NY Launch Pod: Welcome to the New York Launch Pod, the New York Press club award winning podcast highlighting the most interesting new startups, businsseses and openings in the New York City area. I’m your host and New York Attorney, Hal Coopersmith, and before we begin this episode, I want to take a moment to address everything that is going on right now. It’s very tough times for New York City, our country, and people around the world as a result of corona virus. New York City, of course, is the center of this thing. Because why not, were the center of everything so you have to take the good with the bad. But on a serious note This of course is a time where we realize how fragile our lives are and here is to hoping that the ones you love are safe and healthy and that you are keeping your own sanity during this period of social distancing.
This is also a podcast dedicated to entrepreneurship. As you may know, I am an attorney and here to help startups and businesses. I’ve written a few blog posts through my law firm about what to know about the Paycheck Protection Act, what to do about your commercial lease, and how to make sense of mortgage and rent payments during this time which we will link to in the show notes. These are all designed to help entrepreneurs save their businesses, because the going is pretty rough right now. And even if you find yourself in the unenviable position of having to look past today’s dream or todays job, I want to say that it’s the best opportunity to think of what the world needs and that I want to see you on the New York Launch Pod when you think about it.
This month’s episode features Cate Luzio from Luminary which is a female focused community and networking space. We actually recorded this episode a while back before coronavirus and before all the WeWork collapse happened (there’s probably more to the WeWork collapse as time goes on) , but all that aside there is some great stuff in the episode. There is a big focus on community in this episode and that couldn’t be more important now so I thought it would make sense to publish this now, and even while we are social distancing I know Cate is doing a big digital push. So without any further to do, lets go to our interview with Cate Luzio, founder of Luminary.
So when did you start Luminary?
Cate Luzio: Well, I wrote the business plan in March of 2018 and we launched officially in January of 2019
NY Launch Pod: So in March of 2018 co-working is pretty big. Why did you see the market opportunity?
Cate Luzio: So because Luminary is not a traditional co-working space in the sense of all the others out there. And listen, I knew about all of those as a banker for almost 20 years. Some of them were my clients, but what I saw particularly for women was this gap in community and the opportunity to invest in themselves and for their companies to further invest in themselves. Almost like continuing education but doing it in a social setting. And so when I looked around, I saw lots of organizations that held events for women and panels and conferences, but not a holistic approach to on the daily basis where you can go, you can meet, you connect and you can actually take advantage of programs, workshops and events on a regular basis.
NY Launch Pod: So events, programs, workshops on a daily basis supporting women. If I’m thinking about that at least in terms of physical space and a community space, one thing that comes to mind for me as I imagine for you is the Wing. You’re already smiling. You already knew that that was coming. So why did you see that as opposed to what the Wing was doing when you’re starting your own space?
Cate Luzio: So first I think the Wing and both the co-founders are trailblazers, right? They saw a real big gap in the market. I think particularly around social spaces for women, safe spaces for women and saw an opportunity and a market need. And clearly, you know, now they’re in I think nine cities, or something like that, or at least nine spaces. I think we’re very different in that we are very focused on professional development for women and our male allies. And so the programming and the content that we offer, you know, we offer four to six programs, workshops, events, every single week, and they’re bucketed into professional and career development, small business, entrepreneurial, personal wellness and career changer. Because we’re not just that typical co-working space. Almost 60% of our members have full time jobs and full time offices. They’re coming for the community, the connection and the event opportunity. And so there’s a big differentiator there. And I think what’s amazing is there could be hundreds of these spaces and they could all be run by women and we’re still not even scratching the surface of the women that need our help.
NY Launch Pod: So you touched on a lot there, at least in terms of all the things that you’re doing at Luminary specifically though, I want to know about the professional development and what you’re doing more specifically and how you arrived at that being the best idea for professional development.
Cate Luzio: So a part of it is we have six signature programs at Luminary that we run. 70% of our programming is actually member led. So when you think about a lot of organizations will bring in outside external consultants and coaches, et cetera. We actually believe that when a community reinvests in itself, you get much higher quality of that. Right? And you’re also feeding it. So 70% of the programs we work with, lots of coaches that are already members that come in and want to host workshops. A lot of our corporate members, because we don’t just work with individuals, we have over 20 corporate members, JP Morgan, Heidrick and Struggles, Unilever, Goldman Sachs, UBS, and a lot of them want to provide thought leadership in the spaces that they’re in. So Heidrick and Struggles is a great example where they have come in and worked with our members around career pivoting around management effectiveness. And so when we look at that professional development, we’re really focused on listening to feedback from our members and around what they’re looking at. Is it networking, mentoring, sponsorship, negotiation? We had a huge event last night over a hundred women where we partner with women.nyc on how to negotiate a better salary, better benefits, your next raise, your next job. So things like that. And that all comes from feedback from our members and our corporate members around what’s top of mind for women.
