“We” Opened a Coworking Space
The person who wrote this asked me to stay anonymous, but this story was too good to keep to myself.
A few weeks ago, [we] opened a coworking space.
…the story started three years ago with “me” talking to people in this community, taking people to lunch, hosting gathering of creatives at my house and finally “I” brought together 10 people willing to pay money every month to have a coworking space in this little town. I looked for spaces, “we” picked a spot. I signed the lease, “we” moved in. I built us desks to work on, “we” picked the arrangement of the office, I picked my desk last. “We” were happy with the arrangement of the office.
That’s the truth of how this was formed or is forming. This is the story I tell myself & my close friends. The story I tell others contains no “I’s”, it’s only filled with “we”. This isn’t “my” space, it’s “our” space. It’s been a lesson in humility, an exercise of putting [myself] last, focusing on others. For me this doesn’t come naturally.
We’ve been in this space for 30 days. “We” are happy, “I” am happy.
For anyone else in the early stages of forming a coworking space, I hope this is inspiration enough for you to start with the people, and put them first in every decision you make.
The payoff can show itself in as little as 30 days after opening – but I can assure you that it won’t stop paying off, even years later.
Find out details or sign up below. Save $125 (off $375) by registering before January 31st.
How To Fund Your Coworking Space
One of the most common recurring questions that shows up in my inbox from prospective coworking space catalysts is rarely asked directly.
When people write in, if they’re looking for something specific, they’re almost always looking for business models, plans, pro-formas, etc. When I dig a bit beyond their request, it turns out that what they’re really interested in is figuring out how, or who, to fund their new operation.
We’re big proponents of bootstrapping at Indy Hall. Apart from industry cliches like, “It’s easier to to spend somebody else’s money than it is to have to make your own”, there are very practical and pragmatic reasons for bootstrapping a coworking space.
At the top of that list of reasons is – because you can.
There are industries that exist where start-up costs are prohibitively high, and starting a new venture requires outside capital to get off the ground.
But coworking isn’t one of those businesses. Rather than needing intensive financial capital to get started, you get to start by building social capital.
Focus on Your First 10
People jumping straight into coworking calculating square footage & sizing up furniture, or obsessing over branding and their website, are skipping over the important and crucial step to developing a healthy community: finding your first 10 coworkers. Everything else can come after that.
Where you find them will vary. What they’ll look like will vary. But these first 10 people are the human seeds of your coworking space to be. They will be the #1 reason that other people want to come work with you at your coworking space.
Rather than inventing pro-formas or making complex decisions about your new business, you can turn directly to your first 10 and work with them to make decisions, and calculate actual financial viability.
But perhaps the most overlooked opportunity is:
your members are your funders.
Where Might Your First 10 Come From?
Our first Indpendents Hall member meetup in early 2007 was the first formal invitation for the people I’d been talking about coworking with to come together. We talked about coworking, but we didn’t exchange any money just yet (other than paying for our beers). There might’ve been 20 people at that first meetup, a number of whom I never saw again (or didn’t see until many months later).
Not wanting to lose momentum, we continued those meetups at least once a month. They sometimes involved direct discussions about a coworking space, but more often than not they were just opportunities for us to get to know each other. The prospective members got to bond with me, but also got to bond with each other. We also made it a point to attend other peoples’ events together. It might just be 2-4 people at a time, but we were starting to hang out more often.
We started our own “Jelly” casual coworking meetup every couple of weeks to work outside of the house together – sometimes from a cafe, sometimes a bar, sometimes just gathering in somebody else’s living room for the day. This was a crucial step past talking about the idea of coworking, and into the realm of introducing people to the act of coworking. These events grew from 6-8 people to 15-25 people over the course of a few months.
It turns out that working with people who aren’t your coworkers (in a traditional arrangement, anyway) is habit forming. People began to ask to do these meetups more often. And they continued to invite their friends.
On A Budget of $0.00
It wasn’t until this point that we started thinking about money, business plans, membership models, square footage, desks, or any of the things that people tend to be overwhelmed and concerned about. We spent at least 6 months spending ZERO dollars. And we’d built up a core group of around 10 people who’d formed deep, strong relationships with each other – all in the context of a coworking space that didn’t even exist yet.
