Kane Sarhan, the Well

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: Hi, I’m here with Kane Sarhan. Thank you so much for coming here today.

Kane Sarhan: Thank you for having me.

SSR: So let’s start at the beginning. Where did you grow up?

KS: Oh, the beginning, yes. So I grew up in a really small town called Lapeer in the beautiful state of Michigan. When I talk about small, I talk ‘take your tractor to school day’ small. So very rural town, small Midwestern values.Big home to auto workers and farmers, but with a really rich history in horse farming and the Underground Railroad. So it was one of the last stops on the Underground Railroad, back during slavery. So a really interesting small town that was a really special place to grow up. I grew up in idyllic Midwestern America.

SSR: So did you actually live on a farm?

KS: So I grew up a lot of my life on a farm, yeah. So I spent a good, vast majority, until I was 15 we lived on a farm. So, hay farm, you know, I grew up bailing hay with cows, horses, running around fields, you know, getting chased by farmers for driving my go-carts through their crops. I grew up as a real farmer boy. I used to hunt and fish and was very much raised by two parents who I like to call them old school hippies. They’re not like the chic, sexy hippie. They’re the real hippie. We grew all of our own vegetables. We bought our butter from the Amish. We slaughtered our own cows. We slaughtered our own pigs. It was a very traditional family but equally as liberal. My parents are now medicinal marijuana farmers, so very interesting bisection of traditional Midwestern life but with really cool hippie parents.

SSR: That’s kind of amazing. Where are they into design or architecture?

KS: It’s actually interesting. No, actually, my stepfather I would say is an artist. He would never call himself an artist, but we lived in this really old farm house. It was over a hundred years old. And my stepdad, he worked for General Motors as did my mom and he worked second shift, so he would work all night and then he’d come home and he would sleep in the early morning, but then he’d wake up and while we were away at school, he would often paint murals or art on the walls of our house. So you’d come home and all of a sudden there’d be this motif of caterpillars and blue jays and robins or he’d have done this beautiful tree.

So I think he’s very much an artist, he would never call himself that, but I think he’s an artist. But I was always the kid that was obsessive with my room. I rearranged my room once every month. I constantly wanted to repaint it and I wanted to redesign it. I move my furniture around all the time. So I think I was always really into the space I was in and what it looked like and what it felt like. And my parents very much encouraged that. They were very supportive of me and my idiosyncrasies around my physical environments.

SSR: So you said you lived on basically a farm house until you’re 15. Did you move out of that town or did you just move somewhere else?

KS: Just moved somewhere else. I grew up in a big family. So I have four brothers. There are five siblings and at the time, it just was me and my youngest one. So my parents sort of moved us into a subdivision, just into a smaller place. But in rural Michigan a subdivision is still a place where you have big yards and lots of, it’s not a suburb, it’s a subdivision. So we just moved more into what would be my parents forever home where they could live. It was so funny, I was so obsessive with the house that they bought. My aunt was our real estate agent, and I would go on every house tour with them and walk it with them. And then afterwards I’d sit down with my mom and be like, ‘I like this, I don’t like this, I don’t want that. I don’t like the kitchen. I like the bedroom.’

And when we walked into the house and my parents bought, I remember walking in and immediately having this sense of, ‘Oh my God, this is where we were going to live.’ Because I knew what my mom wanted, and I knew what I wanted. It was like her and I were shopping for the house and my stepdad was just along for the ride. But yeah, I was very involved in the house selection of that house, which I still love. It’s such a pretty place.

SSR: And so what did you want to be or have you any thought of branding, career, hospitality, design at that point?

KS: So you know what’s so interesting is I was always like, ‘I’m going to be a doctor.’ And then I was like, ‘I’m going to be a lawyer and then maybe one day I want to run for president.’ And there were all these crazy ideas of traditional careers that you would do. And I was president of my student council and I was super involved in extracurricular activities.

SSR: You were a superlative in high school.

KS: Oh. So I got most likely to succeed. I also got a couple of them, I got most likely to talk your ear off, also not surprising. And I think I had one more, I can’t remember. I was always in this traditional track of where I thought I wanted to go. When I went to college, I majored in political science. You know, I ended up dropping out three times—college was a whole saga for me.

SSR: Where did you go to college?

KS: Well I also jumped around a little bit. So I went to Pace University, I went to Columbia University, I ended up finishing at Columbia, but I was never sure what I wanted to do and I always thought I had clarity, and looking back I didn’t. But was so interesting for me is that hospitality has been at the root of what I enjoy my entire life. It wasn’t until working Barry [Sternlicht] and stumbling back into that job and actually going to have hospitality as a full time career that I realized it. But I grew up in restaurants. My family owns restaurants. My first job was washing dishes at 13 years old. I grew up in restaurants my entire life. I had a job all through high school washing dishes. Then I became a busser, then I became a host, then I became a server.

I waited tables all through college.. My first real job of know of note was I was the assistant to one of the founders of Coyote Ugly, Jacqui Squatriglia, who now owns Flaming Saddles, the gay version of Coyote Ugly. I was her assistant, but I met her as her waiter. I literally was her waiter at a restaurant in East Village and one night, convinced her to hire me to be her intern and ended up working for her for two years. So I’ve always had this tie to hospitality, but I had this weird block in my head that it wasn’t a professional career, right? It was this idea of, it never felt like the forever career. And I don’t know where that came from or why, because it’s actually what I love and what I enjoy.

SSR: Before we get to Barry, so after college, what did you do first?

