Every engagement starts the same way.
Is this worth doing?
The work runs in four stages. Most of it stops after the first, and that is the point rather than a shortcoming.
Layered, not packaged.
It starts with a question
Every engagement opens with a review that ends in a recommendation and the arithmetic behind it.
Nothing continues automatically
Each layer after the first is commissioned on its own, once the one before it has answered what it was asked. A good number of engagements stop at the first layer, and that is the point of running it this way.
The path depends on who is asking
An investor deciding on a building, an operator fixing a margin and a company taking space are three different sequences. Only the opening review is common to all three.
Layers often run alongside one another rather than in sequence, particularly once construction is involved. Scope and timing are agreed when the layer is commissioned, not before.
Operators
Flex and coworking businesses come to me when the margin stops following the occupancy, when the next site is about to be signed on instinct, or when an exit is close enough that the numbers need to be presentable.
Operations, pricing, commercial structure and systems rebuilt from source and stress-tested against what actually happens once a building fills.
Strategy and growth plan, pricing rebuilt, operating model and site economics reset. Ends with what to do, in what order, and what it is worth.
Putting it into practice: playbooks, sales structure, team and systems, alongside the people who will run it afterwards.
Retained oversight while it beds in, held deliberately small and deliberately finite.
Owners, developers, investors and funds
Capital comes to me before it commits: to a building, to an operator, or to a structure it will live with for years. Usually the question is whether flex belongs here at all, and on whose balance sheet the risk should sit.
Does the concept work in this building, in this market, at this rent. Or, where an operator is already in play, what that business is actually worth.
Market analysis, layout planning with an architect, a concept built around the specific premises, and a full business and financial plan. Everything an investment committee needs in order to decide.
Lease, management agreement or own operation. Operator selection and terms, or acquisition price and what the earn-out should carry.
Build-out documentation, design lead, contractors and project management through to handover. Usually running alongside the previous layer.
Retained watch over the operation while it stabilises and the numbers start reporting themselves.
Occupiers
Companies come to me when the space decision is larger than the lease. Nobody internally can say whether serviced space or a conventional lease is genuinely cheaper over five years, and the fit-out is about to start.
What the company actually requires rather than what it asked for, turned into a brief that can be taken to the market.
Serviced against conventional, costed properly over the full term, and a shortlist built on fit and cost. Where a landlord or operator pays a commission, you see who and how much before you sign.
Terms, structure and what is actually movable, from someone who knows what the other side’s margin looks like.
Design lead, documentation, contractors and project management through to handover.
Two engagements
Described without naming the client. Sometimes the deliverable is a document. Sometimes it is a handful of working sessions that stop an expensive mistake before it is made.
Stress-testing a concept before the doors opened
A new serviced workspace operator in Estonia, backed by one of the country’s larger real estate developers, preparing to open its first location.
A deep review of the operating model, pricing and technology setup, then each of them stress-tested against what actually happens once a building fills. Conducted as working sessions rather than as a report.
A set of operational, technical, pricing and legal problems found and resolved before opening rather than after, when each would have been considerably more expensive to unwind.
A proof of concept that ended in a defensible no
A bank holding a commercial building in its own portfolio, asking whether a flexible workspace concept would work in it.
Market analysis, layout planning with an architect, a concept built around the specific premises, and a full business and financial plan. Everything an investment committee needs in order to decide.
The committee had what it needed. After a change of management it chose not to proceed, judging that it had neither the appetite nor the internal resource to run the concept itself. The work existed to make that decision defensible either way.
Bring the difficult question.
- What is on your mind, and where you are today.
- What result or change you are looking for.
First conversations are 45 minutes and cost nothing.
Add any data you think is worth me seeing.