Spotlight On: Tyler Evans, Franchise Owner, Venture X

Spotlight On: Tyler Evans, Franchise Owner, Venture X

2022-12-01T12:55:19-05:00December 1st, 2022|Raleigh-Durham, Real Estate, Spotlight On|

2 min read December 2022 Tyler Evans, franchise owner for hospitality-centered flex office and coworking provider Venture X, spoke with Invest: about the growth of the coworking model since the COVID-19 pandemic and plans for adapting to a broader future. He emphasized the benefits to employees, employers and the overall community through increased communication and networking.

How has Venture X gained traction as a result of COVID-19?

Our tagline is “the future of workspace” and it has been that way since 2019. It was always just a tagline until COVID hit and it became really relevant. In the last year, we have seen a shift in multiple sectors with our enterprise customers. We have the sixth-largest insurance company in the world. In multiple cities, they have decentralized their real estate portfolio as they’ve now realized that having 200,000 square feet Downtown is not something that’s good for them, it’s not beneficial. Now, there is also the HR and the employee satisfaction piece that has been flipped on its head, where the office and the workplace choice have become an employment incentive. It truly has become part of a benefits package for a company to say, “here’s what we offer you in terms of how you can work.” Additionally, any lease over 12 months shows as a liability on your balance sheet. Finding and retaining talent this past year has truly been hard but companies have found a sweet spot in co-working. What we’ve seen is that companies of all sizes, from large enterprises to solo entrepreneurs, to the average employee who works from home, just can’t do it anymore. Most people don’t thrive being alone. Business, networking, employee satisfaction and retention drop without having connections. In four of our five locations, we’ve filled up within six months and the location that isn’t full is one that we just bought in May. The diversification is probably 50/50 between large enterprise clients and smaller local businesses. 

How do you see Venture X continuing post-pandemic?

I think our product is here to stay and everything we see foretells that. Thirty percent of the private office/commercial real estate sector is projected to be flex office space of some sort because that’s what everybody wants. Even if they want traditional real estate, they want it to be flex. Landlords are also having to pivot their offerings and flexibility to accommodate this demand. However, it’s not just commercial real estate; this is hospitality. The future of flex office space and coworking is hospitality because people need to feel like they belong. 

What is the benefit of companies partnering with Venture X rather than traditional landlords?

Landlords and commercial leases are just typically not very flexible and people really experienced that during COVID. Problems get passed onto a property management company that will spend the least amount of money on the building and make the most amount of money possible. When you come into Venture X, we are your “landlord,” we take on the full risk and liability of the lease. That’s on us. We take care of janitorial needs, repairs and maintenance, security, vendor contracts and all utilities. All you have to do is sit down in your chair and work. That frees up companies and business owners to be a lot more focused on their business and have less stress. We also provide a community that results in better networking, member appreciation events and overall added value for your connections. 

What segments are offering opportunities or presenting challenges in the area?

The shared warehousing and shared industrial space are going to become really big. Having an office is essential, but so is having storage and warehousing space for a lot of businesses? That would probably be our biggest challenge, especially in a market like Charleston, which does a lot of shipping support and has greater storage needs. Specifically in Raleigh and Durham, the life sciences, biotech, medtech and fintech need spaces where people can have wet labs on a flexible term.

What projects are you working on?

We are partnering with a Fort Mill, South Carolina, landlord who owns a building and he will be a partner of the business with us. He knew that he wanted coworking as a part of his live-work-play development. Developers that come in want these trendy areas where there’s restaurants, coffee shops, condos and office space. They know that coworking is a piece of that and now they’re reaching out to us. Before, we would have to reach out to them. In one county in South Carolina, we are working with the city and county government to develop a University Innovation Center within our space. We want to create a model like a Starbucks within Target for universities and have a university innovation center powered by Venture X to attract businesses. Colleges want to be an integral part of the economic community but they can’t do that when it’s on campus. There’s this dynamic here where we kind of have to meet in the middle. We want to be the one who facilitates this along with the county and city economic development, so that the students are right next door to their future employers. These future employers get to be a part of this innovation center and pour into the next generation of their workforce. We feel this kind of community-wide collegiate innovation effort is a key part of our future.

For more information, visit:

https://venturex.com/ 

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