad shape. So they were trying, you know, they had enough thought to say, hey, let's redevelop this. We can charge more money.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. So, I mean, nothing too complicated other than just like, hey, right now they lease you an empty space with, you know, 2000 square feet minimum, and you basically as a small business, you have it in your own hands to figure that out. You have to build it out. You got to buy all your own furniture. You got to sublease space if you can't fill it all up. Like you're facing all those challenges and you're paying a good price, which at the time was, you know, 20 bucks a square foot or whatever, which is a good deal. But it was just a very low level of service. And so I think he brought to me that idea. And I was like, that sounds great. The challenge was is that neither of us really had experience in real estate or anything. And so he would go to the owners of this building, 68J, and say, hey, we see there are floors that are available here. Will you lease money?”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it's hard to say exactly that moment. Like it's hard to remember. But yeah, something to the effect of we're talking about this building that we're in and we're looking at the relationship between all of these tenants, cool companies, and then the level of service that they're getting from the landlord. And he had seen sort of the business model before of like Office Suites, which I wasn't familiar with, but he was like, I think if we make these office suites, we can make money, we can make more money than the landlord is currently charging.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I like to be next to the center of attention, though. That's the thing is that I like the idea of it. I just don't want to be it. But I really enjoy the energy that sort of comes from that. Like I like that. I like seeing it.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think so, I mean it's more like, yeah, it's a charisma is a good word for it. It's also more of a brashness which I think is cool, but which I don't have. Like I can't like to be.”
2018-09-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · WeWork: Miguel McKelvey (2018) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT