Business
In this episode, Tomal Syed-Aguirre, Founder of Soul Spaces, joins us to talk about what it really takes to build a relationship-first commercial real estate business in London. From ditching transactional deal culture to navigating volatile pipelines and experimenting with every marketing channel imaginable, Tomal shares the honest, unfiltered side of running a founder-led business in 2026.
Soul Spaces was built on a simple but powerful idea: bring humanity back to an industry that had lost it. Tomal and his co-founder Joe saw a corporate real estate world that was cold and transactional, and decided to do things differently. In this episode, we go deep on what that actually looks like in practice, from the way they onboard clients and tailor office recommendations, to how they think about long-term contracts versus month-to-month flexibility.
We also get into the real challenges of founder-led branding on LinkedIn, why Tomal deleted Instagram because he could no longer tell what was real, how AI is both exciting and frustratingly hard to implement in a still-manual industry, and why he believes the answer to modern outreach might simply be picking up the phone.
If you are a founder trying to grow a service business, stay authentic in a noisy digital world, and build something that actually lasts, this episode is for you.
Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings
In this episode, we discuss:
00:00 - 01:00: Introduction
01:00 - 02:10: Why Six-Month Contracts Beat Month-to-Month
02:10 - 04:05: How Soul Spaces Tailors Office Recommendations
04:05 - 06:15: The Story Behind Soul Spaces and Why They Started It
06:15 - 08:35: Founder-Led Branding and the LinkedIn Authenticity Challenge
08:35 - 11:10: Meme Culture, Creativity, and Finding Your Brand Voice
11:10 - 13:45: What Has Actually Worked in Outbound and Business Development
13:45 - 15:05: Is Commercial Real Estate Seasonal
15:05 - 18:20: Deal Cycles, Pipeline Volatility, and Balancing Quick vs Long-Term Clients
18:20 - 21:25: How Soul Spaces Is Adopting AI in a Still-Manual Industry
21:25 - 24:15: AI Fatigue, Fake Content, and the Return to Human Connection
24:15 - 26:10: If You Had to Strip the Business Down to One Thing
26:10 - 28:00: Where Soul Spaces Would Invest if Revenue Doubled Overnight
28:00 - 31:32: Where to Find Soul Spaces and Closing Thoughts
Connect with Tomal Syed-Aguirre
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomal-syed-aguirre/
https://soulspaces.london/
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