Lessons from the Fall of WeWork

Hey curious mind,

Here’s today’s dose to become smarter in 5 minutes:

• The Growth Insight: Lessons from the Fall of WeWork

• The AI Growth Tactic: Use AI to Crush Meetings

• Tools to Unlock Your Peak Potential

The Growth Insight 🌱

Lessons from the Fall of WeWork

In 2010, Adam Neumann started WeWork in New York. It was meant to be a revolutionary coworking space. With more people working remotely and low lease rates after the 2008 crisis, it seemed like the perfect idea.

Big investors like Benchmark, SoftBank, and Goldman Sachs were quick to invest. By 2019, WeWork was valued at $47 billion.

However, WeWork has now filed for bankruptcy.

Here are three key lessons from WeWork's failure:

• Money Can Blind You

  Softbank invested $18.5 billion in WeWork, and other investors added billions more. This huge amount of money made Neumann overlook the real problems in his business. He kept expanding without solid plans, using money to hide these issues. It's crucial to focus on what truly brings in profits.

• Avoid Overextending

  Neumann divided WeWork into three areas: coworking spaces, apartments, and schools. Spreading resources too thin across different sectors made it tough to compete with specialized companies. This strategy was risky and ultimately didn't work out.

• The Right Leader Matters

  Just like with other companies such as GoPro and Shopify, not every founder should remain as CEO. In the early stages, a founder might manage every part of the business. However, as the company grows, it might be better to find someone with the right skills to lead.

The AI Growth Tactic 🖥️

Never Unprepared: Use ChatGPT to Crush Meetings

Imagine having your own personal assistant to prep you before every meeting. With Zapier's AI workflows and the power of ChatGPT, you can create a Chief of Staff agent to make sure you're always prepared!

Big thanks to Olivia Moore for this brilliant idea!

Here's how to set it up:

• First, head over to Zapier and create a new automation.

• Connect your calendar, and set the trigger to fire 15 minutes before each meeting starts.

• Instruct Zapier to include meetings where the organizer's email is from your company (so you don't get prepped for random events).

• Next, instruct Zapier to extract the company name from the meeting organizer's email address.

• Connect with ChatGPT and ask it to research the company, the attendees, and summarize the purpose of the meeting.

• Finally, have ChatGPT send you the meeting summary via email, so you're ready to rock your next discussion!

With this setup, you'll never walk into a meeting unprepared again.

Tools to Unlock Your Peak Potential 🛠️

• Story- Create engaging videos with AI

• TheyDo- Analyze and map customer journeys to derive insights

• Quilt- AI automation for solutions teams to 10x their productivity