NY Launch Pod: So what you’re doing in terms of professional development, building this community, it’s very impressive. You mentioned that you had a career in finance before. What made you think I can do this and I can build this community?
Cate Luzio: Well, I think I was already doing it in the jobs. I mean I worked at, started my career really at Bank of America and then seven years at JP Morgan and then many years at HSBC. And I think I ran, my last two roles were global in nature and I had thousands of people. Right. So you really, in businesses like that, you have to create community too, right? And you’re the leading it. So they need to follow you. And I was doing on the side of my desk a lot of the women’s initiatives and spearheading a lot of those, the events around that and diversity inclusion. And so I think by nature I’m a connector. I feel like I create community in general. I also have built businesses for 20 years and so I know how to run a business. Granted that’s with the huge infrastructure behind me. So that part was very new, but writing a strategy and a business plan and then knowing how to execute. I think those are the, you know, some of my biggest qualities. And so having that plan and writing that and seeing what that looks like and what’s on the horizon and keeping that north star, I mean it wasn’t a question of how, it was a question of when can I get it done? And we launched nine months after I wrote the business plan.
NY Launch Pod: So you had this whole base of people in terms of building your community and your space. You mentioned at the beginning that the co-working space was crowded and specifically all the others out there. And we know some of the big names. How are you able to stand out? Obviously you’re here, so problem solved, but how are you able to get your name out and continue to grow that community as the space, let’s face it, is getting more and more crowded and there are more and more entrances into the space and just Googling isn’t going to get you there anymore.
Cate Luzio: No, and in fact we’ve taken a completely different approach. So almost everything that we do is organic and word of mouth. That’s really how we’ve grown the community to over 600 individual members has been word of mouth. We’ve done very little advertising on the social side. I think the other thing is we have what we call content and community partners, so we partner with Elevate Network. We partner with we.nyc, women.nyc, the Crew, Six Degrees Society, just to name a few. And not only does that bring community within community for us, it brings so many people within the space and into the space. And so we have a very liberal guest policy, so whether it’s through an event or someone bringing a guest and we also have day passes so people can come in and check us out for the day. We don’t have an application process. If you want to join us, you can join on the spot. That’s a real community and we don’t want to be exclusive. We want to be completely the opposite. We’re trying to create a real inclusive space and that’s really how we’ve grown. I think our members are our biggest advocates and so they are our spokespeople. They’re our ambassadors.
NY Launch Pod: Growing organically. Word of mouth referrals. It’s hard. It’s also very refreshing because it seems like a lot of people aren’t growing their businesses that way or they’ll seek out funding and try to grow synthetically. What has growing organically word of mouth meant for you and your business and why have you chosen that route?
Cate Luzio: One, I think we speak for ourselves, right? And so Luminary as an entity in what we’re doing. I think once you walk into the space, you see who we are and you feel the vibe and you are completely welcomed, you know, I didn’t choose the route to fund, I self funded. So you know, I used all of my personal savings to actually build this company. And I think there are a lot of entrepreneurs out there that are looking for examples like that, that aren’t going the fundraising route for various reasons. They can’t raise, they’re not getting the opportunity, but there are a lot that want to bootstrap. And so I think there was an example there and people kind of are craving some of that leadership. So I do a lot of advisory. I am in this space almost every single day. If I’m not, there’s a reason I might be speaking somewhere. Weekends. I’m usually there on a Saturday. I’ll stop in. We have an open house as an example this Saturday. I think it’s really important that the leader sets the tone from the top and a year into this. It’s not just me anymore, it’s my team. It’s the members that are now bringing that.
NY Launch Pod: You talked about self-funding, growing organically, certainly makes sense for the first space. Is this what you want Luminary to become, that it’s this one hive or do you want it to be similar in scope to the Wing or bigger or something like that?
