What we have learned about experienced-based "selling" in 22 years

We know that knowledge cannot be transferred. An experience has to be created that facilitates each individual learning and recreating what they learn. Everything in the knOwhere Store is information, tools, products that we use in our work. We invite people in to our environment to use it. We then sell them parts of the environment - or the whole system - as they see the benefits of our way of working.

When a new customer walks into knOwhere we never know if what they will take away is a book or an entire working system. We let the customer decide - we do not try to "sell" what we have but what we can create and adapt to the customer's requirements and desires.

We consider what we do as ART.

We do know this: if our customers cannot use our environments they will never buy them nor most of the components that make them up. This was true in 1979 and it is true today.

We got here early

knOwhere moved to Midtown in 1997. This required a huge investment for us. We are a self-funded, family-owned corporation. We got here early. However, if we had waited for a mature market, we would not be able to afford the price.

In general, the larger market for our work, services, products and environments is just reaching a healthy level of demand. The Midtown market is behind this curve but catching up.

After three years of effort, $2 million in investment and losses, the Palo Alto knOwhere Store reached the break-even point at the end of 2000.

The knOwhere Store is designed to become a walk-in environment in a "village" setting

The knOwhere environment is designed to open to the street. It has a large outside/inside patio designed for interaction. Today, this is only used occasionally for special events. In time, as the community evolves we see our place becoming a portal for knowledge economy resources.

Our present position

Today, most of our revenue is generated by selling multi-day working events and big sales of work furniture-our basic services and goods. This is where we started. It is not where we are going.

The vision from, the beginning, was to be global in our reach and local in each place we work. In the first two years the vast majority of knOwhere revenues came from outside California. In the last 18 months the shift has been to local Valley corporations. We are now experiencing the convergence of community interest and business.

Our goal is to have a balanced mix of global, national, regional, local and community-based customers. We believe that this is healthy for us and the community. The resources we bring into the community are as important as the ones we develop within the community. Business today is global and the impact is always local.

How our mix of activities is shifting

Our mix of business is shifting in three ways. First, our business base is increasingly coming closer to home. Secondly, our big sales revenues are being increasingly balanced by higher volume of small sales (which are now about 25% of total revenues). Last, as we and the market mature, we will be retailing an increasing amount of many people's goods and services in addition to our own.

Community uses and involvement where we live

Matt and Gail Taylor, MG Taylor Corporation and the KnOwhere Stores have always been active in the communities of which we are a part. We do this, mostly, by offering our services free to those communities. We have done it here on several occasions and will continue to do so.

We do not do this to be good corporate citizens - we do it because we believe in doing it. Community development has been part of our work for over 30 years.

Local business incubation

"Community-serving," as I noted above, has many nuances. What it is depends a great deal on your perspective and what "economy" you are in. We all need cleaning, food and other basic services - but business incubation?

When Gene Wang decided to start a new business, his third, he wanted it to be near his growing family. A resident of the neighborhood, he found in knOwhere a place to locate his startup. Over 14 months a business of one became twenty and "graduated" to its own environment (taking a lot of furniture). The result is PhotoAccess a successful Internet service company. With this business established, Gene is now thinking of a new idea and may come back to knOwhere for another startup.

In the new economy, intensive work has to be balanced with family. Walking to work is better than traffic jams. Home offices need access to high-speed lines and expensive equipment. In this environment, a hub like knOwhere is community-serving.

How we handle negative impacts

knOwhere has a low impact on Midtown. Our person/car traffic per square foot is very low. We manage our impact. When we have large groups for any duration, we bus them in or pay a local church for use of its parking lot.

If KnOwhere left and the space was converted to a high traffic traditional retail environment, there would be nowhere for its customers to park. As it is, the office building next door and Starbucks uses our parking lot at peak periods. Without this capacity, their business would suffer. The majority of the knOwhere staff and owners cycle to work a significant portion of the year.

What we do at knOwhere

Everything we do at knOwhere we consider to be retailing, be it offering workspace, a service, or a product. We offer these service/products bundled and as individual components. A "sale" for us can be a $19.95 book or a several hundred thousand dollar mix of our various products and services. We offer all this at the Store, at the customer location and through the Internet, but the key is the experiential selling described above.

We provide hotelling and startup incubation services. Tenants comprise a mix of our sister companies and others. "Outside" companies usually stay with us for the short term until they find permanent offices. We ask startups to leave when they reach a level of development and operation that is no longer appropriate for our environment and the Midtown area.

We rent our space to groups for meetings, design sessions and project work. We also conduct sessions ourselves. Often, these sessions are staffed by Knowledge Workers who come in and perform services-- facilitation, art, video, photography, and documentation. Most of these are not our employees - they are network members. They are our customers as much as the end-user.

We perform a variety of knowledge services from producing video shows, designing and hosting web sites, doing research, providing environmental design services, teaching and facilitating creativity. We provide our customers place to sit read and work and access to a comprehensive library, as well as, the Internet.

We sell books, art tools, toys, puzzles, art objects, games, travel kits, and a wide variety of work furniture. Almost everything in the environment is for sale - knOwhere is a 15,000 square-foot show room, demonstration, retail environment.

We provide, on a custom basis, access to Internet, servers, multimedia editing and high-quality scanning, digital photography, and color printing.

Our work is based on the integration of the work environment, technical tools and work processes. Our specialty is "releasing group genius" because, today, no matter your organization the majority of work is done in collaboration with others.

This is knOwhere - the marketplace for the new economy.

Founding Concept

Community-Serving Shopping and Effectiveness of Ordinances

Needed: an Objective Definition of Community-Serving

A Personal Note from our Founders

Our History of Community Support

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