Meet Nicolas
Nicolas Legay. From Lunchtime Runs to 500 Co-living Units.
In Beggen, a house has just been renovated. The cement tiles look like they have always been there. They have not. They were dug out of the garden. Cleaned. Then laid back down, piece by piece. That kind of detail says a lot about ManyMany.
Nicolas Legay is the CEO and co-founder of ManyMany. He left a corporate job at a bank. Change management. Safe. Today he manages 500 co-living and rental units across Luxembourg.
It started with a pizza. Two expats crossing the route d’Esch. On one side, an old employer. On the other, a future investor. Same frustration: housing in Luxembourg is expensive, and rarely good. So they decided to fix it. Many of the big calls came later, on their lunchtime runs.
Ten years ago, some investors cut living rooms in half to add bedrooms. Nicolas did the opposite. He made the shared spaces bigger. He obsessed over the light, the materials, the feel. Because a home is not just rented. It is lived in.
This visit is also a reunion. Two years ago, Aurélien left the company he built with Nicolas. Now he comes back to see how far it has gone. The answer: further than they ever pitched.
In this visit with She Said Yes!, Nicolas opens the doors. We look at a co-living model built on quality, not shortcuts. And at what happens when two outsiders decide to rethink how people live.
City
Luxembourg Beggen
Date
July 2026
Photos & Video
She Said Yes!
SSY You two started this together years ago, under a different name. How does it feel to be here now?
Nicolas A bit surreal. We changed the name a few times. But we went from an idea to something real. That is a big source of pride.
SSY You left a stable job at a bank to do this. Any regrets?
Nicolas Zero. None. It was not a leap into the void. It was a long process. And I did not jump alone. We jumped together. The void feels less empty when you are two.
SSY What did you do before?
Nicolas I worked in a big bank in Paris. Process and reengineering after mergers. The bank bought other banks. My job was to make them work as one. Later I built a digital department. Then I absorbed marketing and communication. I was always creating something. An intrapreneur.
SSY The first business model was very different. What was the plan?
Nicolas At first we wanted to buy the buildings. Then we counted our money. We could not. So we said, let us rent them. But owners were not keen. Guarantees, risk. We were stuck. We could not buy and could not rent. Then it clicked. What if we became service providers? We partner with investors and run the project for them. That was the trigger.
SSY The first name was Tranquille Émile. Why did it change?
Nicolas Some early prospects laughed at it. Kindly. But it made us sound like a joke. So we changed it. Good call.
SSY What did the early days cost you?
Nicolas Sleep. A lot of coffee. Not much else, honestly. I had the right partner and a family that backed me fully. There was a financial sacrifice too. Some bills were hard to pay before we could pay ourselves. But that is part of the pride.
SSY You often say you have to provoke luck. How did you find your first big partner?
Nicolas We provoked it. We saw everyone we knew, and everyone they knew. Maybe fifty lunches led nowhere. But nothing was wasted. Then one lunch changed everything. It was near the bank, with Laurence, a former head of marketing at Inowai. She said, do not move, my CEO is working on a co-living project. He walked past during the meal. We had coffee. A meeting the next day. By the end, we shook hands. We were going to work together.
SSY You were named startup of the year with almost nothing. Just slides?
Nicolas Just slides. No product. We won Startup Stories at Paperjam with a PowerPoint. It put us in the media. That helped.
SSY What did the first fundraise really give you?
Nicolas It was less about cash and more about a stamp. People invested. That means they believe in you. Neither of us came from real estate. So that trust was reassuring.
SSY Did you feel like an outsider in real estate?
Nicolas I am surrounded by people far better than me at real estate. But that is not what people wanted from us. They wanted our outside view. We saw the problem from above. Fresh eyes. That was our strength.
SSY One of your first projects became the biggest co-living in Luxembourg. Tell us about HENRY’s.
Nicolas HENRY’s has 50 rooms. We pitched it early, over a terrible video call. Bad connection, construction noise. I still do not know what they understood. But it works. Full occupancy. A beautiful project.
SSY Where does the name HENRY’s come from?
Nicolas A few winks. One to our Grand Duke. And one to our tenants. HENRY stands for High Earners, Not Rich Yet. It pitched itself.
SSY You designed the buildings around a social theory. Explain it.
Nicolas It comes from Dunbar’s work. Sociologists mapped our social circles. Your closest friends, the ones you see daily, cap at about five people. The people you cross now and then, like neighbours, sit around fifty. So our co-living apartments hold five people who share daily life. And each building holds around fifty rooms. The size just works.
SSY Is co-living a real answer to today’s housing needs?
Nicolas It is part of the answer. We are moving toward a world of shared resources. Housing is no exception. We always build cosy rooms with a private bathroom. The bathroom is your intimate zone. The kitchen and the living room, you share. Most of our tenants arrive in Luxembourg for the first time. Their first night here is often with us. Before their employer. So the quality has to be high.
SSY And for people who do not want to share?
Nicolas Same promise, different format. Co-living or a furnished studio. Plug and play. Services. Flexible contracts. Virtual visit, remote signing, no paperwork. That flexibility is what most people here need.
SSY Your quality bar is high. What does that cost you?
Nicolas Ten years ago, operators rented houses, transformed them cheaply, and sublet high. Bad for the owner. Bad for the tenant. Good for them. We chose the opposite. We partner with owners to build the best product. Better experience, better long-term value. Early on, we said no to maybe nine projects out of ten. But we stayed clean and fully compliant. Today public institutions call us to run their co-living projects. The same people who once said co-living was just a phase now buy the buildings.
SSY I left two years ago. What changed since?
Nicolas The team stayed. That is my biggest pride. The clients stayed too. We fixed a few inherited projects. We pulled out of Belgium, we did not have the critical mass. And we let go of clients who did not fit our vision. No debt. Growing around 40% a year. The revenue does not double every year, but every two. It is a good story.
SSY Where is ManyMany in five years?
Nicolas There is a glass ceiling. Luxembourg is small. Our product is urban and plug and play. So we will hit saturation one day. We want to anticipate it. We are already applying the co-living recipe to classic apartments. We are looking at a senior vertical, without medical care. And students. The engine is good. We just adapt the bodywork for each case.
SSY At She Said Yes! we love a beautiful space. One that stuck with you?
Nicolas A food court in Nice, built inside an old train station. I like the organised mess. It looks thrown together, but it works. There is life in it. That energy is what I love.
SSY Last one. Advice for someone who wants to start a business?
Nicolas Do it with other people. I would never have done this alone. A stool stands on three legs. It is stable. We did it as two, and we were very complementary. And listen to your gut, not your head. Your head tells you to stay safe. Your gut tells you to move.
Watch the full video
Nicolas Legay walks us through a freshly renovated ManyMany home in Beggen. The restored cement tiles. The bigger shared spaces. The details that turn a rental into a place you actually want to live.
Listen to the podcast
In the full conversation, Nicolas and Aurélien look back on the ManyMany journey. From a pizza on the route d’Esch to 500 units under management. The pivots, the lucky breaks, and why quality beats shortcuts.
Link here 👉 shesaidyes.lu/podcast/many-many-nicolas-legay
👉 See Also :
Inspiring stories on real estate, design and architecture on SSY! podcast.
Discover more Real Estate Inspiration Stories on how people shape their homes.
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