271. Why the Coworking Brand The Wing Failed

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The Wing abruptly closed its doors a few weeks ago.

The lack of transition time for its members is one topic.

The other aspect to examine is how a brand now owned by the largest public flexible workspace brand, IWG (parent of Regus, SPACES and others), failed.

If you’ve only followed The Wing on social media and in the press, you might be surprised by their failure. They quickly built a compelling brand and a network of high-end, boutque, bespoke-designed spaces in major markets, and garnered a lot of press for their efforts and focus on girl power.

If you’ve run a coworking business and visited a Wing, you probably saw past the social media stories.

I visited two of their locations—one in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and one in San Francisco.

I was a card-carrying member of the San Francisco location as of the San Francisco location for about a month. I joined in March 2020.

Our company accelerates the launch and growth of coworking spaces. We help operators decide how big their space should've and what their product mix should be based on their profit goals and access to startup capital. Unless someone joins our Coworking Startup School after they've signed a lease, we would strongly warn against 10,000 square feet of purely open plan seating, open on the weekends, staffed to the max, in high-rent districts.

Could the Wing succeed without COVID dragging down its balance sheet, and in about 2,000 square feet in first and second-tier markets? We think so.

We break down their breakdown on this episode.