And those people wanted nothing more than to have a place where they could get together as often as they wanted and invite more people over. The club was ready for a clubhouse.
On a budget of $0, we’d formed the very first stages of our working community. With no office, no infrastructure, no business license, no bank account.
Back To Funding
We opened our first budget with two funding sources:
- my meager savings account (<$10,000, earned from web development consulting)
- ★★★ membership dues, prepaid
Since we had this group of potential members who said they wanted coworking, we asked them to say it again – with their signature at the bottom of a check. We ended up signing up 2 full time members, 4 lite members, and a whopping 23 basic members because of the time we’d spent building a strong core of 10 people BEFORE we needed the money.
We gave our “charter members” the opportunity to sign up for their preferred membership level for up to 6 months prepaid, with a bonus month of free membership for the prepaid memberships. We brought in another $4700, nearly 50% of my personal investment, before we’d even signed a lease. This was not only the funding needed to get the office opened – but it was the vote of confidence that I needed from the community to empty my personal savings into this venture.
Our Members Are Our Funders
Without members, Indy Hall has no reason to exist. Our members get to vote – with their dollars and their participation – if and how we continue to exist. It’s up to us to listen and learn from what they tell us.
Every minute you’re spending looking for funding is a minute you’re not looking for members.
Ask anybody who runs a coworking space today – they don’t need investors to grow and be sustainable as much as they need members.
Consider the Alternatives
Option one!
- Develop your business plan
- Find Investor(s) and convince them that coworking is the new hotness and they should invest
- Investor(s) buy in, and now own a piece of your hard work
- Find a location to open your coworking space in
- Move in. Build furniture. Paint walls. Install network.
- Grand opening! Celebrate!
- Celebration over! You need to find members!
Option two!
- Hunt for members
- Develop your business plan based on the members you’ve found
- Work with your membership to find a location to open your coworking space in
- Members buy in, now share a piece in the hard work
- Move in. Build Furniture. Paint Walls. Install Network. Together.
- Grand opening! Celebrate with your members!
Going the route of option one is a great route – if you’re into delaying the inevitable. No matter what, you’ll need to do the hard work of finding your members. In this case, you’re waiting to do that and asking somebody else to fund your stalling.
Option two, however, gets the hard part out of the way early and puts you in a remarkable position – most notably having member buy in – for your ongoing community development.
When you open your space at the end of option one, you open with a shitload of hard work (much harder than assembling Ikea furniture) ahead of you and a debt to an investor.
When you open at the end of option two, you open with revenue, momentum, and buy-in. Not to mention a lot of the hardest work behind you, complete ownership of your business, and the ability to answer to your community instead of an investor – because the community IS your investor.
So start with your first 10.
They’ll answer all of your hardest questions, including ones that are much harder than “How do I fund my coworking space”.
Find out details or sign up below. Save $125 (off $375) by registering before January 31st.
Welcome to N3rd Street
In early summer of 2007, Indy Hall wasn’t a place, but it was a nomadic tribe. We were moving from bar to cafe to restaurant to living room – anywhere with wifi – in the pursuit of a better working experience than working alone in our apartments.
At the time, Old City didn’t really jump to mind as the ideal place for us to settle. Compared to other neighborhoods, it was pricey. None of us lived in Old City. And on the weekends…well, the area attracted Philadelphia’s “bridge and tunnel” crowd.
But a few things drew us in.
For one, while none of us lived there, the 2nd Street subway station and the bus routes provided easy access to the neighborhood.
Second, one of the bar/restaurant spots we’d been frequenting was the geek friendly National Mechanics.
And third was the opportunity we found to rent this beautiful loft, and the lovely couple who took a chance letting us rent it to try out our “unorthodox” business model.
We Found Other Nerds on 3rd St
National Mechanics isn’t a geek-friendly spot by accident – it’s actually the “downstairs” of Weblinc, a quiet but powerful leader in the Philadelphia technology community and a supporter of everything from meetups, parties, and happy hours for groups of all sizes and flavors.
