When we wrote the membership, the plan was simple: one rate, three buildings, use whichever one you are standing next to. We assumed almost nobody would take us up on it. People pick a floor, the thinking went, and then they stop thinking about it.
Fourteen months and three openings later, roughly a third of members used a second city in their first year, and one in nine used all three. That has changed what we build.
Nobody wants a second desk. They want a second morning.
The pattern is not what we expected. Members are not relocating; they are showing up for two or three days around something else — a client, a conference, a family visit — and they want the same wifi, the same coffee and a room they can take a call in. Nobody asked for a desk with their name on it in a city they visit twice a year. Everyone asked whether the boardroom would be free on Thursday.
So we stopped balancing dedicated desks across the three floors and started holding back boardroom capacity instead. Every address now keeps two hours a day unbookable until 48 hours out, purely for people who have just landed.
The community lead is the product
The single strongest predictor of whether a member uses a second city is whether the lead in the first one introduced them to the lead in the second. Not an email. An introduction, with a reason attached.
Members who arrived with an introduction booked a room in their first three days. Members who arrived with a keycard and a floor plan mostly worked from the lounge and left.
Sofia in Lisbon, Anders in Copenhagen and Priya in Singapore now hold a call every Monday for exactly this. It is the least scalable thing we do and the one we would cut last.
Time zones are a feature, not a problem
Singapore fills up from four in the afternoon, when the calls with Europe start. Copenhagen empties at five and refills at seven for events. Lisbon runs late on both ends. We stopped fighting it and moved the cleaning, the restocking and the maintenance windows to match each building instead of the company calendar.
What we are changing next
Three things for the coming year. Day passes for members in the other two cities become unlimited rather than capped, because policing them cost more than they earned. The Gallery gets a second room in Copenhagen. And we are holding at three addresses rather than opening a fourth, because the thing people keep telling us they are paying for is that the lead knows their name.
Want to see one of the three before you decide? Book a tour here or email us at connect@meridianworkspaces.com and we will put you with the community lead for that city.
