WeWork launches Services Store in US, an app-like store that will offer services, community recommendations, and special offers to members
A New Hub for Software Services Sarah Kessler / Quartz : WeWork wants to make its business look more like cable TV than real estate
Context & Ripple Effects
The Services Store is the earliest storefront move in what became a full pivot from renting desks to selling services on top of them. The framing at launch was explicit: WeWork wanted its business to look more like cable TV than real estate — a bundle where the space is the subscription and everything else rides on top.
The follow-on coverage shows how deliberately that bundle got built out: the Meetup acquisition bought the community graph behind the store's recommendations, the Conductor deal added a marketing cloud aimed at enterprise members, and by 2019 WeWork had accumulated at least six real-estate-related software companies it could potentially resell. The Services Store is the distribution layer those acquisitions were ultimately feeding.
First-order effects
- WeWork members get a single app-like surface for buying services and claiming offers, which gives WeWork a revenue line with margins no lease can match and first-party data on what its members actually purchase.
- Service providers who want access to WeWork's member base now compete for visibility inside the store rather than through their own outreach — the store, not the building, becomes the point of sale.
Second-order effects
- Every subsequent acquisition plugs into this shelf: the Teem workplace analytics platform and Managed by Q's office-management services become products distributed through the same member relationship, so each deal compounds the value of the storefront rather than standing alone.
- Enterprise customers evaluating WeWork start comparing bundles of software and services across landlords, pressuring traditional office operators to answer with offerings of their own or cede the tenant-services layer entirely.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the economics of flexible work shift from charging for square footage to owning the recurring commercial relationship with tenants — the landlord becomes a marketplace operator whose valuation rests on engagement and attach rates, not occupancy alone.
The trend: Coworking operators are converting leased-space businesses into services and software platforms, using the member base as the asset and the physical footprint as mere distribution.