WeWork
Role
Led design strategy and facilitated the design sprint engagement
Year
2018
Agency: Team
Toi: David Demember, Betty Demember, Aaron Wilson
Services
Design Strategy, Design Sprints
Description
A design sprint for a proposed new service model — and the strategic value of an honest "no"
The Problem
In 2018, WeWork was at peak expansion — exploring new monetization paths beyond core membership. One direction under consideration: a service model for single-day users. People who needed a workspace for a meeting, a focus session, an out-of-town day of work, but didn't want a monthly membership. The strategic question wasn't whether the audience existed. It was whether the experience could be built without breaking the core membership product, the operational model, or the brand promise that made WeWork what it was.
The Approach
he approach was a design sprint built for honest answers, not predetermined outcomes. Customer research surfaced the actual needs and behaviors of single-day users. Personas mapped what kinds of people wanted this and what they expected. User journey work tested whether the proposed service could deliver against those expectations without degrading the membership experience. The sprint's job wasn't to ship the new service. It was to test whether shipping it was the right move at all.
What Changed
The sprint surfaced a hard truth: the proposed service model would have introduced operational complexity, brand confusion, and member experience friction that outweighed the projected revenue. The work didn't ship a new offering. It killed one. The value of the engagement wasn't a launched product. It was a clear, evidence-based decision to not invest in a direction that looked promising on paper and would have cost the company significantly to discover the hard way.
