Hi Tuesday letter,
I talk a lot about everything excepted the building, the walls, the stones, the land. Let’s allow ourselves an exception.
(quick note, if you have any topic you’d like me to dive into, please do not hesitate to reply to this email and share your thoughts. I’m really behind this letter and read everything).
Most people start a hospitality project by scrolling listings.
LoopNet. Leboncoin. SeLoger. Off-market WhatsApp groups. Brokers with PDFs full of promises.
I’ve learned to start somewhere else.
With the territory (click here, we launched something you may like)
Cities are wayyy more than backdrops. Through them, we have a living systems with memories, politics, fears, ambitions, empty buildings and unfinished stories.
If you want to find special places, you know, the ones that never hit the market, you don’t hunt them. You get invited to them.
And I wanted to share with you my tips to get invitations
Over the years, I realised that the most interesting projects didn’t come from being the fastest buyer, but from being the most aligned partner. Someone who takes time to understand what a city wants to become, not just what it wants to sell.
This letter is about that shift.
About why I often start by calling a mayor before calling a broker (wait, you know I’m talking about a cities with easy access to mayors ahah.)
Why urbanism departments can become allies instead of obstacles.
And why the way you enter a territory often defines the future value of your project more than the building itself.
If you’re trying to build places with meaning(and not just assets with keys) this matters.
Let’s go concrete below my friends. This is where the real process starts.