WeWork Shakes Up Office Real Estate Again With Referral App
WeWork has broken down office walls again. And this time the shared workspace provider is reinforcing its communal vision by letting anyone refer—via the free WeWork Referral app—friends, peers and admired entrepreneurs to available space in the company’s rapidly expanding real estate portfolio.
What’s more, current members who make a successful connection will be rewarded with a referral fee, which could be 10% of the referred member’s monthly rent (for up to 12 months). Alternatively, the 10% fee can be split in half. Either the referred gets a 5% discount off of their membership fee and the referrer collects a 5% bonus or, for the most selfless of WeWorkers, the referred receives a 5% discount and the rest goes to Charity: Water, which provides clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations.
In an interview at WeWork’s 222 Broadway office Chief Product Officer Roee Adler said the company “decided to leverage [its] growth and the fact referrals are happening so often to build a new referral app” in the “most streamlined way the world has ever seen.”
Two software engineers spent three months honing the project. “The biggest challenge was building the streamlined automated payout solutions, rather than the front-end,” Adler said. “We’re very happy with what we built. Not only is it free, but it also makes you money,” he said, before praising the transparency of a payment method linked directly to a user’s bank account.
Adler and his colleagues have kept their lips sealed since WeWork Referral’s App Store debut. But they’re ready to sing its praises as a continuation of WeWork’s borderline utopian approach to a modern office life liberated from corner offices and fluorescent lit cubicles and buzzing with youthful amenities and casual “collisions of ideas.”
“WeWork represents what we believe is a generational movement,” Adler said. I asked if existing members would likely use the app to refer those in the same industry. “It unifies people of the same mindset rather than a specific profession,” he said. “A millennial designer and lawyer have more in common than two lawyers, one with a WeWork mindset and another looking to work in a 10,000-person corporation.”
One of the more exciting aspects of the app is how it transfers WeWork’s interior approach to the urban neighborhood outside. Once referred through the system, a dedicated New Member Development team member will contact potential members. The first task is to suss out the referred individual’s legitimate interest in a WeWork toehold.
“We’re very sensitive to abuse,” Adler said of members referring everyone under the sun in order to collect kickbacks. “We can detect it by the first lead and ban that referrer.”
If the referred passes muster, the representative will steer him to the WeWork locations best suiting his company’s needs. Are hopping happy hours in Lower Manhattan a priority? With its proximity to bar-laden Stone Street, the 85 Broad Street location will fit. Are water and bridge views important? The agent may guide intrigued parties to Dumbo Heights.
On the subject of WeWork location options, Adler agreed that the app will help maintain the company’s cohesion and “personal touch” as it expands at warp speed.
But he insists that the main benefit is for existing and new members. “It’s a lightweight, easy way to make a brokerage living,” Adler said. “Everyone can become a broker.” Could some Brokers bristle at that sentiment? Adler doesn’t foresee any backlash from real estate pros.
“We hope to see adoption from the brokerage industry as well,” he said. “What this is supposed to do is break barriers. The pie is very large.”