KS: So I started a nonprofit Enstitute. So I was really good student in high school. College was really hard for me because I sort of hit this wall where I was like, ‘You know what? I don’t get the value of learning this stuff in a classroom.’ I didn’t understand and couldn’t compute I’m spending all this money, I paid for college myself, so it’s like I’m spending all this money, I’m putting $30,000 a year to sit here and learn things that actually have no impact on my life. So I would go to school and then I’d be like, ‘This is crazy. I’m not paying for it. I quit,’ and I’d go start a project or go work for someone, right? And then my mom would be like, ‘You got to go to school.’ So I’d really enroll back in school. And one time I quit and I actually started this magazine, which was called the College Gossip Chronicles. And I started what was a gossip magazine for New York City college students.

And I printed the first issue out of my own pocket. I did 1,000 issues. And my first issue, because I’ve always had a knack for things that would get PR buzz, was the 50 hottest college students in New York City. And I basically recruited all my college friends to recruit their hot friends and we took over my friend’s apartment in StuyTown and basically did what was almost amateur porn shots of all of these people. And by the way, it ended up getting picked up by the New York Post and it was on the cover of the New York Post. You could still find it today. The interview with me makes me sound like the most ridiculous human on the planet. And so I started this magazine and then I did a second issue. The first one flew off the shelves. So it was at NYU, it was at Columbia, and I started selling advertising and I did a second issue, which was a Get Fit issue.

And I did it in collaboration with Kim Kardashian. And this was Kim before Kim was famous. This was Kim when she had Fit in Your Jeans by Friday workout tapes, was still walking fashion shows at the local mall. She did a whole Get Fit collaboration with us. She judged all of our Get Fit candidates, she gave them prizes, she did an interview in our magazine. We sent it to print and had a digital issue, it did well. And while doing this I was like, ‘Okay, this is going really well.’ Jacqui, who I had been working for for Coyote Ugly and during college, she had moved to LA. I was sort of during this, I was like, ‘I need something to pay the bills because I want to do this and I need something to pay the bills.’

And so I answered a Craigslist ad for this guy named Nihal Mehta and this woman named Reshma Saujani. Reshma’s the founder of a nonprofit called Girls Who Code. Nihal’s a prolific angel investor and entrepreneur. And they were looking for a part-time assistant. And I honestly was like, ‘All right, they’re going to pay me 30 bucks an hour. I’m going to answer his emails, do his things. He’s going to think I work 20 hours a week. I’m actually going to work 10, and I’ll arbitrage this and pay my rent so I can do my magazine.’ I met Nihal and Reshma and honestly, at the same time, my cofounder of my magazine—this is just how crazy the world is—met a Naval officer during fleet week and fell in love. Three days later, left New York City, moved with him, married him. They’ve now been married for 10 years, have the most beautiful baby. She fell in love during Fleet Week on the streets of New York City and left me and so the magazine fell apart.

I started working for Nihal, and he completely changed my life. So I became his apprentice and I worked under him. He had a start-up and he had this fund he was starting and Reshma was running for Congress. And so I just sort of jumped into their life and became their apprentice across everything they did. And 20 hours a week quickly became 80 hours a week, and I started working for him fulltime. And I spent two years, really three years, just doing anything and everything for Nihal and Reshma. Like, learning how to code so I could help them build a website, being their assistant, picking out their dog, planning their wedding. Just running their lives.

And at the same time, all of their successful friends were always coming up to me and being like, ‘How do I find someone like you? How do I get a Kane? I need a Kane in my life.’ And so I started realizing at the same time, all my friends who went to NYU and Columbia and Pace were either not getting jobs, we graduated 2009-2010, the economy was crap or they had jobs they hated and were like, ‘You have this job you love, you’re getting to do all this cool stuff.’ So I had this spark in my head where I was like, ‘Oh, you know what? College didn’t work for me. I bet you it doesn’t work for a lot of kids. What if I start this alternative to university?’ And so with Nihal’s support and Reshma’s support, I started this nonprofit institute, which was basically college dropouts or kids who didn’t want to go to college, 18 to 24, and place them with high-growth entrepreneurs.

And literally it was a crazy idea. My co founder Shyla, who I worked with with Nihal, who we did together, we got a donor to give us $100,000, Jim Pallota, who’s been an angel in my life as an investor in the Well, was one of the most amazing humans on the planet and the smartest guys I’ve ever met, gave us $100,000 and we rented a loft right here on Stone Street and we put up a website. We convinced 30 of our entrepreneur friends to be our entrepreneur mentors and 500 kids applied. We accepted 11. They moved into the loft, and for a year, Shyla and I lived with these kids and created this apprenticeship program. The kids had gone on to do insane stuff. One of them has gone on to sell his company for $50 million. One of them has gone on to win national fellowships for environmental work.

Some of them are just still working at the companies that we placed them at apprenticeships with. So we had these 11 students, which were amazing. We did a second year, we brought in 25 more. We expanded to Miami, we expanded to St. Louis. We’re running this amazing program, raised a bunch more funding. We had funding from tons of huge foundations. I was 24, 25 at the time, and we had built this nonprofit and two years it was in three cities and had hundreds of students and was doing all this stuff. And it was about to fall apart because we had no idea what we were doing, to be totally honest. We sort of created this thing and it worked, But we had no idea how to build a business. We had no idea how to operationalize a nonprofit. We had hundreds of students we were responsible for. We were always scraping by just for funding.

And it was my first foray into, ‘Oh my God, I built something amazing.’ But amazing doesn’t cut it. How do you scale, right? And how do you do that? And it was such an insane learning experience and I mean you learn so much about your strengths and your weaknesses and just building a team and the importance of building something that as longevity and a really strong foundation. And Shyla and I realized after a couple of years of running it, it wasn’t foundationally strong enough for us to run it forever. So we completed the programs, we ended up taking all the IP and all the value of it and Shyla actually, who was a graduate of ASU, moved to Arizona and helped implement the program at Arizona State University. So it ended up getting another life and living on. But through that, I had a donor named Barry Sternlicht who supported the program. My story of meeting Barry is equally ridiculous as everything else in my life.

