Today we’d like to introduce you to Ben Katz.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Suffering from burnout myself after years of working in financial technology, I craved a change of pace. I longed for a community that reinforced healthy habits, wellness and mindfulness and I couldn’t find it in Los Angeles. So, I created it. I teamed up with Ari Chazanas and Robert O’Neill who felt something similar to me, and we hashed out a concept for a new way of living in which work, home, play, and wellness all fused into one community that would help anybody blossom in all of those areas.
Haven’s pilot community launched in Venice, CA in April 2019 and over 6,000 people applied for the first 100 membership spots. We are now planning to expand beyond Los Angeles to New York, Washington DC, San Jose and Seattle.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The biggest challenge was design and applying our creative resources and talent to figure out how a larger than a usual number of people can comfortably live together without feeling crowded. This required innovation around sleeping, common areas, layout, furniture. But we did solve it! And our members love it.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Haven Coliving story. Tell us more about the business.
Haven is designed from the ground up to enable members to thrive in a co-living environment. Our common areas are designed to optimize for connection, our rooms are designed to maximize privacy, our resources are pooled so that perks like yoga and meditation classes, cooking classes, TED-style talks, and shared experiences are frequent. And our community is organized in such a way that members all benefit from and contribute to a culture of health and wellness.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I thought I was at the height of my career as CEO of venture-backed fin-tech startup CARD.com. But I burned out and went through one of the roughest patches of my life. I thought I had been cursed with bad luck. But through that experience of burnout and isolation, I was inspired by the realization that I was not alone. That millions of people are suffering from burnout and isolation in the gig economy, and that there was an opportunity to build a new kind of community. I channeled what I thought had been a stroke of bad luck into one of the most creative and rewarding experiences of my life: founding Haven. It is sheer luck that led to the sequence of events that resulted in Haven.
Pricing:
- $995 monthly fee
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.havencoliving.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/colivingathaven/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HavenColiving/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/colivingathaven?lang=en
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