Weblinc provides their own enterprise-class eCommerce tools to companies that I’m sure you’ve heard of, and they employ some of the sharpest tech and business crew in Philadelphia. Jason and Darren Hill, the brothers who own National Mechanics and Weblinc, became quick friends and – for me personally – mentors, as they’ve been growing a tech business in Philly since the early 90′s
Just across the street from National/Weblinc, we found I-Site, another Philadelphia veteran web company. Founder Ian Cross doesn’t SOUND like a Philadelphian, since you’ll likely notice his british accent before you get too far into conversation with him, but Ian most certainly bleeds Philadelphia and has a lot of love for nerds of all kinds in this city. In addition to leading a successful creative/tech agency, Ian is active in many arts, culture, and civic circles across Philadelphia, always bringing his a-game.
There were other technology companies in Old City, of course, but these were the first two we found that not only had a critical mass of their own, but went out of their way to welcome and support other tech businesses coming into the neighborhood, and they both happened to be on 3rd street.
Head North, Young Man
We settled into the groove in Old City quickly. The easy access from anywhere in the city was a big attraction, but so was the bountiful lunch spots, the dozens of after-hours drink spots, and the close proximity to historic Philadelphian landmarks like the Liberty Bell and the other Hall of Independence. Our members loved inviting their clients to Old City for meetings for these reasons and more.
It was also really great to be so close to the old city arts community – First Fridays provided endless people watching and opportunities to scope out the galleries latest shows.
When we started looking for a new location to grow into in early 2009, one of our members found a vacant floor in the Daniel Building. We showed the spot to our members and everyone agreed – this new spot north of Market street would bring us a myriad of improvements over our original office, not the least of which were a main street positioning over our Strawberry St “alley” location. The owners – Miles & Generalis, were supportive of what we were doing. They “got it”, and had a similar origin story themselves. M&G partners Tom and Alex are artists themselves, and identified strongly with our goals of bringing people together for creative and business endeavors. I think we brought a familiar identity to their building, and they’ve been supportive the whole way.
We joked that we didn’t think it would have been possible to move closer to National Mechanics, and yet – that’s exactly what we did.
We opened our new North 3rd St location – equidistant north of Market Street from National Mechanics/Weblinc’s building, in May 2009 and continued to grow and fill out our 2nd floor clubhouse.
Colonizing The Daniel Building
Indy Hall’s never been great for teams bigger than 2 or 3 – so when a couple of our members (one of whom lent us money for our move into the Daniel Building) began to quickly grow their company, they jumped on the opportunity to move and have space for their burgeoning team…up one floor in the Daniel Building.
Earlier that same year, Indy Hall friends and supporters Frank Roche and Sarah Chambers were looking to move their team at iFractal across town, and fell in love with an office… in the Daniel Building.
And as of this week, the growing Philadlephia contingent at Wildbit – decided to officially move to…the Daniel Building.
As of this week, Indy Hall & friends account for 36% of the 14 units in the Daniel Building.
Weblinc Expands North
Earlier this year, Weblinc bought and renovated another building on the stretch of 3rd street…right between the Daniel Building and market Street. This is after spending several months in temporary space…you guessed it…from our offices in the Daniel Building.
It doesn’t stop there
Continue north on 3rd street corridor and you’ll run into the Devnuts office, home to the John Fazio, Chris Alfano, and Matt Monahan’s Jarv.us and their unusual tech-talent bootcamp. I’d been watching them closely since they opened Devnuts, and it’s been really fantastic to watch them literally fill their North 3rd Street loft just across the street from Liberty Lands Park with some of the brightest young minds in Philadelphia and whip them into shape. Earlier this year, we joined forces to work on my newest adventure, DynamicWear.
Slash7 – Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs’ joint for producing their cheerful webapps like Freckle and Charm relocated to the neighborhood earlier this year – from Vienna, Austria. They just signed a lease on an office of their own just a couple of blocks away as their team has recently more than doubled in size.
And this is just a sampling of companies that I know well – DrinkPhilly’s office is at 3rd and Chestnut. Agency M and QuirkBooks are around the corner on Church Street. I’m sure I’m leaving somebody out – if we’re N3rd St Neighbors, say hello in the comments!
N3rd Street Only Goes One Way: Up
It was while hanging out with the Jarv.us/Devnuts crew that we realized that N. 3rd Street could easily be read as N3rd Street, the “leet” spelling of nerd.