SSR: Please tell.

KS: So I was actually going back to working for Nihal. So, guy I was the apprentice for, he had started a mobile marketing company called Local Response, and I was the creative director. While working for Nihal I had five titles like you, I had five jobs that I did. I was his assistant, I was his creative director, depending on what I had to do, I did different things. And I had an agency client for this company that we started that was one of my biggest clients, and they asked me to come speak at a panel about the future of social marketing, social media and the future of mobile marketing. And I was like, ‘Okay, sure.’ And mind you, I’m 24 years old, 25 years old at the time. And it’s on a Thursday, and the Wednesday before I had gone out and gotten blasted like you do as a dumb 25 year old.

And so the whole day it’s rainy and gross and I feel so hungover it and I have to go speak at this conference and I’m not excited about it and I want to cancel and I want to cancel, but it’s the day of and you can’t cancel and it’s just like I had to go. They spend $1 million with me a year, so I drag my ass there and thank god I did. I go to this conference and, I didn’t realize I was the closing speaker. So I was the closing speaker and it’s an internal conference for a company called Starwood Capital Group. And the CEO of Starwood, Barry Sternlicht had been like, ‘I want my team to know more about the future of marketing. I want to do a marketing summit.’ And so this agency that he had on retainer had organized a summit for him. And so I get there. I get up on stage, it’s a fireside chat. I crush it. I do a great job; I crush it. Everyone loves it, they’re all engaged.

And there are 10 minutes for questions at the end and he’s like, ‘Anyone have questions?’ And quite a few people raise their hand. And last second, this guy in the front on the left raises his hand and the moderator, who was about to call on someone else, literally rips his shoulder out of his socket and pivots his arm and points directly to Barry. And I’m like, ‘What was that? Why did he just call on this guy first?’ I had no idea who Barry Sternlicht was. I didn’t know the name, I didn’t know who was in charge of this room. I had no idea. And Barry looks at me and you think you’re going to get a question about what you talked about. And he goes, ‘How old are you?’ And without even thinking, because I’m stupid, without even thinking, my response is, ‘How old are you?’

And everyone giggles. And I realize it’s an awkward giggle, not a good giggle. I’m like, ‘Do you know who you’re talking to?’ And I quickly just am like, ‘Shut up, you’re a hired gun here, you’re here to be nice.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m 25.’ He’s like, ‘Well how do you know all this stuff?’ And I was like, ‘Well I’ve taught it to myself,’ whatever my answer was. And the questions end, I get off stage and Barry’s aid comes up to me is like, ‘Barry would like to talk to you.’ And I’m like, ‘Who is this guy?’ And the moderator is just elbowing me like, ‘Get over there, you go talk to him.’ So I go and talk to Barry. He’s like, ‘It was great. You’re so interesting.’ He’s like, ‘This is great, you’re so interesting. Thanks for making the time. That was really cool. Here’s my business card. We should stay in contact.’ And I leave and I go home and I Google him and I’m like, ‘What the hell?” This is the founder of Starwood Hotels. This is one of the most important men in real estate.’ Oh my God, I can’t believe it.

And Jim Pallotta, the guy I’m talking about, two days later, I get a phone call from Jim Pallotta. And I answer my phone, I’m like, ‘Hi, Jim.’ And Jim is equally a very successful financier and a very successful man. He’s like, ‘I’m with my friend Barry Sternlicht, and he’s telling me how he met this wunderkind who knows all this stuff and blah blah blah and telling me about marketing. And he’s like, I just had to call you to remind Barry that I’m always two steps ahead of him.’ And hangs up the phone. And that’s how I met Barry. And when I started Enstitute, I knew Barry was wealthy and him and his family were big supporters of Teach for America, and we were a similar model. Different mission, but similar model. And so I reached out to Barry and I had a meeting with him and after two meetings, he’s like, ‘Yeah, I’ll support you.’

So he became a donor of Enstitute and was a supporter. And after Enstitute ended, I just went to meet Barry for lunch just to tell him, ‘Hey, we’re wrapping it down. This is what’s going on.’ Just sort of as a thank you lunch. And I went in for a meeting and it was in his New York office and he was distracted during the meeting. And he’s like, we were talking and I’m telling him and he’s just like, ‘Okay, yeah, I get Enstitute’s done, no worries. You did a great job. You helped a lot of kids. Wonderful. What do you know about websites?’ I’m like, ‘What?’ And he’s like, ‘You know websites.’ I’m like, ‘Well, yeah, I taught myself how to code. I understand digital, you know, I know this stuff.’ And he’s like, ‘What do you think of this website?’ And he shows me the one hotel’s website. And I’m like, ‘What is this?’ He’s like, ‘I’m launching this new hotel brand. I don’t like anything that’s been done. We’ve been working on it for a long time. I think it needs a revamp. Can you help me with it?’

And I’m like, ‘Barry, I know nothing about hotels. I’m going to take some time off. I’m not sure.’ He’s like, ‘No, no, no, but you know social and you know, digital and you know this stuff, why don’t you just come spend a day with my team?’ And by the way, this is one of Barry’s gifts. He has so many gifts, but I think one thing I’ve learned from him, talking about what you’ve learned, if he finds someone who he thinks is talented or if he spots talent, he gives them space and rope to do their best work and achieve their best things and build the best that they can, way beyond maybe what you deserve. You know what I mean? He is the definition of, you jump off the cliff and you’re either going to build the parachute on the way down, or you’re going to fall flat on your face.

