GCUC Podcast Recap: Arian Lewis

The brain behind kiln. talks about how missteps, crypto Mondays, revitalization, and nay sayers all played their part in today’s coworking success. Arian Lewis, founder and CEO at kiln., takes us on his journey from tech start-ups and graduate school, to origins, branding, trademarks, and more in this episode of the GCUC Podcast.

Find your balance with these juicy sound bites:

I really do think it was meant to be the name for our company. The simple idea is when you place something into a kiln, the natural properties of that thing become stronger and more beautiful. -Arian Lewis, Founder and CEO at kiln.

I like it because the name is simple. It has an imagery that can come with it. We love the name, but we love even more what happens behind the name. -Arian Lewis, Founder and CEO at kiln.

An incubator is where you start a company. Accelerator is where you take that company and grow it to your first set of customers. An escalator is the thing that powers them both up. -Arian Lewis, Founder and CEO at kiln.

The rise brand continues on to this day. It is still the number 1 place for financial technology companies, particularly in London and New York. More than 50% of all fintech events in those two cities happen at rise. -Arian Lewis, Founder and CEO at kiln.

There’s so many creative players and there’s so much space for all of them. This is such a big pie so the exciting thing is that we’re all at the very beginning of the whole thing. I really applaud anyone that can do it well and anyone that is trying, as well. -Arian Lewis, Founder and CEO at kiln.

It’s not an unsophisticated business because there’s so many moving parts that have to be balanced and they have to be done right. The moments that you get it right are very rewarding. -Arian Lewis, Founder and CEO at kiln.

We were very proactive, we contacted every member within days of the pandemic really kicking off. We said what can we do for you? How can we help you? Do you need a discount? -Arian Lewis, Founder and CEO at kiln.

Community doesn’t scale. It’s built locally and it stays locally. We do have a community across our kiln. locations but we are very much focused on creating an environment and experience within each individual location that almost feels like this is the only one that exists. -Arian Lewis, Founder and CEO at kiln.

When you trademark outside of the US you protect your online presence because there are no borders online. -Arian Lewis, Founder and CEO at kiln.

The traditional equation was to go to highly dense urban markets and that’s changing now. But the largest and top coworking brands in the US are predominantly urban and they’re mostly based out of New York City. -Arian Lewis, Founder and CEO at kiln.

Kiln. is a lifestyle brand so our goal is to elevate the quality of life while people are at work or doing their creative best work. We are a lifestyle brand but we are clearly a blend of real estate and hospitality. -Arian Lewis, Founder and CEO at kiln.

We elevate the quality of life through an ecosystem of products, people, spaces, and places. Our aim is to get that balance right. -Arian Lewis, Founder and CEO at kiln.

Click HERE to listen to the full podcast with Liz Elam and Arian Lewis. It’s juicy!

Podcast sponsored by nexudus.com