{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"2 Marketers and a Coworking Podcast","title":"29. Accidental niches, landlord partnerships, and organic growth with Charlotte Kirby","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3556,"description":"Charlotte Kirby left a career in health care recruitment to open Markham's first coworking space, and ten years later, she runs three Village Hive locations across the GTA, spanning suburban Markham, industrial-adjacent North York, and midtown Toronto at Yonge and Eglinton.Along the way, she has landed a landlord partnership from a cold Google search, survived opening two locations during COVID, and stumbled into a thriving wellness niche with 40 psychotherapists booking on-demand offices, on top of the members she serves across her portfolio of spaces.In Episode 29, Charlotte shares how she built a profitable multi-location business by staying scrappy, saying yes to the right opportunities, and doubling down on what she has before chasing what's next.We discuss how:Charlotte went from burnt-out hospital administrator and reluctant work-from-homer to coworking operator after a sold-out TEDx event pushed her into a livestream at the Center for Social Innovation, one of Toronto's first coworking spaces, and a for-lease sign on a historic Markham schoolhouse did the restHer North York location started with a cold email from a landlord whose sister had simply Googled coworking operators, and Charlotte won the deal partly by being one of the only people who bothered to replyWhen that North York building sold, the new landlord toured the space, kept her on, and converted her management agreement to a lease, and Charlotte says the business makes more money now without the revenue shareShe tested demand in Aurora with pop-up coworking days at an art gallery and a media company, filling every seat and measuring success on two simple signals: attendance and whether attendees said they would consider a membershipHer therapist niche found her, growing from two on-demand offices to 40 psychotherapists and a dedicated wellness floor at Yonge and Eglinton, with a WhatsApp group where practitioners refer clients to each other instead of competingHer marketing team is mostly...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/DDPuLCKI6gGef-zANyhkBhb5qB5xCx_cy3YrU_L_cY8/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9hM2Mz/NDAwZjhiODhjZjNk/MGUyZDQ1N2ZjMDM0/ODJlNC5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}