And I think he doesn’t care about age. He doesn’t care how old you are. He doesn’t care what your credentials are. He’s like, ‘You’re smart. You’ll work hard. You can do this. Get it done.’ You know what I mean? And so I went in for a day, and I gave him a bunch of my opinions and we just talked and chatted and he called me and was like, ‘The team really likes you. They like a lot of your stuff. Why don’t you consult a couple of days a week? You don’t have anything going on.’ You know, I ran a nonprofit and I had worked in startups, I’ve never made money. And so it was like, ‘Oh, a private equity company wants me to consult for them. Sure.’ You know what I mean? Great. And it’s this guy Barry Sternlicht, you know what I mean? And he’s a genius, yeah, sure, why not? And what was supposed to be a consulting project turned into five years of my life.

SSR: Amazing.

KS: It’s roundabout. It’s just such a zig-zaggy crazy way of ending up where you did. I have so much to thank Barry for. I really do. But one of them is I think showing me the business side of hospitality and letting me see this is actually what I’ve wanted to do my entire life and this is where I want to be. And sort of helping me find my way home, you know what I mean? Without Barry, I don’t know what I would be doing, you know what I mean? Or where I would be, but I know what I get to do now, I love. And I owe that hungover day at a conference for that 10 years ago now. It was years ago.

SSR: I think it was really special, the role that you had. I mean, not everyone gets to build a brand from the beginning. And you were working on two, 1 Hotels and Baccarat at the same time, which were very different.

KS: Very different. I came into SH group and these brands had foundations, but Barry was basically like, ‘Rip them down and build them back up.’ He’s like, ‘I think we need a fresh perspective. Let’s do it.’ And I think with Kemper [Hyers], who you know, and with a team, we built these amazing brands and obviously with Barry’s guidance and his vision. But it was such an interesting thing for me because one, getting to build something from literally writing the brand book to seeing it as a physical building is so cool and so interesting to see that manifestation. But it was an MBA in hospitality for me because it was literally from what is the mission of this to how much does it cost to build to what does it look like to, how do you operate it to how do you staff it to how do you market it and how do you sell it?

And some of them have residences and some of them don’t. And some of them are new builds and some of them are renos, and you know, you have different ownership structures. And then you have these two different brands that one is nature and organic and all about the environment, which is how I grew up. So true to my roots and was so easy for me to do. And the other one was the definition of opulence, right? A company started by a king in France 250 years ago that still blows crystal by hand the same way they did that it’s literally a protected company by the president of France who sees it as his highest honor and we’re going to build it a palace and a castle, right?

In the middle of New York City. And they were so different, but they were both rooted in this idea of being the best at what they do, right? And having this common shared value of excellence. And they’re such strong brands, which I think made my job so easy. Because our point of view was so clear. We had such strong foundations as who we were and what we stood for that it made making decisions in my role as the head of brand and designing actually quite easy because you sort of drew the lines and the boundaries and so this is who we are, this is what we stand for and we don’t leave them. And the question was how do we execute within our sandbox, you know, not who are we, what do we stand for? Which I think made my job a lot easier and I think really allowed us to really innovate and do really special things that I think people hadn’t done in hospitality before.

SSR: No, I totally agree. And I think you hit the nail on the head. I mean, having a particular vision, having something you can go back to and say, is this 1 or is this Baccarat? Do you think that’s one of the keys to successful branding and creating something that really resonates with people? Branding can get muddled.

KS: Totally. So I think the most important thing, and if I think you look at any great brand: Nike, Apple,
Hermès. The one thing that they all have in common is they have a very clear point of view and they know who they are and nothing changes that, right? And it’s non negotiable. And I think where you see brands that have the opportunity to be great but aren’t, it’s because they get muddled, right? And they try to be a little bit of everything to everyone. I see brand as, it’s actually quite simple. This is who we are, this is how we see the world, this is what we believe, these are our core values, and those do not change. And everything we do has to be done through the lens of that. And if you do that, you will create a brand that speaks to some people. It will not speak to all people, but the people that it speaks to will fall in love with you. And they will be so devoted and they will care and they will be loyal and they’ll spend money with you.

And I think that’s where you have to have conviction and that’s also where, I think that’s why if you look at Barry’s ability to innovate is that is where he is crystal clear. He was the one who was like, ‘This is what 1 Hotel’s brand is.’ He sat me down was like, ‘This is what I want to build.’ And my job was to execute that and expand upon that. But same thing he did with W, same thing he did with Baccarat, this is how we see the world and we don’t change. And if people don’t like it, they’re not our customer. But the fact is is that we’re going to do things differently and there are going to be people who love us, and we think they’ll actually be more loyal to us and spend more money with us because of who our brand is and what we stand for.

SSR: What was the greatest kind of takeaway of building 1 [Hotels]? Or something that either surprised you the most or the thing you learned the most about creating something that is very sustainable, very transparent? I love that on your website you have the transparency page where you actually say how much you recycled, how much water you’ve saved. I mean there are actual numbers and statistics behind what you were doing?

KS: Even when we weren’t doing great, we’d talk about it, right? So with 1, two big takeaways. One, it’s really hard to be sustainable. It actually is really hard and really expensive. And we had an ownership team, Barry and our other owners, who actually believed in bought in. And if we hadn’t have had that, we never could have done it, because you have to be willing to make some big bets and just how expensive and hard it is to make sustainable choices. Even with regulations, you can’t put solar panels on the roof of a hotel in Miami because of government regulation. Hurricanes, I get it, there are things. But you would think the sunniest place in America, you can’t put a solar panel on the roof of a hotel. So making sustainable choices and building something truly sustainable is really hard. It’s really hard and it’s really expensive. And I went into it being like, ‘We’re going to do all this stuff.’ And then you’re like, ‘Oh my God, that’s just, it can’t happen.’ Literally, the business won’t work. And so we had to make, you really had to make your 80 20, what am I going to do to get the biggest bang? And I think we did a really great job.

So one is how hard a sustainable business is. But two, I think for me and something that I will take with me for forever, is a brand does not matter one bit if it doesn’t have great people, especially in this business. If you look at anything on 1 Hotel, people will talk about how beautiful the design is, they’ll talk about how cool the branding is, they’ll talk about the wooden key card and the robe. But more than anything, they talk about our team and how kind they are and how nice they are and how much they believe in the mission and how above and beyond they go.

And that is the strongest asset of that brand. And I think it’s, to me, the secret weapon for any great brand is the people that you hire and getting them as excited and as invested in your mission as you are. And that was such a takeaway to realize just from the housekeeper to the GM to the CEO, everyone has to be bought in. And if they’re not, you won’t be successful. And that was just such a good learning experience for me to see how important that is.

SSR: And that’s easier said than done.

KS: Oh my god, it’s actually the hardest thing to do. And you design the hotel, you build the hotel, it’s done for five years. Maybe you have to redo it later. But the people, it’s every day. It’s every minute. It’s their living, breathing, you know what I mean? It changes all the time and it’s so hard to do, but if you invest in it, the reward is so high, you know what I mean? And retention and excitement and commitment … I got so lucky getting to work on 1 and Baccarat and I’m so proud of the design and I’m so proud of the experiences and, you know, they’ve won all these awards and done all these cool things, but I’m most proud of the teams that we built. Still to this day, a lot of them are still there and they are as invested in what we built as we were. And that was our greatest achievement was the people.

SSR: And I think your role was really interesting because you were director of brand.

KS: I touched everything, you know, to a fault. It was a weird thing. It was actually interesting because I sometimes would be like, ‘Is this my job?’ You know what I mean? But I was head of brand so I oversaw marketing and I oversaw sales but I also was involved in everything from the uniforms to the scent to the language that we use to our partnerships to our F&B partners to what food looked like to how you ate in your room to how you move to what the rooms would actually look and feel like. I wasn’t our designer, but I was involved in how that felt and you realize that a brand is so 360. It’s not just the website and the marketing and, you know, the way it looks, it’s so, and hospitality specifically, it’s living and breathing, and the paper that a menu is printed on is part of your brand.

The text that it’s done in, the colors that it’s done in, the way that a key card is given to you. The way that we answer the phone, the message that you hear, right? And then it was so interesting to see how deep and complicated a brand really is, right? And where the power is being consistent across all of it. And I mean, I was a Nazi. I was crazy. And I mean but it was just, everything had to be on brand. Every decision we made could make it, you know what I mean? And we also opened three hotels in nine months. We went from a team of 18 to a team of 1,000 in less than a year and it was crazy.

And then we have the fourth one, Brooklyn. I’ll take that back. We opened three hotels in six months, and then we opened Brooklyn six months later. So we opened four hotels and went from zero to 1,200 people like that. And maintaining control was really hard. Talk about scaling, lesson in scaling real quick. And just putting processes and procedures in place and empowering your team to be educated enough to make choices for you on behalf of the brand because I couldn’t be everywhere. I couldn’t be picking out the paper in every hotel. I couldn’t be making sure every menu was right. I couldn’t make, you know what I mean? You had to train and teach or you weren’t going to be successful.

SSR: So it was hard to let go.

KS: Oh god, yes. I mean I’m still learning. It’s still hard to let go. Definitely still hard to let go. But you won’t be successful if you don’t.

SSR: So how did this all prepare you or inspire you for the Well?

KS: Yeah, it’s interesting because I grew up sustainably, as a family and the way it is, the way I grew up was very much in line with 1, but I wasn’t a wellness person. You know what I mean? When I worked for 1 Hotels, I smoked a half pack of cigarettes a day and literally drank a sugar free red bull every morning. No thank you on the green juice. No thank you on yoga. I went to the gym because I’m vain and want to be in shape, but it was not out of wellness. But what I realized at 1 Hotels was that consumers were willing to pay more and had loyalty to the brand, not just for the sustainability, but for the wellness aspect.

The fact that they slept on organic cotton sheets, that they could get a green juice, that they could go to the gym, they could go to the spa, that there were workout classes, that they knew their water was filtered. They were willing to have that done for them. And so I saw this business case of wow, this wellness thing is actually real. You know what I mean? And it’s not just SoulCycle and green juices, it’s actually much more dynamic than that. And so I was intrigued by that from a financial perspective. Rebecca, who’s my business partner and our CEO, had the idea for the Well for 10 years. She actually came up with the idea at one of the great destination spas in the world, Mii Amo in Sedona, one of the originals. While there for three days and sort of had this aha moment of why do I have to go to Sedona, Arizona to have this in my life?

And when I reconnected with her, she told me about this idea and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s super cool. Let me help you. You know, you should talk to these designers and you should think about this and you should think about that.’ But I would love my job. I had no interest of leaving it. But I was really intrigued by the business case and I thought she had something really special on her hands. And over the next year, honestly, it was a very slow evolution of me wanting to help and give her ideas to introducing her to people to having coffee chats on the weekend to getting more and more intrigued by this idea. And I’m, when I start working for Barry, he knew I was like, ‘I’m not a lifer.’

You know what I mean? I’m an entrepreneur at heart. I like to build things. And at 1 Hotels and Baccarat, I feel like I did build things, you know what I mean? I built them and they got to this point where they are sustainable and now they’re scaling like crazy. But I like to build. So I just fell in love with this idea. And Rebecca at the same time had found another business partner, Sarah, who’s our third business partner. And slowly, it became inevitable that I was going to work with them on it.

SSR: And your backgrounds are all so different.

KS: Our backgrounds are all so different. I’m the hospitality guy, Rebecca comes from finance but worked for Deepak Chopra. Sarah comes from CPG, you know what I mean? And better for you products. So we had such interesting skillsets. They would say I was like the missing part of the puzzle. And they slowly incepted me to come over there. But I was equally trying to, you know, we were selling each other. But I think from 1, I had seen the use case for a hotel and I had seen the demand from consumers for this type of product. And I just thought the Well was sort of the next evolution of that. And completely different, right? We’re not a hotel.

SSR: So tell us what you are?

KS: So the Well is a wellness club in the middle of New York City. Our first club is 18,000 square feet. And what we do is we bring together the best of Eastern and Western health and healing to create an ecosystem for wellness. So we have a yoga studio, we have a meditation studio, we have a gym, we have a restaurant and social spaces like you’d find at a normal social club. We have a foot rub lounge and a steam and a sauna and a full service spa. But more importantly, we have a full suite of doctors and healers, right? So everything from Western MDs, who do anything from vitamin panels and blood tests and diets, all the way to Ayurvedic doctors, traditional Chinese medicine doctors, sports therapy doctors, physical therapists, to energy work. And we bring together the best healers in the world and they treat our members and give them access to best-in-class wellness in the middle of New York City.

And I think for me, joining the Well really has been my own wellness journey. You know what I mean? I haven’t smoked in two and a half years. I actually used acupuncture to quit smoking. I no longer drink sugar-free Red Bulls in the morning. I sneak one in every once in a while because I just miss them but I don’t need them anymore. I used to need them. And the Well really became my own wellness journey and discovering the power of preventative healthcare and just the value of investing in yourself and really taking the time to integrate wellness into your life and how much more productive you are, how much better you feel, how you get sick so much less. And also just how enjoyable it is, right? And how fun it can be to actually have this stuff as part of your life.

SSR: Well, it’s interesting because we’ve been following, the wellness industry is what $4.2 trillion that they’re saying right now, which it’s amazing that now people are realizing, you know? There’s always spas and there’s always been pieces. But the fact that everyone’s realizing that you should take that time to really focus on yourself to find that wellness and whatever that means for you. I think it’s exciting that it’s happening now, especially for concepts like the Well that can really think outside the box and try something new and offer something that hasn’t been there before.

KS: I think you see a lot of things happening, right? There’s this whole prescription pill blow up thing where we’re realizing, wait, if I’m in pain, it’s not okay for me to take an Oxycontin every day, right? If I can’t sleep, I shouldn’t be taking a sleeping pill. I have to deal with this anxiety without a medication, right? A Xanax in the morning is actually not good for me, right? So people are starting to realize that this whole false dream that was sold to us of, if you have a problem, take a pill and it goes away, is a lie. Two, I think we’re starting to realize that we’ve never had better access to healthcare, right? We’ve actually never had more opportunity to take care of ourselves, but we’re starting to die younger. We’re actually losing for the first time. We’re actually dying younger than the generation before us. We’re unhealthier than ever. We’re more stressed out than ever.

Our handy little iPhones and Androids are part of that, that people are realizing, Oh my God. I actually have to. If I want to live a long, healthy, successful life, it’s not an option, right? Going to the spa or getting in a yoga class, taking a supplement, that’s not a nice to have, it’s quite honestly a need to have. And that’s different for everyone and there’s totally a privilege to be able to afford it, for sure. But the fact is, is it’s an investment and I think people are realizing they have to do it and they want to do it and that if it comes down to, you know, that new pair of shoes or maybe getting that acupuncture appointment, they’re starting to realize there’s actually more value in the acupuncture, right? Or there’s more value in doing a yoga class with a friend than getting a glass of wine, right?

And don’t get me wrong, I love a glass of wine, but I think you’re seeing this shift, and I think it comes down to the fact that people aren’t feeling good and they want to feel better. And that’s what we see. You know what I mean? Our members come to us, as all New Yorkers, they’re stressed, they can’t sleep, they’re tired or they’re totally happy and are just like, ‘I want to stay this way.’ We’ve been open 62 days and we’re already seeing results, right?

We just did our first member survey and we’ve had dozens of members write back being like, ‘My anxiety has reduced from a 10 to a five. I’m actually sleeping better. I’m feel like I’ve been more consistent with a workout and the two months I’ve been a member then I have in the past 10 years.’ And it’s just because we’ve made it easy and fun for them to take care of themselves. And I really think we’re just the tip of an iceberg of a movement. You know what I mean? I think you see it happening across the board and I think I’m excited to get to do it for the next 10 years.

SSR: I think I you said something so true. It’s like finding that time, right? And so you’re making it easier because it’s, I hate to say one stop shopping.

KS: No, but it is.

SSR: It’s all in one space. So they can do a yoga class, they can meditate, they can get the foot rub and then leave. And they don’t have to go to 15 different places to get that done because time is a luxury.

KS: And they can do a meeting before or after in the restaurant, you know what I mean? So you can still integrate some work in and do the things you need to do. No, we’re also time poor. It’s actually, I’ve started this new thing where I go and I try not to, and whenever someone asks me about how are you, my instinct I become, I’m so busy. And I think it’s become a lot for all of us, right? Where we’re so busy, and we’ve over-scheduled and over programmed our lives to the max, both from work and socially. With the Well, I’ve been trying to lean into this thing of do I really need to be busy? What’s the point of being busy? Is busy a good thing or is it a function of me not managing my time properly and being as efficient with what I can do as possible?

So I’ve stopped, my first step in that as trying to just stop saying I’m busy, which is hard. It actually comes out instinctively all the time. And I’m like, ‘You’re trying not to do that. Why do you keep saying that?’ Because you’re busy. But time is so valuable and more than it ever has been before. And so we can give people that. and they can come to the Well for 90 minutes and get done what would have taken them five hours somewhere else. And that’s super valuable for them.

SSR: I think it’s also too, a push back on the technology, almost a backlash. People now want to tune off and turn off and recharge. And so I think that’s also part of this whole wellness movement that they’re realizing that putting this device down and turning this computer off is better for them because they can do things that will help them recharge and find balance.

KS: Absolutely. When you walk into the club as a member, we offer to check your phone for you. And most members don’t. But when they do, they really appreciate it, right? Just because it’s a way to step away from it. It’s funny, on Thanksgiving, actually, I forgot my phone at home when we went out for Thanksgiving. I realized when we were in the Uber and I was like, ‘Oh, I forgot my phone,’ and I’m phone obsessed. It lives in my hand. So my partner was like, ‘Do you want turn around?’ I’m like, ‘It’s Thanksgiving. No, I don’t need to.’ And it was one of the most enjoyable dinners I’ve had in a very long time. I don’t realize how distracted I get by it. How often in the middle of a conversation I just pick it up and I’ve trained myself to listen, but it was so crazy and I was like, ‘Oh my God. Checking out actually works.’ And by the way, that’s coming from someone who owns a wellness company, you know what I mean? Even I have to check myself, you know what I mean? It’s so funny how unaware I think we’ve become of how much control connectivity has on our lives.

SSR: And for the design you hired Liubasha Rose, who you used work with at Starwood. Can you tell us a little bit about what you wanted her to create and what that collaboration looked like?

KS: Liubasha are dear friends and worked together for many years. Her firm, Rose Ink Workshop, ever since she left Starwood, has really done some amazing work.

SSR: She was one of our Wave of the Future honorees.

KS: Oh, not surprising. She is the wave of the future. When we were doing the Well, there was no other person I’d have design the first club. Our brief was straightforward. We want it to feel like when you walk in, immediately you have a sense of tranquility and a sense of ‘I’ve left the crazy city behind me.’ Two, we want to be really smart with light and use light as a way to infuse wellness into people’s lives and to give them a sense of calmness, which is why you see no actual lightbulbs in the club. Everything is diffused. We wanted to design for really good energy flow, which is why Liubasha leaned so heavily into curves so the energy flows. And we wanted it to be natural, clean, and bright but still be fun and playful, which I think where Liubasha’s sweetspot is. She’s really good at timeless design that still has some fun playfulness and she’s not scared to use color, but in a very subtle, sophisticated way.

On top of it, there are a lot of odes to a lot of traditions that we have; odes to India, where we pull a lot of our treatments from; odes to the East, where we pull from there. A lot of rooms that are inspired by other amazing destination resorts that we’ve been to or places that we’ve seen. I think Liubasha did such a great job. What’s so special about her, she designs heart and soul into a place. When she’s done with a place, it feels special. It’s not just about, ‘oh, it looks pretty and it looks cool.’ You can actually feel the energy coming from it. I think she really did that at the Well.

SSR: And weren’t there some learning curves about feng shui?

KS: We totally fucked up the feng shui. One of the things we realized is that Liubasha and her partner, Joanne Stone have these insane crystal lights. They’re absolutely beautiful. They’re these brass-mounted wall sconces. We put them in our treatment rooms. They’re these beautiful brass crystals. They’re so gorgeous. We drew these beautiful constellations around them. Well, we didn’t realize in feng shui that putting sharp objects above your head totally messes up the vibe of the room. They’re actually in the process right now of being taken down and turned into an art installation, and will be replaced by nice, round globes that make the space’s energy much better.

But it was so interesting because, one perk of working with world renowned healers and energy workers was they were really quick to tell us of our mistake. They were, like, ‘What are you doing?’ And we’re like, ‘Oh, sorry.’ That’s where we got excited about the design and who would have thought that sharp objects above your head messes with feng shui. This is why they’re experts.

SSR: And wasn’t there something about the rug in the meditation room?

KS: Oh, yes, that too. So, our meditation room is absolutely beautiful. It’s all fabric: floors, walls, ceiling, it’s all fabric. The fabric on the floor is a beautiful, removable shag rug. The rug was handwoven in India. It showed up last minute, the day before we opened. So we’d been using the room with the wood floor before the rug was put in. Our meditation teachers and energy workers were, like, ‘This is so good. We love it. We’ve cleansed the space. It feels good.’ One night I bring in the rug and the next day I get a meeting invite with all of our meditation teachers who are, like, ‘We have 911 emergency. We need to talk to you in the meditation room.’

I’m, like, ‘Did they catch something on fire? What happened?’ I go to the meditation room, and they’re, like, ‘The rug must go.’ I’m, like, ‘What?’ And they’re, like, ‘The rug has messed up the energy of the room completely. The energy is completely off. It has lost all of its balance. The rug must go.’ And I’m, like, ‘The rug’s not going anywhere. It was handwoven in India custom for us. This rug was a lot of money. It finishes the design. It’s so beautiful, it’s so comfortable, I’m obsessed with it. You have to do your magic, and we have to keep the rug.’ And they’re, like, ‘What?’ And I’m, like, ‘Can you cleanse it? Can you reset it? I need you to work with me here. They said, “Give us a couple days. We’ll see what we can do.’ And they worked their magic, they cleaned it. It was, like, some spirits came over with the rug that weren’t supposed to be there and had to be taken out of the space, and they’re now in love with the rug.

They were so serious. And I respect them, and I believe them. But, let’s not throw it away. Can we figure out a way to clean it first. There has to be some spiritual cleaning. There was. We saved the rug. The rug is there. That calendar invite was an interesting one to get. It’s, like, 1 p.m. fundraising meeting, 2 p.m. rug cleansing ceremony. Welcome to running a wellness company.

