Fresh-Sheet Venue Improvement
Redesign each new location to improve on the last instead of cloning it.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 94%
Fresh-Sheet Venue Improvement is Jones's alternative to copying a successful location unchanged. He says the Soho House team starts every house with a fresh piece of paper and asks how the new site can be better, different, more efficient, and better for members than the last one. The mechanism combines continuity with deliberate redesign. The team preserves the essential member promise, reviews lessons from existing houses, and then identifies improvements in both experience and operations for the new context. This makes each opening a learning cycle rather than a replication exercise. The method does not mean novelty for its own sake: changes should solve an observed problem or improve a defined outcome. Standardise what protects the promise, but reconsider features whose only justification is that the previous venue had them.
Origin
Extracted from The Diary of a CEO
Core principles
- 01A repeatable brand does not require identical locations.
- 02Each launch is an opportunity to improve the member experience.
- 03Efficiency and experience should be redesigned together.
- 04Teams should begin with the current problem, not a default copy.
How to run it
- 1
Restate the essential promise
Define what customers must consistently receive across every location. Separate that promise from the particular design choices used previously.
Pro tip Describe the desired customer experience before discussing fixtures or layouts.
Watch out A fresh sheet should not erase the elements customers rely on.
- 2
Review the last location
Collect lessons about what members valued, what created friction, and what cost more time or money than expected. Turn experience into an explicit input for the next brief.
Pro tip Include frontline staff and customer feedback in the review.
Watch out Do not rely only on opening-period impressions.
- 3
Design for the new context
Begin from the needs of the new members, place, and operating environment. Choose features because they serve that context, not because they appeared before.
Pro tip Label every inherited feature as preserve, adapt, or remove.
Watch out Difference alone is not improvement.
- 4
Improve experience and efficiency
Specify at least one meaningful improvement for members and one for the team operating the site. Check that an efficiency gain does not quietly degrade the experience.
Pro tip Give each proposed change an observable outcome.
Watch out Cost reduction is not automatically better service design.
- 5
Feed learning forward
After launch, compare the intended improvements with member and operating evidence. Carry verified lessons into the next fresh-sheet review.
Pro tip Record what should be preserved as well as what should change.
In the wild
Jones says the team does not simply repeat an existing Soho House. For each house it begins with a fresh piece of paper and asks what should change to make the venue better, more efficient, and better for the member.
→ Successive venues become opportunities for visible improvement rather than fixed copies.
A fitness operator keeps the welcoming coaching promise of its first studio but reviews crowding, storage, and member feedback before designing the second. It changes the arrival flow and equipment layout while retaining the class format members value.
→ The second site remains recognisable while addressing observed experience and operating problems.
Common mistakes
Cloning the previous location
Automatic replication carries old friction into a new context and wastes the learning generated by earlier sites.
Changing for novelty
A fresh design should improve a customer or operating outcome rather than pursue difference as an end in itself.
Optimising only for efficiency
Jones explicitly pairs efficiency with making the house better for members; one should not silently displace the other.
Is it for you?
Best for
Operators opening successive venues or service locations while trying to preserve a consistent customer promise.
Not ideal for
Highly regulated or tightly standardised operations where local variation would undermine safety, compliance, or reliability.
From the transcript
“we always start with a fresh piece of paper”
“we don't think well you know let's just keep repeat repeat repeat”
“what are we going to change to make it better for the member”
From the episode
Soho House Founder: How I Built The World’s Most Exclusive Club: Nick Jones