Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeff Kikel.
Hi Jeff, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Five years ago, I had left my previous employer and started my own Financial Practice. At that time, I did not have an office, so I was meeting clients at their offices, in coffee shops, and at restaurants. During this time, I had visited several coworking spaces in Austin and thought the idea was very intriguing. We had none of these in Cedar Park at the time and I thought there was a need.
I spent about six months meeting with people in the City, other business owners, and friends. Everyone thought that this was needed and a great idea, but no one was willing to commit to helping. In absence of anyone else dumb enough to do it, my wife and I decided to create T-Werx Coworking.
T-Werx has had the goal since the beginning of being the Community Center: for the business communities that we are in. We are a suburban coworking space where most of our members are within 7-10 miles of our locations. Our clients are able to live, work, and play in our community.
From the beginning, we knew that we needed to provide levels of membership for a variety of businesses. We have everything from a low-cost Virtual Office membership up to private offices. As a new business concept, the last five years have not been easy. Over that time we had some huge struggles to get people in our community to understand the benefits of coworking and why someone should pay for a space to work. This was particularly difficult in the first two years where we almost went out of business 4 times due to lack of capital. This was a tough time for my wife Crystal and I. We literally worked every “Gig Economy” job we could do to keep the business alive, which included driving Uber, delivering food, basically anything legal that we could think to do to make money. Through all of that, we were able to survive and start to build the business.
People often ask what it is like working with your spouse. The biggest challenge is separating work and home. So many times, we find ourselves talking, arguing, and (or) complaining about work at home. That was something that became more and more common when we were facing business challenges in the first couple of years of the business. We learned to stop these conversations at home before they get out of control and now schedule business meetings at work to hash these things out instead of doing it at home. The more that you treat the business like you are not married the better your life is.
In 2018, we had the opportunity to work with a landlord in the Four Points area in NW Austin and open our second location. This led to some other challenges as we expanded. We realized that a lot of our procedures were in our heads and needed to be written down. We had to learn to manage employees in a new location and frankly, I didn’t have the time to run my other businesses (2 others in Wealth Management and Marketing Consulting). It was at this time that my wife stepped up to the plate to take over Operations and Construction Management. The biggest gift that came out of all of this is that Crystal was AMAZING at those jobs and from that point on we were able divide up our duties where I could focus on VIsion, Sales, and Marketing. Crystal focuses on Operations and Facilities and we have been able to make the business rock as a result.
2019 saw us add our 3rd location and our first that would become a licensed location. A friend of mine had some extra space in an office he had bought and asked me what he could do with it. I suggested a concept that I had of a small space to start that could be expanded later. That was the birth of T-Werx Too in Dripping Springs.
Of course, we all know what happened during 2020. We began the year incredibly strong, with our Cedar Park and Four Points locations beginning to break records each month. Dripping Springs was new but it was gaining traction. Then COVID hit. As a facility that receives mail for other businesses, we were an essential business; however with the shutdown, we saw over 50% of our revenue go away in less than two weeks. This forced us to have to make some very difficult decisions which included laying off employees and closing our Four Points location for three months. That left Crystal and I to run to run the company by ourselves.
After the lockdowns subsided a bit, an interesting thing happened. Summers in our business are typically extremely slow and people tend to disappear (along with their money). The summer of 2020 turned out to be different. With kids at home, spouses working from home, and companies embracing a new “Virtual Office” world, people began to come out of the woodwork. This continued into 2021 and is leading to one of the best years in our history.
We have no plans to open any new locations in the foreseeable future, but we are not sitting on our laurels. We are in the process of relaunching our Entrepreneur Center. The Entrepreneur Center was a concept that we launched prior to COVID that focused on Digital Marketing Training, Business Skills, and Small Business Growth Strategies. Most of the training was done at our locations with minimal virtual training. COVID and the shutdowns completely killed the original version. Which was a good thing. I had built a business channel that was completely not scalable and was largely “Jeff-Centric.”
The new and improved Entrepreneur Center 2.0 will launch in September and will have several levels of training, including online, in-person workshops, Entrepreneur training programs for Growth and Marketing, and what we are most excited for, our Entrepreneur in Residence program. The EIR program will be a 6-month program designed for small businesses that have goals to rapidly grow and scale their businesses. The long-term plans for the Entrepreneur Center are to expand it to other independent coworking spaces throughout the rest of the state, providing operators with another revenue source for their businesses outside of just space rental.
After five years in this business, struggling with money and a business, nobody understood at the beginning. It has been a challenge and one of the most rewarding experiences that I have ever done in my life.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We have three locations in the Austin area (Cedar Park, Four Points – NW Austin, Dripping Springs). Our locations offer everything from Virtual Office (mail and address), Coworking, hot desks, and small office. We are different from other coworking spaces because we are suburban and always will be. We reflect our communities, are a part of the community through our C-Werx Program, and focus on helping small business owners be successful.
What matters most to you?
The community of business owners and remote workers. Many of them are like family to us. In our locations we have a core of members that have been with us since the beginning. We look for ways to work together to help each other build our businesses.
This was the dream that we had when we started our business and is reflected in our mission statement, which is: We want to help businesses start and grow in our community, stay and be sustainable, and hire locally. We have been able to execute on this for the five years we have been in business. I look forward to launch of our Entrepreneur Center as a way to take our mission to the next level.
Pricing:
- Virtual Office – $34.99 mo
- Day Pass – $25 day
- Cowerx Membership (Coworking) $200
- Dedicated Desk (24 Hour Access) $350 mo
- Private office Starts at $850 per month
Contact Info:
- Email: jeff@t-werx.com
- Website: www.t-werx.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/twerx.coworking/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TWerxCoworking
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWerxCoworking
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0xzR7pKB0w2F8a7Ij48oGw
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/t-werx-coworking-cedar-park-2?osq=t-werx+coworking
Image Credits
All images by Jeff Kikel