SSR: Love it. So to wrap this up, do you think that has been one of the lessons learned along the way, or building this brand, I know there’s a lot of hard work and sweat and tears just watching you and your partners and Liubasha, who helped design it with you. What has been the greatest takeaway? I mean you helped build 1 Hotels, helped build Baccarat, but something that is hopefully part of your legacy, what was something that you took away that either, again, surprised you or didn’t surprise you but was something that will stay with you?

KS: Two things I would throw out. One very tactfully and sort of jokingly but very, very real is the power of and the importance of organization and the power of taking the extra two minutes every time you need to organize something, putting the email in the right place, updating the document, doing those little mindful things that we don’t ever want to do but doing them in short increments at the time it needs to be done versus being like, ‘I’m just going to catch up on all of that later’ has been one of the biggest behavior changes, the biggest value changes I’ve gotten in this. And when managing a project that costs $10 million and we’ve raised tens of millions of dollars in venture capital and this something that is mine and I do own. The importance of organization has been so powerful for me because I’m the most disorganized person you’ve ever met in your entire life, when it comes to emails and all that stuff.

So investing in that, the return I’ve seen has been astronomical. Something very tactful. I think my biggest takeaway for me and something I’m most proud of in this is finding partners who you respect, who complement you, who have very different skillsets and who complement you, who you can have very open, very honest, very hard conversations with and still leave the room respecting each other and more importantly liking each other has been my biggest takeaway.

The three of us as business partners, it is our biggest strength and it’s because we are all so different. We see the world from different perspectives, we have very different skill sets, but we trust each other and we respect each other. And that partnership has given us such a strong foundation in everything that we do. Right? And it’s so important and it’s what actually believe it’s what will make or break us, right?

Our partnership I think is our biggest strength because no matter what we’re going to figure out how to get it done and we’re going to fix the problems and we’re going to work to make it successful because I think we’re just tenacious people who are going to make it happen. But if we didn’t have that respect and we didn’t have that true commitment to partnership, I don’t think we’d ever get it done. And I feel really lucky for it. You know what I mean? I think it’s a hard thing to find and I feel really good about that as our foundation and that’s why there are things in our business that are going way better than we expected them to and there are things going not nearly as good as we wanted them to, but I know that because of my partners, we’ll figure it out, you know what I mean? We’ll get it done.

SSR: Was there anything that’s not going well that you were surprised about?

KS: I think one thing I’m super surprised about is how hard it is to recruit restaurant staff in this city right now.  can’t find waiters and managers and bustiers and people or my restaurant. They’re in such high demand because there’s just so much going on in the city, it’s impossible, going horribly. By the way, anyone looking for assistant general manager position at a restaurant, call me. Recruiting for that specifically has been hard. I think also we definitely had some hiccups and some stumbles on permitting and that’s where the organizational thing comes in and permitting and paperwork with the city of New York, it’s no joke. And that was definitely some stumbles and things we had to learn from. But overall, I mean, members love the services, it’s busy. They love what we do. They love the experience.

We’re actually, one big learning that we’ve realized though is that, so we did our first members survey and we have over 500 members and we surveyed them and we got a big piece of feedback around the way membership works at the club. And interestingly, we’ve always had this idea of, we started as a members club specifically because we were like, ‘We want to build a community and we want to have like-minded people together’ and we really want to cultivate that community at the beginning to make sure that we’re setting the right tone and the right vibe. But what we’ve heard from our members and what we’ve heard from the public is basically, our membership model doesn’t work for everyone, right?

The value of our membership actually doesn’t transcribe to people who maybe don’t live in the city fulltime, but live in Connecticut and want to come in or even live on the Upper East Side and aren’t going to make it down to this club until we build one up there. One big learning that we’ve done and we’re changing, we’re creating this day tripper product, which is people can drop in for the day and they don’t get access to everything. There are things that are still members only, our classes are members only, our programming’s members only, some of those things that are part of membership but they can actually just come in and book a treatment or they can see our doctor or they can see a health coach. And membership doesn’t make sense for them because they don’t live here and they’re not going to get the value of the social club, but they’re still able to consume our healthcare. And learning that and seeing okay, it’s so interesting because as a brand, we’re like ‘We’re about bio-individuality, we believe there’s not one size fits all for wellness,’ but then we created this one product that was like, ‘You can only get wellness one way here,’ and we had to sort of rewind and be like, ‘What’s wrong with us?’

If someone is like, ‘I want to come to the Well and membership doesn’t make sense for me cause I don’t live close, but I want to come once a month and get acupuncture,’ we should let them in. It doesn’t mean our community is going to fizzle, we’re a brand, we have a core, we know who we are. Our community will still be there. So that was one big learning for us is be true to who you say you are, right? You say you are this, let’s rewind and look at this and we’re creating this new product which actually comes out on Monday, which I’m super excited about. And that was a key learning that I think it’s going to be great for our business and help us grow even faster.

SSR: And you are growing.

KS: Oh yeah. We are growing. We’re working on a location in LA, working on location in Miami, which I’m very excited about because I love Miami. We are also, you know, I can’t say exactly what, but coming in the new year, the Well will also not be just a club anymore. As in, we’ll have whole new products that you can buy from us online and take us home with you. So we’re actually expanding into our own product lines in February of next year, which I’m very excited about. It’s a complete ecosystem. So you’ll be able to take the Well home with you. We’re launching 17 skews of amazing products in February, which I’m super excited about.

SSR: Thank you so much for being here. It’s so fun to chat with you.

KS: Thank you for having me. It’s always a pleasure.