Q1 2020 Texas CEO Magazine

Our approach, starting with Jerry
Sr., has always been to leverage the
passion and excitement of the Dallas
Cowboys. We’ve found we can use that
tradition, history, and brand affinity to
help sponsors like Pepsi, Ford, or the
Miller Brewing Company. By leveraging
the association with the Dallas Cowboys,
you really create an uneven playing
field, and that’s what we’ve done here
with Formation [the new collaborative
workspace]. Our family has always been
passionate about entrepreneurship and
business and now, with Formation, we
have the chance to help foster success
with everyone from entrepreneurs to
CEOs of up-and-coming businesses.
My understanding is that
Formation is already highly utilized,
even though it’s only been open since
last August. How did that business come
about? It really grew out of our focus
on the culture and environment at The
Star. As we were collecting ideas for
what we wanted our headquarters at
The Star to be, we weren’t looking
32 Texas CEO Magazine Q1 2020
at sports training facilities like we
did when we were building the
stadium. We looked for ideas all over
the place. We studied corporations and
their headquarters, places like Apple and
Google. We went and saw what some of
our sponsors, like Ford Motor Company,
were doing. In looking at those places,
we wanted to see how they treated
corporate environment and culture.
In building The Star, we focused
on the atmosphere, the look and feel of
everything from the players’ cafeteria
to business operations. We had to think
WE REALLY
DIDN’T LOOK
AT IT AS COWORKING
AS MUCH AS WE
LOOKED AT IT AS AN
ENTREPRENEURIAL
MEMBERSHIP CLUB.
about not only what the experience for
our fans was like, but how we could
ensure that our employees and our
football team had a great experience
as well. What setting could we give
them that would make them thrive?
That really bled to the idea
of a coworking space, which then led
into the development of Formation. The
concept was picking up steam and a lot
of people were jumping into that industry,
but we really didn’t look at it as coworking
as much as we looked at it as an
entrepreneurial membership club. What
does that mean? It means you have an
opportunity to leverage the Cowboys the
very way that our family does. Formation
really lets people tap into the history,
the passion, and the excitement of the
Cowboys brand as well as the dynamic
of a family-run operation. With
Formation, we had a chance to let
people access those amenities and
take part in that very excitement of
being a part of the Cowboys family.
That’s what Formation represents.