We caught up with the brilliant and insightful David LaSalle a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi David, thanks for joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

After careers in the military, my wife Alix and I were eager to drop roots into a community. We moved to the small town of Estes Park and discovered something beautiful in this Rocky Mountain paradise – one can work hard and be professionally successful without sacrificing physical or emotional wellbeing. We truly believe that where you work can make you happy and healthy, and sharing that message, and creating a place that facilitates the “work, connect, play” lifestyle is what we’ve done with Vert Coworking.

David, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

After retiring from 20+ years of military service with lots of “important” international work (we met while working at the US Embassy in Paris), Alix and I used our GI Bills for graduate school in Denver, law and business respectively, We wanted to be in a smaller town where we could have long lasting relationships and contribute to a happy, healthy community. We initially purchased the largest fitness center in Estes Park but after the construction of a community center and with the effects of the pandemic, we had the good fortune of being forced to pivot. We discovered coworking and developed the vision of a place that integrated productivity and wellness, surrounded by inspirational natural beauty. The name “Vert” blends those ideas: business verticals and one of the measures for how much fun we have in the mountains. We value life success, not just a robust bank account. It seems to us that there is nothing sadder than an unhappy, unhealthy rich person. And so we created a tech’d out, ergonomic coworking space with full fitness facilities, a climbing gym and a Barre/Yoga studio. We offer recovery tools such as saunas, Normatec boots, and we have a chiropractor and three massage therapists in the building. Vert is becoming a pillar for lifestyle entrepreneurial activity.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

After retiring from the Air Force, I started a small DoD consulting business, essentially continuing what I had done for the prior two decades. After 7 financially successful but increasingly unsatisfying years, I went back to school and obtained an MBA with the intention of buying or starting a small business in the Colorado mountains. That led us to purchase the Rocky Mountain Health Club, the largest gym in Estes Park, in 2016. After two successful years growing that business, the town’s recreation district opened a Community Center that chose to directly compete with the 3-4 commercial fitness clubs in town. We downsized our gym dramatically and found a short-term tenant to help us pay our commercial mortgage. 2020 saw our gym business completely shut down for a few months and we had to make the decision to either sell our building or pivot further – we discovered that our town’s strategic economic plan specifically identified the need for a coworking facility to support our rural entrepreneurs. We built a plan for an entrepreneurial community center and pitched it to our banker, who agreed to refinance our mortgage and provide the funds for significant building renovations. We opened Vert Coworking in October 2021.

Does your business have multiple or supplementary revenue streams (like a ATM machine at a barbershop, etc)?

Knowing that coworking in a small market (Estes Park has 6500 permanent residents, though we have 4M+ visitors annually) would be challenging, we developed a business plan with multiple revenue components: Coworking, a boutique fitness facility, event space offerings, and we are developing destination corporate retreat offerings. We also have a number of commercial tenants in our building. This variety of activities makes for busy days but provides a nice measure of resiliency in a rural setting.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://vertcoworking.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vertcoworking/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VertCoworking

Image Credits
Kevin Benes, David LaSalle