A standing series
The Operators
Eight questions. Asked of every operator, in the same order, every time. Not a collection of profiles — a record that can be read across.
Most interview series in this sector are one-offs: a different conversation each time, interesting on its own and impossible to compare. We built this one the other way round. The spine is fixed, so after a dozen editions the series stops being anecdote and starts being evidence — what twelve operators, in twelve buildings, said about the same eight things.
No editions published yet
The series opens on 14 September 2026. We are publishing the method before the first edition rather than after it, because an operator deciding whether to take part should be able to see exactly what will be asked and exactly how their answers will be presented — before they agree to anything.
We would rather this page said nothing for a month than carry an invented conversation. Everything else we publish is sourced and dated; this will be too.
The eight questions
Spine v1These are asked of everyone, in this order. Each one is here because it decides something in an operating business, and because operators disagree about the answer — which is what makes the comparison worth reading.
01
What did the first building teach you that you could not have learned from a spreadsheet?
Why we ask it: Every operator we have worked with has one of these, and it is almost never the thing the model flagged as the risk. Asked first because it is the answer people give most honestly.
02
How did you establish how many rooms the building was actually allowed to hold, and did that number differ from the floor plan?
Why we ask it: The gap between the floor plan and the lawful bed count is the most expensive mistake in this sector and the one we see most often. We ask everyone so we can see how the answer varies by jurisdiction.
03
Where do your void days actually come from — the calendar, the product, or the process?
Why we ask it: Voids are the number the whole business turns on, and operators disagree sharply about their cause. Asking it identically each time is how the series becomes data rather than anecdote.
04
What makes a resident renew, in your experience rather than in theory?
Why we ask it: Renewals are the cheapest occupancy in the business. We want the operating answer, not the marketing one.
05
How do you handle it when one resident is making the house unliveable for the others?
Why we ask it: This is the part of shared housing that never appears in an investment deck and decides whether a building is pleasant to live in. Since section 21 was abolished in England, it is also a legal question.
06
How do you set the rate card across rooms in the same building, and what do residents actually pay more for?
Why we ask it: A building where every room costs the same has no anchor and no ladder. We want to know which differences residents price consistently.
07
What is something the sector believes that your own numbers contradict?
Why we ask it: The most useful answer in every conversation we have had. It is also the question that separates an operator from a commentator.
08
If you were starting again tomorrow, what would you do differently — and what would you do exactly the same?
Why we ask it: Closing question. The second half matters as much as the first and is asked less often.
How the series works
- Your words stay yours.
- What you tell us is published as your account, labelled as your account. We do not dress it up as verified fact, and we do not quietly correct your numbers. Where we think something is worth arguing with, we argue with it in a separate block, under our own name, clearly marked as our reading.
- You see it before anyone else does.
- Nothing is published until you have read the edition in full and confirmed it. You can strike anything, including the parts we found most interesting.
- We link to you properly.
- Real attribution to your own site, not a nofollow gesture. If you were good enough to spend an hour on this, the link should be worth something.
- It is not a sales call.
- We are a marketing and advisory team working only in coliving, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. But an edition is an edition. There is no pitch inside it and taking part does not put you on a list.
- The spine is fixed, and versioned.
- Changing the questions would break the comparison the series exists for. If we ever do change them, the version number moves and every edition says which version it was answered under. This one is v1.
Why we are the ones asking
Because we are on the same side of the table. We built and run our own coliving marketplace and we have taken more than 18 coliving brands from zero, which means the questions above are not a journalist's questions. They are the ones we have had to answer ourselves, badly, at least once each.
It also means we will know when an answer is the marketing version. We will not say so in your edition — but we will ask again.
Run coliving buildings? Take part.
One conversation, about an hour, the eight questions above. You read the edition before it goes anywhere and you keep the right to strike any of it. We publish it dated, attributed, and linked to you.
Small operators are as welcome as large ones — a first building answers question two better than a portfolio does.