Cate Luzio: I’m not focused on who’s out there and how many spaces we’ll have. I think what’s really important is that we’ve made a mark and we’ve set in New York and that’s our home and our headquarters. We’re a community so we won’t have another one in New York and I’ve said that pretty publicly. If and when we go somewhere, it will be another city. Because by nature of having a community, you want people to come to that community. And so I don’t want to dilute who we are by having multiple spaces in one city. We get a lot of requests for other parts of the city, but we’re so centrally located. And I did that for a reason. So you can get to us so easily. And because we work with so many companies, it’s great for their employees to have access to our space too.
NY Launch Pod: Well you brought up New York and launching in New York, obviously that’s an important part of our podcast. Talking about doing business in New York. What has building this community within New York meant to you and the business?
Cate Luzio: So it’s interesting. Most of my career has actually been outside of the US. I was raised in New Jersey, so I’m a Jersey girl. I’m very Jersey strong and proud, but I had never lived in New York. So as a banker, it’s interesting when I moved back in 2015 I had never moved back, meaning moved back to the States from London. I had never lived in New York, so I had never had the goal of living in New York, which is odd. And, but I was taking, I took a new role and so that was based here in New York and to setting up roots. And once I decided to do the company, it was like, well, I guess I’m staying here. And I think for me, my father worked in New York City for almost 30 years as an FBI agent. I’m very proud of that. So having this affinity to New York and now being here, it’s really important. And I think being a member of this community, not just as a resident, but as the business community is even more important. You’re seeing so many, no offense to the big companies, a lot of the small, smaller businesses, especially minority and women owned aren’t getting the same opportunities. And I think what the city is doing is trying to attract that. And we’re one of them.
NY Launch Pod: And what are your members in New York specifically looking for?
Cate Luzio: Well, you know, we’re such a diverse group that we have New Yorkers. We have, you know, members from New Jersey, from Connecticut, Long Island, the Westchester area. I think, again, what we hear the most is the community. It’s really interesting. You know, we had two floors for the last 10 or 11 months and I was building our rooftop, which is called the Glass Ceiling. And it’s an extension of our space and we’re in…
NY Launch Pod: People can be on top of the glass ceiling. Is that it?
Cate Luzio: Yeah. So we can break through. It’s actually a glass enclosed space and a retractable roof. So you think of breaking through the glass ceiling. It kind of goes along with our theme at Luminary around advancing women in the workforce. But we’ve run into a lot of hurdles and getting some approvals particularly for our liquor license. Anyway, reason I bring this up is I went out to my members in the Luminary community and said, would anyone write a letter of support around why Luminary and the glass ceiling are so important to this community. In 48 hours, I had over 200 letters from members, emails on letterhead from our corporate members, from local businesses in the community. And I know that what we’re doing is really important and making an impact when I see a community really rally around itself to support one small business.
NY Launch Pod: So your liquor license was approved?
Cate Luzio: Not yet.
NY Launch Pod: Not yet. Not even with all those letters?
Cate Luzio: No, we’re still going through the process. It’s an interesting process here in New York, but without sort of getting into semantics, it wasn’t the liquor authority that has an issue. It’s one of the buildings in our neighborhood. So anyone that’s gone through that process will know what I’m talking about.
NY Launch Pod: And how much does a membership cost?
Cate Luzio: So we have four different tiers from $150 to $400 a month. And those are based on usage. And we also have an under 30, I mean, sorry, under 25 membership. So it’s called our Rise and we’ve just added a senior membership because we have so many women over the age of 65, now, that are members, we have a nonprofit component, veteran, and teacher. So they all get a 20% discount. And then we have a scholarship program, called our Illumination grants. So for every 10 memberships that are purchased, we give away one to a woman in need. So for those of you out there that are heavily in debt, don’t have the financial means. Please apply because it’s a wonderful program that we offer.
NY Launch Pod: All those programs certainly sound phenomenal in terms of building your community. How did you arrive at those specific costs for membership?
