Today we’d like to introduce you to Flip Howard.
Hi Flip, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
In high school, I was painting addresses on curbs for fifty bucks an hour while my friends pulled six at the bike shop, and I knew right then I’d never take a job. So, when college graduation came, a buddy and I started a pickup-and-delivery laundry service for college campuses. Turns out, the office we rented mattered more than the laundry ever did.
It was one of those old executive suites across from SMU. In 2001, our landlord was going under. We looked around and thought, we can do this better. Twenty-five thousand dollars later, we owned the lease. Within months, we’d sold the laundry business to chase this one instead.
The first seven locations were takeovers of dying executive suites. For years our strategy was simple: be a leaner, more frugal version of what was already out there. Then the model shifted. Laptops and personal computers moved the businessperson out from the back office and the admin out from the front, and the industry split into two camps neither of us wanted to live in: depressing hallways of doors on one side, foosball-table playgrounds on the other.
So around 2022, we made a different bet — rebrand to Lucid Private Offices. Bright, intentional spaces designed for people who actually come to work.
Twenty-five years and thirty locations across four states later, we’re still doing the same thing—building the office the moment needs.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth would be the wrong word for any of it. My first year in business, I made $11,000. I was working 80-hour weeks. I could have made twice that at McDonald’s.
For the first decade, our strategy was simple: do what was already out there, just leaner and more frugal. We were never on the leading edge of any of it. Honestly, we were 50th-percentile adopters who just weren’t blind to what was already obvious. And a lot of business is that. It’s amazing how many people miss what’s pretty obvious to most people.
Then came the years I had to learn the opposite lesson. I went from one extreme to the other: working too hard for a decade, then barely working at all through most of my mid-30s into my early 40s. I had to be intentional about not raising kids who watched their dad have plenty of money and never have to work. I found the middle by accidentally going to both extremes first.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Lucid Private Offices?
Lucid Private Offices is an upscale, private-office focused coworking company, built for growing teams and individuals who want the privacy of a real office with the energy of a community around them. We offer elevated office space for driven professionals: private, lockable offices inside a shared environment that balances energy with focused, head-down work.
Memberships range from part-time offices to full team suites, plus meeting rooms, virtual offices, day passes, and hot desks. Whatever stage you’re in, there’s a fit.
The design and the flexibility matter, but they aren’t the only things that set us apart. It’s the community. The contagious, entrepreneurial energy of the professionals and organizations who call us home won’t be found anywhere else. What we are most proud of is the growth we get to walk through with our members — watching people start in a two-seat office, outgrow it, move into a team suite, and keep building from there.
Exceptional companies belong in exceptional spaces. Because work is good, and where you do it matters.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
As AI disrupts the white collar job landscape more and more companies will require the flexibility of coworking versus traditional long term leases.
I also think that AI will enable more micro sized startups that will need smaller office spaces, which we are able to support.
I also think we will see an increase in the popularity of office “hoteling” and other shared, part-time and hybrid officing solutions.
Basically, I think fewer and fewer companies will require huge bullpen style back offices, while office spaces that facilitate easy drop ins and meetings and collaboration for small teams will be in greater demand.
Pricing:
- Virtual Offices – start at 75/mo
- Meeting Room Memberships – Start at $50/month
- Part Time Offices- Start at $375/month
- Full Service Offices – Call for more details
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lucidprivateoffices.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucidprivateoffices/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LucidPrivateOffices
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lucidprivateoffices
