#94 - Cate Luzio (Luminary)

So I'm just thinking about you.

And I know you had a nest egg.

You had worked hard and you have all that.

But it's a tremendous risk to go into real estate.

You know, like I think every business I started was always like my the investment capital was my time and my brain.

Right.

So it was always consulting harder to scale.

Yes.

But.

easier to start in some ways this is a was a massive investment

barrier to entry is huge when you're thinking about you know real estate now on the positive the large amount of capital is up front yes so it's not ongoing like if you're manufacturing something now you obviously have to pay rent if you're not owning the building which we don't i don't want to own this building but You have a lot of overhead plus people, et cetera.

But the majority of the initial capital was in that upfront to build everything out.

Obviously, there's a lot more we can go into.

Yeah, it was a huge, yes, it is a huge risk.

And that's why I tell everyone, as you're thinking about whether you're self-funding and I like to call it stiletto strapping, as you know, especially for women, you know, you really have to understand your finances.

You have to understand what your financials are personally, what you're willing to put in.

This is why projections are incredibly important because I get so many founders going, oh, well i'm not really sure how much if you don't know how much money you need to run the business then you shouldn't be starting a business and i know that's a little harsh but it's true because if you don't have the right tools financially it's going to be very hard to succeed i think it's

fascinating that at the time you started this there was a large boom this is pre-covered yes large boom in co-working spaces but and spaces that were designed for co-working with community in mind, right? So this is the WeWork era.

There's a lot of other communities that existed and they all raised copious amounts of funds and you decided that you were going to stiletto strap.

What led to that for you? Why didn't you? You certainly had the investment banking experience to know what would go into raising funds.

What led was the auspice for you to not raise

funds? A couple of things.

So one, I wanted to at least prove the model that it would work before I went out and said, hey, give me money.

Two, I also knew regardless of the number of these spaces that were popping up and WeWork happened to be one of my clients.

So I had, I would say, a really good inside track on understanding how they were monetizing or not.

So I'm just thinking about you.

And I know you had a nest egg.

You had worked hard and you have all that.

But it's a tremendous risk to go into real estate.

You know, like I think every business I started was always like my the investment capital was my time and my brain.

Right.

So it was always consulting harder to scale.

Yes.

But.

easier to start in some ways this is a was a massive investment

barrier to entry is huge when you're thinking about you know real estate now on the positive the large amount of capital is up front yes so it's not ongoing like if you're manufacturing something now you obviously have to pay rent if you're not owning the building which we don't i don't want to own this building but You have a lot of overhead plus people, et cetera.

But the majority of the initial capital was in that upfront to build everything out.

Obviously, there's a lot more we can go into.

Yeah, it was a huge, yes, it is a huge risk.

And that's why I tell everyone, as you're thinking about whether you're self-funding and I like to call it stiletto strapping, as you know, especially for women, you know, you really have to understand your finances.

You have to understand what your financials are personally, what you're willing to put in.

This is why projections are incredibly important because I get so many founders going, oh, well i'm not really sure how much if you don't know how much money you need to run the business then you shouldn't be starting a business and i know that's a little harsh but it's true because if you don't have the right tools financially it's going to be very hard to succeed i think it's

fascinating that at the time you started this there was a large boom this is pre-covered yes large boom in co-working spaces but and spaces that were designed for co-working with community in mind, right? So this is the WeWork era.

There's a lot of other communities that existed and they all raised copious amounts of funds and you decided that you were going to stiletto strap.

What led to that for you? Why didn't you? You certainly had the investment banking experience to know what would go into raising funds.

What led was the auspice for you to not raise

funds? A couple of things.

So one, I wanted to at least prove the model that it would work before I went out and said, hey, give me money.

Two, I also knew regardless of the number of these spaces that were popping up and WeWork happened to be one of my clients.

So I had, I would say, a really good inside track on understanding how they were monetizing or not.