December 2020: Marlon Rodrigues

About Marlon Rodrigues 

Marlon Rodrigues is a mathemagician turned marketer. After attending U of Waterloo, he worked for various start-ups in the technology space. In 2017, he joined Flexday and over the last three years, Flexday has grown from 70 members to over 12,000 in the GTA. Marlon brings B2B, B2C and agency experience to help Flexday grow. 

In Conversation with Marlon

Below is a transcript of the Proptech Collective spotlight series interview with Marlon Rodrigues by Stephanie Wood. Some questions and responses have been edited for brevity and clarity. 

What’s your story and the path to getting to Flexday?

At the start of my career, Toronto was a tech backwater with a lot of promise. 

We were told that the reason we didn’t have any big winners is because we didn’t know how to scale our businesses with sales and marketing, instead selling out early and relying on American companies to scale our innovations. 

A few years and several patient guides later, I happened into my calling and led the Marketing (the software types call it Growth) practice at a bunch of early-stage companies. The pairing of data familiarity and storytelling is endlessly fascinating to me. 

Justin (the CEO of Flexday) and I were introduced in 2017 just as I was wrapping up a different startup. 

Over a 3-hour conversation, it became clear that we could and should give people better spaces to do their life’s work than pushing them to the margins of coffee shops. 

Tell us more about Flexday?

Flexday promises knowledge workers a productive workday by offering seamless access to the biggest professional workspace network in the GTA.

Each Flexday partner offers video call-quality wifi, unlimited beverages and amenities like private phone booths. Members can work for the day solo or invite collaborators to join them through our app. 

As our members grow their affinity for a particular workspace, they graduate into an ongoing membership with their chosen workspace community. We’ve found that 95% of our members had actually never tried coworking before, so we’re building a critical bridge between buyers and workspace operators.

What do you believe the foundation of a successful company is?

Without trust, there is nothing. 

2020 threw a bunch of curveballs at us: a pandemic, a racial justice reckoning and steep economic uncertainty for many. 

None of that was in our business plan for the year, but we survived by maintaining a close relationship with our members and partners. We took the time to communicate how we were processing each news item. When we temporarily closed our service in March before the government mandated it, I think we earned further trust in ourselves and from our community that we would prioritize societal needs ahead of our business needs. 

You can keep taking shots on the goal into eternity and even reshape your mission over and over in the company’s lifetime, but if you can’t trust the people you’re building with or buying from, the game is already lost. 

Can you speak about one of your recent initiatives? 

We’ve started recording a podcast called Free Range Humans. 

I know podcasting is en vogue at the moment, and I truly resisted doing one. 

But I saw the podcasts that many in the real estate industry were releasing, and it looked like the same conversation with the same actors in each episode. The homogeneity makes it hard to connect with the human insights behind the sweeping shift from office-centrism to people-centrism. 

We’re focusing on the under-represented voices in this transition, starting with individuals who already enjoy workspace freedom and the people enabling them. 

How do you work with other industry leaders and companies in the real estate industry? 

Flexday operates a workspace marketplace, so our relationship with our partners is critical to the success of our business. We continually trade notes from the frontlines with all of our peers. 

The commercial real estate industry is fairly consolidated; we’ve had conversations with nearly everybody who owns an office building in Toronto. 

Until recently, I suspect many of those folks saw Flexday as a niche business, but we’ve seen other mobile-centric marketplaces explode as the market conditions aligned in their favour. We want to be valuable to our partners by helping them meet the 95% of office workers that have never had to choose their own workspace before. 

Any lessons learned in the last year? Looking forward, what would you change (if anything)?

Meditate every day. 

The Buddha became famous for his technique, but we’d all be well-served by committing daily mindfulness practices that allow us to observe our own nature before examining the changing circumstances around us. 

This year has been hectic for everyone, but the times I was most affected was when I stopped being diligent in my meditation practice. 

What resources do you recommend to stay up to date on the latest trends? 

Dror Poleg’s book Rethinking Real Estate is required reading for anyone who owns, operates or uses real estate (yes, that should cover everyone). 

His weekly newsletter is useful to cut through the noise of the weekly news cycle and brings context to important real estate events.

What trends in PropTech are you most excited by?

I think the consumerization of real estate is fascinating. 

As we become more reliant on our mobile devices to solve the problems around us, consumers expect the same models they trust to find a ride, buy a gift or get professional help to be used in other areas of their lives.

The rise of Airbnb shows us this power at work in short-term residential real estate. 

We live in an efficient, on-demand world and commercial real estate will soon reflect this reality. 

What do you envision PropTech will look like in the next 3-5 years?

Real estate is the world’s biggest asset class. 

It usually moves in decades and has been suddenly forced to move in quarters. 

There’s a real opportunity for new businesses to solve problems that the industry is suddenly motivated to fix due to dramatically different customer needs. 

The next 5 years will see power move into the hands of the end users of real estate as they get to decide where to spend their time and the money will follow. This shift will force landlords and workspace operators to reimagine the customer relationship they will need to contend in a competitive real estate market. 

⚡ You’re invited on the first commercial space flight… Do you go?

For sure! We’re planning to come back though, right?

⚡The place you most want to travel to when we are able to again is… 

Barcelona! It’s the only other city I love enough to live in. 

⚡ A quote you live by… 

“It takes all kinds” - my Nana

⚡ The best thing that happened to you this year was… 

Subscribing to the New Yorker in print on a whim, reinvigorating my passion for the long read. 

⚡ Your morning routine is… 

Meditate, shower, grind coffee, and skim my various inboxes.