From my inbox:

“I finished graduate school about a year ago and have been living a fairly isolated freelancing, self-employed life—a rough road after leaving such a fulfilling, tight-knit family experience. I feel deeply compelled to start something bigger than myself and a shared work space is my dream.

But I feel pressured by others opening coworking spaces in the area. How can one differentiate them? I think of New York, Chicago, etc., where there are so many. How do they all manage to essentially do the same thing but still stay in business?”

1 – