Latest / Propertyshe Podcast / Elliott Sparsis

Transcript

Elliott Sparsis · Propertyshe Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: There are really clear parallels with AI growth, artificial content being consumed online, and the understanding and the demand for physically coming together.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we genuinely believe the more the world absorbs artificial content, the more the world is going to value physical experiences.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Susan Freeman.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to our Property She podcast series brought to you by Mish Kwan Dorea in association with the London Real Estate Forum, where I get to interview some of the key influencers in the wonderful world of real estate and the built environment.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm delighted to welcome Elliot Sparcis.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Elliot is a property entrepreneur and hospitality specialist whose career has spanned investment, real estate, flexible workspace, and events.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Elliot began his career in property and investment, including a period of blackstone, before moving into the rapidly evolving world of hospitality-led work and event space.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: He played a key role in bringing New York-based Convene to London and went on to become CEO of Camerdish Venues.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Elliot has now embarked on his latest venture, Together, a new hospitality-led meetings and events business that aims to rethink how people come together in the workplace and how landlords can create more valuable experience-led buildings.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now I look forward to talking to Elliot about his career to date, the lessons he's learned along the way, why he believes the way we work and meet is changing, and what he hopes to achieve with Together.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Elliot, welcome and um thank you very much for joining us today.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was uh thinking about when we first met, which was quite a few years ago, so I think about 2011.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it was in the early days of something called Sociable Surveyors, which you set up with Seb Abigail, which I think Giles Barry, in his role as editor of Property Week, described as the apprentice for real estate.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought it might be quite nice to start with that.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, you were still at college, I think, when you started it.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, university.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I guess just firstly thank you for having me, Susan.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I went through the list of everybody in your podcast earlier, and it's uh a privilege to be on it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I'm nowhere near achieving a lot of what people in that list have achieved.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for having me.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is a pleasure, and I think you've achieved quite a lot actually, looking at what's been going on over the last few years, and we will talk about it.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So what prompted Sociable Surveyors and what was it actually about?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so Sebastian and I were at Kingston University at the time, 2009-10 graduate schemes were thin on the ground, I think, to say the least.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: And Seb and I sat round his bedroom and we were working on ironing boards at the time because we had no desks at his room and we were just kind of working out how do we do something that just makes us stand out a little bit from the crowd, right?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody was applying for a two-week internship at Night Frank in London, Savil's in London.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody had that on their CV, but nothing different.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, cut a long story short, we came up with the idea of what we then called sociable surveyors, and we wanted to try and get as many internships for students that were unusual and stood out from, as I said, the standard two weeks in London at one of the big consultancies.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we started phoning around.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Mike's layers, one of the first phone calls we made.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And our idea was what if we could get the best internships around the world?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And what if we could then get a group of the best students in London, dilute those students down to the most interesting applications, and then give the diluted list to the recruiters at the big consultancies.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: So this is in 2011, pre-iPhones.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: The concept that we created was if you wanted to apply for a sociable surveyors internship, you had to film a one-minute video on your BlackBerry at the time or laptop summarising why you think you're best suited for a particular internship.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And the internships that we were offering were incredible.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: They were four weeks in Singapore with Knight Frank, four weeks in Paris with Hammerson, four weeks in London with Helical Bar, and nobody could get an internship with Helical Bar at the time.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: We had four weeks in Sydney with Savills, so on and so on.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: So they were truly life-changing the internships and fully paid.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we paid their flights, they received a wage from the particular company that they went with.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said, to apply, they had to record a one-minute video.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: This was pre-anybody recording videos.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we received hundreds of applications.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think we charged 10 pounds per application as well.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Land Aid were our beneficiary.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think Seb and I donated about 15,000 pounds to Land Aid before we left university, which was a lot of money at the time.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we received hundreds of internship applications.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: We then had a very almost backwards looking at it now metric scoring system as to how we diluted the thousands of applications down to the best 10 for each.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then we gave each of the businesses those best 10 applications, the best 10 for Sydney with Savals, the best 10 for Singapore with Night Frank, so on and so on.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we did that in the first year, it went incredibly well, and then we rolled it out.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's about 150 students that we sent around the world on fully paid internships.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: What we didn't know was they were the best students at the time.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And this is going back to 2011.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: So naturally they're going to progress through their careers and be successful.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So by accident, we created this network for Seb and I of now leaders in our sector in the real estate world.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we regularly bump into people or see them and we host something every year.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people say, like, if it wasn't for that internship through Social Surveyors, I wouldn't be where I am now.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: So by accident, we created this incredible network for ourselves that we never knew about at the time.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the long story as to how and why we started Sociable Surveyors.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you were very persuasive because in addition to all those wonderful overseas internships, there was actually an internship at Mishcon Dere in Hoburn.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: There was, there was.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that was actually the second year we did that.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I forget what we called it, but it was a combination internship where we combined four weeks in a real estate law practice like Mishcon with four weeks in a real estate consultancy.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So again, it gave that student the most unbelievable experience of actually being in the legal side of real estate as well as being in the consultancy side.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I mean, you, Susan, were a very early believer, and I've said it to you before, I regard you as definitely a mentor to me over the years.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: You've definitely guided me in a direction that has really benefited my trajectory.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's really, really nice to know.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the other people you persuaded pretty early on, you just mentioned Mike Slade, one of the icons of our industry who so sadly died recently.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And how did you actually get through to Mike in the first place?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's lots of stories about Mike, and uh, I mean, what an incredible individual that will be sadly missed in the world and particularly the real estate world.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lack of characters left in our industry, I feel like, at the moment, particularly to the heights of the charm and character and energy he had.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: But we actually phoned the office, and actually his personal assistant that'd been in with him for a long time answered the phone, a beautiful lady called Lois.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: I spoke to her, I said, I'd like to speak to Mike Slade.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're the sociable surveyors, and we're trying to raise money for land aid, but also give students incredible opportunities.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And she put me through.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, like I genuinely couldn't believe it.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: She put me through, and I always remember Mike answered the phone.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Sociable surveyors, what is this?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me, tell me, who are you?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Who are you, sociable surveyors?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, cut a long story short, he supported us, and I think Helena Cole wrote us a£5,000 check that year, and then went on to support us for many years thereafter.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Mike went on to support us in many different ways, which I'll touch on in in just a moment.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: But we also, very shortly after making that phone call, Seb and I were invited to the property race day event, and Mike Slade was there as he regularly was.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And Seb and I were wearing these sort of quite uh bright blue chinos, and in and we bumped into him and and we got talking to him, and he was sort of almost uh kind of laughing at our trousers in a way that he kind of liked them.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: So his wife was actually there.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: We managed to talk to his wife separately to try and get his trouser size because we wanted to get a pair and send them to him.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And seven nights he always remember, we asked her, and she said, I d I don't know.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, I don't know his trouser size.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: He gets them made.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, which was obviously the the answer.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: But we managed to track down a rough size.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think we went to Gives and Hawks, we bought a pair of Blue Chinos the day after we had them sent over to the Farm Street office of Helical, and he landed on his desk and he phoned us laughing.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we said, and I've always tried to do little things like that throughout our careers.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: I still try and do things like that now that just create a memorable moment that you can always come back to in the future when you need something from somebody.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: But that was one example that was quite funny.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Before we move on from sociable surveyors, I reckon that you and Seb were pretty fearless.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, is is it true that you actually stalked Boris Johnson at the GLA chamber when he was London?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: We did, we did, we did, embarrassingly.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we knew he was there.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: We were just launching the first sociable surveyors internship.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: We actually waited for three hours outside the GLA with our videographer who actually still films My Business Now together, lovely guy called Joseph.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, we cammed outside and came out.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: We managed to jump on him, give him five seconds of who we are, and asked him to record a piece to video that he did encouraging aspiring real estate students to apply to the sociable surveyors internship scheme.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: And this is in 2011.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we have a clip that I think I sent to you last week.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's all documented in video, so amazing fast forward.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, one example of something we did when we had little money but needed something.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Were you always entrepreneurial, or is that something that has developed as your career has developed?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I I I mean for me, it's in me.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: My dad was an entrepreneur.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: I went to university late before university.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: I always used to work for him, doing various things, and he had various different businesses.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, no, it's in you, it's in your blood.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's like hospitality.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Hospitality is in you or it isn't.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: You walk into your own environment, you see something on the floor, you either pick it up or you don't.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's in you.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can't teach somebody to pick something up the floor when you're in a hospitality environment.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, the entrepreneurial spirit was was always deeply in me.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you started at Savills and I think then moved to Blackstone for, I think you were there for about five, five years.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: So what was your thinking at that point?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Where did you see yourself ending up?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: I where did I see myself ending up?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a really good question because my career's taken lots of very different turnings, but I loved Savills, but I always knew I wanted to be on the client side rather than on the consultancy side.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I spent a year of a two-year grad scheme at Savills, being at Savills for 12 months, then hopped over to Blackstone.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was Blackstone property management at the time.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: So the Blackstone thesis, buy it, fix it, sell it.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I lived in the middle of the fix-it camp.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: So the investment guys bought the building and then passed them to Blackstone property management.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we redeveloped, sought vacant possession, rebranded, leased the buildings up, and then passed them back to the investment team to then dispose that asset thereafter.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: So learned a ton.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's probably where I learned the most in my career.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Worked under a beautiful man called Ed Hodgson, who led in a way that sort of I tried to aspire to be a leader today.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: He was trusting, he gave you the right time and allowed you to go out and make decisions yourself.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that was pre-children, worked a ton of hours, met a lot of the right people in our sector.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: We had all of the best agents that were supporting us, leasing buildings to now I'm very good friends with and are supporting growth in our together business.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, probably the sort of most impact in terms of learning curve development to get to where we are today.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it didn't lead you to want to go into property investment.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: You always wanted to be more on the sort of occupier entrepreneurial side.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Always, but subconsciously.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I have two big passions in life outside of family.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: One is real estate, but one is hospitality.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just love hospitalities.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: My wife and I host all of the time.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: We've got four children, we've always got tons of people in our house, we're forever hosting.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: So hospitality is just in me.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that combination of hospitality and real estate where I live and exist today in our business is those two passions that have have come together.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: So the real estate side at Blackstone I love, but I always knew I wanted to create something that was mine.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea what it was at that stage.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: I had no grand aspirations of writing a meeting and event business then, but it's a very natural training camp to allow me to do what we do now, ultimately.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: So you really enjoyed your time at Blackstone.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was pre-children.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: What made you make the move?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: How did that come about?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean that move was really interesting.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was coming at a time where Blackstone were net sellers of all of their office stock.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it was 2017 to 2018.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Blackstone had bought a ton of real estate.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Five years leading up to that point, we'd developed, leased, sold a ton of real estate.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: And 16, 17, 18, Blackstone were net sellers of real estate in central London.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, globally, weren't acquiring anything.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I lived in the fix-it part of that business.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: So if we weren't buying anything, we weren't fixing anything.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: So at that time, Convene came knocking on my door.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And to be very honest, at the time, a lot of my peers were joining co-working businesses, right?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: We work was growing exponentially at the time.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: The office group were doing really good things.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of my cohort at that time were joining those kind of businesses.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I never wanted to, and I mean this in the most polite way, I never wanted to jump on the co-working bandwagon at that stage.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like that's dumb.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to do something a little bit more unique.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: So Convene came along, asked me to meet them, didn't really excite me at the time.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: I said no.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Then said, Elliot, come to New York and see us for a week.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: So they put me on a plane, spent one week in New York, and the first day I was there, I walked into one of their meeting and event locations in midtown, and I was blown away.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I just knew that that product didn't exist in London.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was in an amazing building, it was upstairs, the space was cool, the FMV was amazing.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I just knew that didn't exist here in London.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've been to tons of London conferences, always in a crappy hotel, always underground, felt like a wedding environment, red carpet, chandeliers.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I was there for a week, but they had me in the first 10 minutes.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: So they spent the week whining and dining me.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And cut a long story short, ended up joining the business as head of real estate.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: I brought that brand from the US to the UK.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was there for five years, quickly progressed into a head of UK role, grew that business here, was sort of fundamentally in leading the acquisition of ETC venues.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that's now a colossal business with 40 plus locations across the world.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And really untouched by anybody else across the world.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's no other business that has the scale that that business has.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we've created together, I'm sure we'll get onto it.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that was the catalyst of why and how I went from Blackstone to Convene.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you took up the challenge to bring effectively a sort of US brand, a new concept to the UK.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And for the benefit of our listeners who may not know Convene, what's the essentially what is the Convene proposition?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, why was it different to things that were going on in London at the time?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I'll plagiarise the founder and CEO, Ryan Simonetti's word as to what that business is.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: He always said and always stuck with me, what if you run an office building like a hotel?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the thesis of that business, right?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just a product, it's a service line that allows corporate occupiers to come into a business and plug in to various service lines that that business offers.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the easiest way of describing it is think of a hotel.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're not a hotel brand.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: We don't sell bedrooms, but we sell big meeting rooms, but we do pretty much everything else a hotel does.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: We have a concierge service level, we have amazing food and beverage, we build kitchens into our space that allows us to provide catering to other tenants within that building stack.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we run a hotel type business, but we don't sell bedrooms, we sell big meetings and events instead.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think convenes started re quite early, didn't they?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think they started in 2009, which must have been well before everybody was talking about the hotelification of office buildings.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, those guys are way ahead of the curve and are still ahead of the curve in terms of what they're doing.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: So no, full hats off to yeah, Ryan, still a big friend of mine, big supporter of each other.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: So definitely learned a ton being in that business for five years.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So what do you think were the biggest challenges of bringing effectively a new American concept to London?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: What sort of response did you get initially?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Tough.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that business spent three, maybe four years trying to get into the London market.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Our product set is really hard to find.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: We bring a ton of people into a building that landlords struggle to get their head around initially.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're very resource-heavy when we exist in a stack, right?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: We need to upgrade fresh air, we need to upgrade power, we need to upgrade loading.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a really difficult product to A, find the right real estate that fits the typology, but also really take a landlord on the journey as to the benefits, the the upside that uh that we actually bring to being in a building stacked.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was 22 Bishopsgate, which was the first one to open, wasn't it?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Which was pretty amazing space.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember you very kindly hosted an Opportunity London pre-MIP impact party there.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was certainly the best space we'd ever had that party in.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the plan for expansion of Convene was through MA.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned obviously the etc.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: deal that went through, but I think then COVID sort of entered the equation, didn't you?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Twitch did that sort of bring everything to a halt?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, overnight.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, our business is bringing people into a room, 400 plus people sitting very close to each other.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: By the end of March 2020, COVID has struck and our business dropped off a cliff overnight.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: So devastating for our business.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: But we survived, other brands managed to survive.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: We did many things running through it.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: I remember we spun up a virtual business very quickly at the time to plug in and support communication with businesses through that time.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: But really tough, really tough.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: But having survived it and come out of the back, the changes of demand of corporate occupiers in our sector have been huge and are never going to go back to pre-COVID levels of demand and touch on that in just a moment.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, really tough short term, but long term has completely flipped the demand metric on its head for us.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think we forget that at the time, I mean, we actually doubted whether people would want to meet with each other again.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: We were so nervous coming out of COVID, weren't we?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, wild time and Susan, let's hope we never have to go back through an experience like that again.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's character building, isn't it?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: So what then happened because you I think you left to join Cavendish, is that right?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: How did that happen?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: What made you want to move here?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so Covid changed demand metrics for our sector.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And as COVID was happening, I was watching how our sector was going to come out of it, but also how corporates were behaving.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And what transpired very quickly is COVID shone a light on how inefficient large rooms were becoming for all of the large corporates, the big management consultants, the banks, the law firms.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: They all had big auditoriums in their own basements.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: And COVID shone a light on their real estate in its entirety, which focused in on the most underutilized spaces.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that 10,000 square foot, 300-person auditorium that's in most big corporates' own building, a lot of light on the fact that they only use it 20 days per year.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Their AV's gone out of date.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: The food and beverage is poor because coming from the canteen operator upstairs, it's the same food that they eat every day, but just delivered in a slightly different way.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: So what was happening is all these corporate occupies were getting rid of that big 10,000 square foot auditorium in their own basement and starting to outsource to specialists like ETC Venues, Convene, Cavendish venues to get a better experience, right?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: That offering.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is our business is all we do.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: We upgrade the AV every two years.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: We focus religiously on what the food and beverage looks like, but how it tastes and how it makes you feel after you consume it.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: We go deep into brain food and we've been studying Ottolengi.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: COVID completely shifted the demand metric, and corporates are never going to go back to building auditoriums in their own basement.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: They're going to continue to outsource for a better experience.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I was watching this as COVID was going through, and the entrepreneurial character in me, loving real estate, loving hospitality.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: The opportunity for me was there to go and run, build my own business.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And what do you need to go and do that?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: You need to go and raise some money to raise money.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: You need a profile, you need to have been on a journey that really legitimizes your position.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: So Cavendish Venues was a great opportunity.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: I went into the business as CEO.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: That business was 30 years old, hadn't grown, was dying rather than growing.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: I opened two new venues, dragged the business forward very quickly as CEO, rebranded it and proved that I could do it very, very quickly.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that gave me the most amazing springboard to then go and raise some money to create my own thing.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Fast forward, we've been open since April this year.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: We've now launched our business together.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it feels right, authentic, exciting.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: I bounce in on a Monday, doesn't feel like I work, sort of don't quite understand why I'm getting away with what we're doing, if I'm completely honest.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: But it feels completely right.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I've never felt so comfortable in the position I am now.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: I feel completely authentic.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Don't feel like I'm plagiarizing anybody else's rhetoric as to why that business exists or what their USPs are.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is my thing, and it feels feels right.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Feels really right.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's brilliant.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk in detail about together, but just before we get there, I mean you were talking about raising funds, and you make it sound just, you know, incredibly easy, but it was quite challenging, wasn't it?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: Raising money was tough, really, really tough.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh I think I did 63 pitch decks to potential investors.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And raising money isn't about the money, right?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: I could have raised the money a lot quicker.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought it would take me three to four months.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: It probably took me 12 months to find the right capital source.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And raising money, as I said, is about finding the right partner that's going to support you in the right ways.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I had a handful of offers from various different individuals, but it never felt right.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: They were never the right investors.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: I now have a family office that are incredible, supportive, but ambitious in the right way.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I have a group of people in our cap table that all benefit growth of this business.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we have an amazing design and construction business that have invested in growing together.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: All of our invested money goes to building our physical spaces.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: So the fact I have one of those in our cap table allows me to design, allows me to underwrite, allows me to build space probably 15 to 20% below market rate, which is massive.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Our AV business is an investor in our business.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: We have three of Central London's best real estate agents are all invested in our business.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: So all of the money we have isn't pure money, it's really strategic.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: They're all there to help us grow, help us navigate how we move through this business.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's tough.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Raising money is really tough, and it's really easy to take the wrong capital source because you're running out of time.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean running out of time personally.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: I've got four children, I've just earned 40.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Wife doesn't work, like not earning money is tough for a period of time.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And when things take longer, you don't have a runway.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: And we're kicking around how we can support new entrepreneurs coming through because it is so tough.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it always takes twice as long as you think.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought it would take three to six months.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: It took twice as long.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, probably a full year.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about together is a hospitality business.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have wonderful space.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have been to a conference there, I've experienced it.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you managed to keep us all awake, didn't you?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: By I'm taking sure that the air by a big investment.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: By a big investment.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, we put a half a million pound air handling unit within RNIA or net internal area that is driven by CO2 monitors.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: When you put hundreds of people in a room, the CO2 doubles within a very quick period of time, makes you drowsy.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: So our CO2 monitors kick in once the air level drops between a certain level, we then double the oxygen into our two big rooms.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it keeps you awake, keeps you aware, and it's subconscious.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know it's there, but you just feel good for the full day that you experience.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we get dozens of people every week that come up to us and say, I normally get migraines or headaches in conference, but I feel great at the end of the day here.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Is it because there's natural light or is it because we're upstairs?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is it?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then we show them this big air handling unit that's the size of a big truck.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's additional oxygen in the air that keeps them awake.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: You could throw in a bit of happy gas.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely could.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: We could.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: We could.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure in a different world we'll lean into that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: So what is most difficult?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is actually acquiring customers or delivering an amazing experience once you've actually got the customer in?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: The hardest thing is twofold.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: One is finding the right real estate and finding the right landlord that buys into your thesis.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: We've got an amazing landlord here.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's a Hong Kong-based foundation called the Shaw Foundation, which is a philanthropic trust.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: They are fully bought into us as a business, our brand, they're fully bought into how we activate the building.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're fully bought into the root of us moving four or five hundred people through the reception up into our space.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: So out of the two hardest things, the first is yeah, the real estate, finding the right physical space, but also the right owner that buys into you as a business and a thesis.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: The second thing isn't selling the business, it isn't demand.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's building the team to be able to deliver the experience that we want.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Hospitality isn't a physical thing for me.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Hospitality is something that is delivered by people to people.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: So to deliver a true hospitality experience, you've got to have an amazing team here.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: And our business takes a huge amount of upfront investment to get the right team.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: We can't train people up.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: We have to employ people that are deeply experienced because this is our first location.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: We have to deliver an amazing experience to our clients.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: And if our client has a good experience once, they come back to us for multiple years.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: If we deliver a bad experience, that client doesn't come back to us for five plus years.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really important we deliver an amazing experience to our clients because we know they're going to come back to us time and time again.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: So the team is really, really important.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And growing a team is tough when you haven't got a business, you haven't got physical space.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Growing a team from nothing is really, really tough.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I have an amazing business partner called Declan Cassidy.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: He is the best meeting and event sales individual in central London.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: He was head of meeting and event sales for ETC venues for almost 20 years.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: He lives and breathes it.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: He knows the whole market.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: He understands the terminology and he just absolutely loves the sector and the product that we're in.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: So very fortunate to have a really amazing business partner that completely understands that vertical.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't sell our product.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: I fund it, I build it, I create the real estate.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Declan and his team fundamentally lead the partnerships and sell our product.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: So without him, this thing that we've created would be completely impossible.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, team is really important.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: To get the right partners is really important.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then we've got now 15 people we employ and just a beautiful bunch of people that live and breathe hospitality and a yes people.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: If a client asks us for something, yes is always the answer.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Then we go and figure out very quickly how we deliver it for them.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And what does great hospitality mean when you're dealing with um like a major corporate event?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about you know hotels and how you know it's more like sort of a hotel operation without the bedrooms, but you're dealing with big companies rather than you know individual hotel guests.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: So what do they actually want from you?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's a really interesting question because I'm gonna unpack it in a slightly different way.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: The buyer of our product isn't typically the user, right?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: A corporate business might be buying our space for a day for a team offsite.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be organized by the meeting and event department, the HR department of that particular business, and they'll be buying it and organizing it, but they're actually not the user of the event typically.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: They then invite their team in or they invite their clients in, depending on if it's an internal or external event.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: So our business is human first.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: We talk a lot about being a human-first business.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: And what that means is we're designing the space for the buyer, i.e., we deliver a 500-person room, we deliver food and beverage, we deliver AV, we take all of those boxes for the buyer, but then we try to develop and deliver the physical experience for the actual users of our space.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we just touched on our air handling unit that doubles the oxygen in our large rooms.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: We've invested heavily on our coffee machines, they're 30,000 pounds each.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's a 12-month waiting list for them.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: They're made in a Swiss watch factory, they're the most incredible coffee machines that exist across the globe.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Our flooring is acoustically treated bolon in our gallery area.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't sound very interesting, and it isn't very interesting, to be honest.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: But over the last 10 years, ladies particularly have always said, Elliot, my feet ache at the end of the day because they're standing in high heels on a tiled hard surface.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we wanted to deliver a gallery area that acoustically was amazing, could have red wine spilt on it every single day of the week and food, but also looked and felt fantastic for our users that are using the space.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we now have an 11 mil thick Bowl on acoustic floor that is basically an amazing plastic, but is acoustically treated, looks amazing.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: We can spill red wine and food on it and clean it, but it's also soft underfoot when our clients are standing on it.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: So everything we've tried to deliver is try to be human first.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that human first thing is our user of our space.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: We've tried to deliver an experience for our users of our space.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Our carpet in our major auditorium room is 12 mil thick rather than six mil thick, which is uh the industry standard.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it gives you that additional acoustic quality, but also that soft touch underfoot.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: So these are very granular items, but they combine to deliver an experience for our clients that hopefully is is incredibly enjoyable.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you measure whether you have provided a great experience to the customer?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a way of measuring it?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I mean that's a really good question.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, very simply put, if our clients re-book with us, we've delivered a great experience, right?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Fundamentally.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're often judged on when things go wrong.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about how well things go.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: We're often judged on when things go badly.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: And they do.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: We're in hospitality, we've got 500 people up there today at the moment, and things go wrong every single day.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we're judged on yeah, how we react when something doesn't go right.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: And your team is trained to do a sort of crisis management team there.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, we do little things.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: We have 500 pounds of cash up on level one at 88 Wood Street, and that's for if anything happens to one of our delegates during the daytime, we try and resolve it there and then before they leave.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: I.e., if we spill a glass of red wine over somebody's shirt, we very kindly ask them where that shirt's from.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: We then send one of our guys out, we go and buy a brand new shirt, we put it in one of our together bags and we give it to that individual when they leave the conference at the end of the day with a handwritten note from the venue manager apologizing.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we try and resolve any issues that we have before that delegate leaves at the end of that day.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we do lots of little things like that.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that sounds great.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's in interesting what you were saying about the coffee machines, because you know, I noticed the coffee was really good.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: I obviously wouldn't have known the um calibre of the machine, but as I think I said to you that um, you know, there were some really interesting conversations in the coffee queue.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you said that there is a name for those interactions.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we call them uh collision zones quarterback designed and built our space, and we spent quite a lot of time on the dimensions of our coffee bars.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we have two huge coffee bars, there's two coffee machines per coffee bar, they're spread out exactly four meters apart from each other with snacks that they can help themselves to in between, but they create environments that you collide, collision zones with other individuals that are at that particular conference, and you are somewhat more relaxed in that environment to talk to somebody you don't know.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're not standing in a queue at prayer and don't know that individual, you are at a conference for a particular reason.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: So those collision zones just break the barriers down a little bit, make people feel a little bit more disarmed, a little bit more relaxed, and then they open up the conversation a bit easier.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what you wanted, uh networking.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then after all, and how is demand?
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you how long have you been open now?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: I guess.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we opened in April this year.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: We've sold pretty much every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for the rest of this year.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have a single Monday in September and October available.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: Demand's deep for the product that we're offering here at 88 Wood Street, and we're in an incredible building.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is a Richard Rogers building, the arrival experience is amazing.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're up on level one, the route up is across an amazing walk-in bridge that most of our clients brand, tons of natural light.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, the demand for what we have here is deep.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: But we have a big room, we've got a 500-plus person room, and the reality is we're competing against a lot of the hotels that have a basement ballroom, right?
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: The hotels for us, for me, are they just confused with who their client base is.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're trying to be at a wedding at the weekend, they're an awards evening on that Wednesday, Thursday night, but they're also then trying to be that Monday to Friday, nine to five workday experience operator.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: So they're just a little for me, confused with exactly who their client is.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're Monday to Friday, we're corporate only, we don't hold social.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we can design our spaces, we can be in the right buildings for exactly who our client base is.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the wedding industry is not something that you would find attractive?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: We we are a very straight B2B business.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: And do you think that AI is strengthening the case for people needing to get together physically, or is it still, you know, is it meaning that a lot of meetings that couldn't have been sort of online before are now online?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: What are you seeing?
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, without question, strengthening uh the requirement to come together, like without a shadow of doubt.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that like very simply put, Susan, that's the premise that we raised money off the back of, right?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Which is we genuinely believe that physical experiences are going to continue to become more valuable the more the world leans into artificial content, right?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: There are really clear parallels with AI growth, artificial content being consumed online, and the understanding and the demand for physically coming together.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we genuinely believe the more the world absorbs artificial content, the more the world is going to value physical experiences.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: And what you were saying about, you know, big corporates actually not building their own auditoriums anymore and then looking for a provider, you know, in their building or somewhere convenient.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, could that mean that meeting an event space eventually becomes, you know, as important as a gym or a roof terrace or the other amenities that people have been looking for?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's the natural direction that it's moving at the moment.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: We have a lot of landlords we're spending a lot of time with at the moment that want our product in their building.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: The challenge is just the physical real estate 90% of the time doesn't work for what we do.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: So there's always going to be not a lack of demand, but there's just always going to be a restriction on the demand that comes through in this market because the available real estate is so tight for what we do.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: We're very specific on what we need out of a physical space that's uh it's just yeah, quite frankly, really hard to find in London.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: Does it need to be a new state-of-the-art building?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there's a lot of money going into, you know, repurposing older office buildings.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, could an older building work or does it really need to be new?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, not at all.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this building is constructed in 1994, I dear Wood Street, as I said, Richard Rogers, not a new building at all, but is just timeless in its architecture, right?
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Richard Rogers was all about steel, glass, timeless materials.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: So this building has that lasting understanding on the environment.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, no, the the real estate doesn't need to be brand new.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: There are some amazing old buildings that have amazing floor to ceiling heights and are full of character.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: We want a client to feel like they're not in their own office.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's why they come to us.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't want to be in a sterile building that has no life or none activity in the main ground floor reception.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: We want to be in an environment that is invoking some energy and some interest for our clients and is yeah, it shouldn't feel like it's their own office.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in terms of where, you know, which cities you want to be in, I mean, is it just London or are you thinking beyond London?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we love London.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: I live in London.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't see as ever being in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, in the regions, if I'm really honest, there just isn't a density of occupiers in those submarkets for us to have the confidence to go there.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: But who knows?
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: The Middle East has no non-hotel product, right?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: All of the meeting and event space is hotel-driven.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: Some clients like that, some clients don't.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: So who knows?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: But London's our focus at the moment.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: And in terms of whether you take a lease or management agreement, what is your thinking on that?