It’s been really, really great to make N3rd Street our home over the last couple of years, and contribute to the gravity that is attracting more and more tech and creative companies to the neighborhood.
That’s really the difference though – it’s starting to feeling like a neighborhood. I don’t just love the area, I love our neighbors. I love seeing people I know on the street while I’m walking around, saying hello, and finding out what they’re up to.
Even better, though, is that it seems like all of the companies on N3rd Street are growing. It’s a great energy for all of us to be sharing in.
Things are good and only getting better on N3rd Street.
If you’re running a tech/creative company on or near N3rd Street, say hi in the comments! Thinking about moving to the neighborhood? Let me know if you have any questions!
Join the WeWorkInPhilly N3rd Street Group
Find out details or sign up below. Save $125 (off $375) by registering before January 31st.
The Coworkshop is Growing Up Fast
Just 2 weeks ago, I was worried. I’d been hit with a landslide of outreach from struggling coworking spaces. I’d put so much time into helping people start and run coworking spaces in a healthy and sustainable way, what had I done wrong?
Today, I’m much more hopeful.
It turns out that not everybody learns really well by subscribing to my blog, following my tweets, or asking questions on the google group.
There’s so much noise out there about coworking that it’s hard to find any signal about how coworking works when it works well, or how to even get to the point where coworking is happening at all.
So I decided to launch a course. With less than 2 weeks notice, I offered a 3 hour workshop where I’d share details, concepts and experiences that have helped us grow Indy Hall into an extremely healthy community and business.
Despite the short notice, the workshop sold out. I was floored.
I got some help from my veteran workshop friends Amy and Thomas on the tech side of things, and we were off to the races.
What the participants said
Even more gratifying, was the feedback I got both during and after the workshop:
“Not just a Coworking 101…more like 4-yr undergrad in Coworking Arts and Sciences.”
“…confirmed a lot of what I’ve been thinking and opened up a lot of things I hadn’t fully considered. It was time well spent for me.”
“…the combination of [Alex's] openness in sharing numbers, plus experiences – warts and all, plus letting people talk to each other and network, that had so much value.”
“I’m pretty sure you’ve saved me a lot of heartache and grunt-work!.”
“I wish I had the words to articulate Coworking in the way Alex does.”
“…a great guide to the pitfalls and potential of building a viable community of coworkers. And also a great explanation of what coworking actually is.”
“…the best resource I have found on what it takes to create a real, sustainable space. It took coworking out of the fad and made it legitimate.”
“..the best compiled resource for all levels of understanding about coworking, from the existing owner to the community member looking to start a space.”
And my personal favorite:
“I do NOT want a refund!”
So yeah. That’s good news. I didn’t screw it up.
The better news is that I got some great feedback about what was missing. So I’ve already put together another hour’s worth of content – cutting out some cruft and adding lots of new stuff.
I also got tired of saying “Coworking Workshop” and thanks to a suggestion from Jonathan Julian of the Shortmail crew, I’ve renamed the course to “The Coworkshop”. Easier to say. Less wasted Twitter characters.
So, it’s happening again
On Sunday, October 23rd from 1-5pm EST. It’ll be the same general format, just with even more valuable information.
A limited number of early bird tickets are on sale NOW for $250 through October 2nd, before the price goes up. So snap up a spot fast. Tickets are giftable, too, just drop me a line if you want to put somebody else in your place.
All of the details are over on the ticketing site, or you can jam out right away and pick up a ticket below:
Find out details or sign up below. Save $125 (off $375) by registering before January 31st.
Things I’m Doing (almost) Every Day
- Leading Indy Hall with Geoff and my friends
- Writing a lot (long and short form)
- Trying new restaurants
- Proactive communications & growth, strategy & implementation at Wildbit (2 products, Beanstalk and Postmark)
- Directing product and business development at DynamicWear with Jarvus and ChoiceShirts
- Interviews and/or photoshoots
- Guiding technology decisions at ProWorld
- Listening to music
- Coaching small businesses & startups
- Developing a housing community based on Indy Hall with DIGSAU and Postgreen
- Planning parties
- Teaching people how coworking really works
- Drinking at National Mechanics
- Wishing I had a little more time to do a couple more things
Find out details or sign up below. Save $125 (off $375) by registering before January 31st.
