WeWork Lessons, Family Business, and Four-day Work Weeks
Will Private Numbers Hurt Newly Public Businesses? Learning from WeWork’s Public Transition
As more and more businesses are choosing to make the lucrative leap from private to public, business owners and CEOs are learning more about what it takes to make that transition successful. WeWork, a popular shared work space company, filed for a recent I.P.O. and, while their numbers are impressive, many investors agree that specifics are lacking, making it difficult to decide whether or not it is worth the risk.
The numbers released by WeWork, which spends “billions of dollars upfront to build out its empire of co-working spaces”, show expected peaks and valleys. Unfortunately, the numbers weren’t specific to a location’s performance, making it difficult to predict how well the company will do as it scales - is all of the revenue coming from just one or two trendy locales?
According to experts, WeWork's decision to withhold certain numbers is rather risky, as public market success depends on investors really trusting the company. Of course, it’s too early to tell if the risk will pay off, as the offering (which hopes to raise close to $4 billion) won’t take place until later in September.
Why Doing Business with Your Family Is a Good Idea
Never (ever) do business with friends and family, unless, of course, you’re wanting to never speak to them again.
Sound like advice you’ve gotten before?
For a lot of entrepreneurs, starting a business means finding the right people to help. And, while family members sometimes seem to fit the bill, it’s often advised against, with experts and neighbors (and the few expert neighbors) all weighing in on exactly why it’s a horrible idea.
There is, however, another side of the coin, one that promises the advantages of working with your family in business. This camp not only believes that working with family can be successful, but that it’s more beneficial than working with anyone else.
Too hard to believe?
Here’s three compelling reasons why your inner circle of family and friends could be the entrepreneurial dream team you’ve been searching for…
You can trust them. At least, you should be able to trust them. While the stories of backstabbing families get all the publicity, there are actually plenty of families that demonstrate love, respect, and trust are alive and well. More than any other person you can choose to do business with, a family member is most likely to earn and keep your trust (especially if they’ve already been doing that for years).
Communication couldn’t be easier. Assuming that you have a good relationship with your family, you already know each other well, which means a lot of what would need to be communicated to make a business partnership successful (core values, beliefs, vision, etc.) is already understood.
You have a lot in common. While you might immediately think about all the times you fought growing up, the reality for most people is that they share a lot of the same fundamental beliefs and values with their family. This foundation can take decades to build in other business relationships - and sometimes business partners will never be aligned. This alone gives you and your family business a leg up.
Should American Businesses Seriously Consider a Four-Day Work Week?
Much of Europe is already doing it, but Americans are divided about the benefits of a four-day work week, leaving any real momentum behind shorter work weeks out in the cold. Why the hesitation? Despite the rather glowing reviews from other countries, including one of the forerunners in the movement Belgium, American business owners and economic experts remain concerned.
In an article published in the Washington Post, Belgium’s four-day work week is allowing people to “have a much more balanced life”. In addition to “new hobbies” and the opportunity to spend “more time with their children”, Belgians report feeling like their “lives have slowed down” - and in the best of ways. Believed to be a great way to “boost employee morale and hourly productivity”, proponents of this shorter working week view it as a way to redistribute wealth, “reallocating time to workers, rather than money”.
So, why wouldn’t Americans, who, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, “work more hours annually than any of their Western peers”, be unanimously in favor of it?
For starters, some professionals believe that, in order to make up for the missing day, employers and employees will be tempted (if not forced) to work much longer (somewhere between ten and twelve hours) days, which can be bad for overall health - physical and mental. Furthermore, others wary of the shorter work week feel certain that stress levels will be elevated because of the need to “get everything done” in less time.
And, if there’s anything Americans really don’t need, it’s definitely more stress.