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're we're really clear.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're firm believers on the lease structure for us, right?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: We do the same amount of work if it's a lease or if it's a managed deal, and we take 100% more of the profit through at least, yes, you've got to invest your own money, but we deeply believe in this business.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing deep demand coming through.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we have an amazing group of investors that want to support through our growth.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the lease structure for us is where we want to put our energy.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we have full conviction we're investing our own money in all of our locations, but we want to control the PL.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: We want to control the operation.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're so focused on delivering an amazing experience to our clients that we have to have control over that experience.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to dilute that down with landlord ambition to use our spaces in different ways or restrictions that happen when you have an agreement that's more of a managed deal.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's a partnership, right, with that building owner.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that comes with restrictions, but for us, we're yeah, we have complete belief over our business.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the least model for us is the direction we're moving.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what's the ideal lease length for you?
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for us as long as possible.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we our business is we buy long, we sell short, right?
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: We buy a 20-year lease and we sell per day.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: So the longer the lease, the longer security we have or our asset.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: A lease isn't liability for us, a lease is our assets where we generate our rebidar and our margins.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't regard our leases as liabilities.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're assets in our mind.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we love longer leases.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think we can drive better deals, right?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: The longer the lease, the more rent-free we can get.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: It all has a positive knock-on effect for us.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's interesting because I think as we've discussed, a number of the sort of flexible working operators that I've interviewed in this podcast series have, you know, been trying to move away from leases towards a management agreement.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: So Yeah, that's interesting.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's an interesting model that they've leaned into, and it's sort of growing for square footage over Ibadar in in our mind.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we're coming at it from a slightly different angle.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you've got to tell us about um about club eighty eight, because I think that's going to be opening shortly, which is going to be a sort of adjunct to to what you're already offering at Wood Street.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's Club 88 all about?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Club 88 is probably one of the most exciting spaces I've ever opened, I've ever been involved in.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it came off of the back of the relationship we have with the building owner here, the Shaw Foundation.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: They've been spending a lot of time in London with us.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: They've seen the caliber of clients that we've been bringing into this business, right?
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: We've had the Premier League that have come in here with the Premier League trophy.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: We had Fremantle in here for a week, which is Simon Cow's production business.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: He was here giving a guest notes speaker.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Session to his 400 uh employees.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: And we've had all of the major banks and law firms, visa, Barclay Card, the management consultant.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: So they've been blown away at the calibre of clients that we've brought into the building for them.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: And they approached us six months ago and said, Hey guys, we want to create this space within AT.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: Which street is it of interest?
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: Fast forward, we've ended up taking a lease on that space.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: We completely control it and it has amazing synergies for us downstairs.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing a lot of our clients that are hosting multiple days will have their leadership in London for those days that they're hosting big conference on level one.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: When that leadership are in town, they want to have an amazing breakfast, they want to have a boardroom session booked, they want to have an amazing dinner in a private environment.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we're actually driving amazing upsell up into Club 88 from our clients that are using our space down on level one.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then separately, it's 10,000 square feet, a giant private roof terrace overlooking the City Cluster.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're actually the first business in central London to put a fully integrated outdoor LED wall onto the roof terrace.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: Our occupancy is a maximum of 100 people.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: So a corporate business can have a client invitation evening, watch a sporting event outside on the roof terrace with amazing drinks and calipes, and then move into our private dining for a sit-down five, six, seventh course tasting menu in our largest room.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: So really unique space.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: We have all the infrastructure in our space down on level one that allows us to run that space upstairs really efficiently.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, really exciting.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: Club ATA opens in a couple of weeks and uh yeah, we'd love to spin you round.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I would definitely love to see it.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's up on the up on the twelfth floor.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: Twelfth twelfth?
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so good views.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean you go into the largest room, you have the most amazing views into St.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: Paul's and the Shard, one side and the city cluster the other side.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's yeah, extraordinary real estate.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'd love to come see that.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: So as we draw to a close, what do you think?
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, five years' time, where would you like together to be?
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: What's the vision?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean we would love to have multiple locations in London and we'd love to be in two or three global cities.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think the dynamics are very consistent in a handful of global cities around the world as to what we're seeing here in central London.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we see growth as sort of coming quite naturally once we have a reasonable demographic of scale here in London.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's brilliant.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you, thank you so much.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: I really enjoyed that.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: Pleasure.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me, Susan.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: Genuinely feel privileged to be invited.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Elliot, for talking to us so candidly about your career to date, your passion for real estate and hospitality, and your vision for together.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was a real pleasure talking to you as always.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's it for now.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed today's conversation.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: Please join us for the next Property Sheet Podcast interview coming soon.
• 47:05
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• 47:18
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• 47:26
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• 47:30
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• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you can continue to follow me on LinkedIn and on Twitter at Property She for a very regular commentary on all things real estate, PropTech, and the built environment.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: See you again soon.