Fatty Kat dines here
WORK • Tuesday Routine
KATHARINE LAU • CEO • Stuf
Neighborhood you work in: Tribeca
It’s Tuesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
I’m at our office in Tribeca. A handful of team members trickle in after me, and we always find something fun to catch up on — admiring the professional photos from our latest launch, discussing Beyonce’s new album, or sharing the latest restaurant we discovered.
We’re generally in the office three days a week as we balance a hybrid setup. Office days are often the most valuable as we organically learn about what’s going on across the organization, and often develop new ideas, or get ahead of issues. I’ll also listen in on customer calls, which are valuable in telling me what’s going well and where we can improve.
What’s on the agenda for today?
I’m incredibly productive in the mornings, so I’m typically going heads down before lunch. As CEO, I get pulled in so many directions, but right now, I’m focused on our real estate expansion in NY and LA. We operate a hyperlocal self storage network across seven cities (SF, Seattle, Atlanta, DC, and Boston, too) by partnering with commercial landlords, so we’re often meeting and touring with real estate owners who have underutilized space (that we hope to convert into tech-enabled storage). Today, I have a quick site visit in FiDi, so I’ll pop down there on the R before noon and meet the owner in person.
I also have a few calls with existing and potential landlord partners. I like to stay close to people in the real estate world so I know what's going on in their day-to-day, and be helpful to them whether it's with Stuf or through my network. We just opened two new Stuf spaces in Brooklyn, one that serves Park Slope and another by Clinton Hill and Prospect Heights. It's particularly exciting because we’re testing a retail idea for the first time, as we have over 9,000 square feet in Prospect Heights. We’re selling swag (including hot sauce!), and we’re testing out our first vending machine, filled with supplies our customers sometimes forget.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
I used to write a food blog during college and my early 20s, and it actually helped me get multiple real estate jobs as it set me apart from other qualified people. I even made some advertising revenue back in the day. But once I entered the startup world, I hardly had time to write anymore. Although I never stopped eating.
Last night, my husband and I went to Double Windsor in Windsor Terrace for a much needed burger and fries. We had a busy weekend still acclimating to two kids (our youngest is 2.5 months old), so it was such a treat to leave the house. We recently checked out a restaurant residency called Cha Cha Tang which took over Hancock St in the West Village for a few months. I lived in Hong Kong in my early teenage years, and was excited by their modern take on Hong Kong diner food.
How about a little leisure or culture this week?
I love hot yoga, and I did my first postpartum class last night at my favorite studio, Heatwise in Park Slope. It’s been almost a year since I last visited, but it almost felt like a religious experience to be flowing in a sweaty room with 20-30 other people.
What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
A 100+ year old fireplace mantel that now lives in our living room. Our house is very old and used to have a fireplace (you can see the detail in the original wood floors), so when I came across @dcmantelhouse on Instagram, I knew I wanted to bring this incredible feature back into our home.