Cate Luzio: So really around market research and analysis, right? It’s a part of any good business plan is understanding firstly, obviously the demand and the supply, but understanding what some of these spaces are costing, right? Whether it’s a social club or a private members’ club or a co-working space and looking at what our value is and what we’re offering. And we also wanted to be very flexible. We’re not one size fits all. So making sure that any of our members, regardless of the package or the membership that they choose, they’re getting value and they have impact. So that was really how we came to that. But I went around the US and also went to a bunch of different women’s spaces. It’s part of our actual programming. We have seven partner communities. So back to sort of the old men’s clubs where you had these reciprocal clubs. We now have those in seven cities across the US so I visited many of those and talked to their founders. And that’s even in itself a great community of women and founders that are talking amongst ourselves around how do we better prepare, how do we all make money as well because we need to make money we’re businesses. And I think that’s the other thing. There’s a great founder, you should have her on cause she’s here in New York, Deepti Sharma and she runs a company called Food to Eat and she deals with tons and tons of food providers. And she said, don’t just tell me you like my business, buy from me. Right. And so a lot of people ask her for free things. And you know, as a small business you get that constantly. Hey, can I borrow that? Hey, can you lend me your space? Hey, you have physical space. What people don’t realize is I pay a lot of rent, I pay a lot of fixed costs, I have a staff. So making sure that we’re actually putting our money where our mouth is is really important.
NY Launch Pod: And you mentioned that the community is growing organically and it seems to me that you are someone who has their fingers on the numbers, that you’ve researched the market. What has the turnover rate for your community been and what are the challenges at least in terms of growing and retaining members?
Cate Luzio: Yeah, it’s a great question. We have a very low turnover rate. I think the turnover comes when there is, if there’s attrition, it’s usually people are moving and we have a monthly…
NY Launch Pod: They’re getting out and they can’t come? That’s the only reason?
Cate Luzio: Well, no, no, I mean, so we have a monthly and an annual plan, right? So you can pay monthly or annually. So I think they have a financial change and their situation, they’re not using it as much. Right? And so we’ve actually restructured some of our memberships to make sure that any member, regardless again of whatever plan they’re on, is using it and utilizing it to the full effect. So for those that are on our side hustle plan, which was our lowest, we’ve actually introduced in one that’s even lower because they want to participate in a few events a month versus a full time membership. So again, it’s really important to listen to the community and when we do ours, you’ve left or you want to cancel your membership when that happens its’ understanding why and getting real feedback so that we can adapt to that and evolve.
NY Launch Pod: And how were you able to get all these, all this feedback from your members?
Cate Luzio: It’s not about me. I mean, I have an incredible staff. I have, I call them my family, but I have a Director of Membership. Again, she has her finger on the pulse, but then I also have a Community Director and she handles sort of all of that existing membership. And so anytime anyone wants to cancel or they’ve got feedback, good or bad or ugly, she really gets that. And we do a lot of demographic surveys as well just to understand how people, where they’re coming from, how they’re using it. And so not everybody likes to fill out a survey, but when we can, we want that information or just at least understanding, we have a lot of upgrades. So people will come in and say, I want to try it. And then they realize they’re using it way more than they thought, so they upgrade. And so it’s both, it goes both ways, but understanding why is really important so that we can address that for the future and for the benefit of the rest of the community.
NY Launch Pod: Aside from a live podcast by the New York Launch Pod at the Luminary space, what can people look forward to coming up at Luminary?
Cate Luzio: So listen, we’ve did over 200 programs and events last year. We’d love to keep that pace. Yeah, it’s incredible. And again, I have, like I said, I have an amazing staff. Our Chief Impact Officer is Surabhi Lal who we have hired her from NYU. Again, one of my, one of my original hires. She’s incredible and she works with our community and all of our partners. But we want to make that even better for 2020 and we’ve got some great partnerships that we’re going to be announcing in the next couple of weeks, both on the corporate side as well as our content. So watch that space. And then the addition of the Glass Ceiling is really remarkable and we’re excited because we can use it all year round. We can host events up there, we can host private events. But the fact that our members have another space within Luminary to meet and congregate and connect is really important.
NY Launch Pod: Well, that is a wonderful note to end things on. Cate Luzio, how do people find out more about you and Luminary?
Cate Luzio: So Luminary, just go on the web at luminary-nyc.com on Instagram and Twitter and all of those great places. It’s @bealuminary @calltoactionbeilluminary and for me I’m easy. I’m Cate Luzio on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn.
NY Launch Pod: And if you want to learn more about the New York Launch Pod, you can follow us on social media @nylaunchpod or visit nylaunchpod.com For transcripts of every episode including this one. And if you are a super fan, Cate, are you a super fan of the New York Launch Pod?
Cate Luzio: I am! Actually on my way on the train today, I was just listening to another one on a founder that I had not heard of and now I have to look them up.
NY Launch Pod: If you’re a super fan like Cate continuously listening to podcasts, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It is greatly appreciated and does help people discover the show.
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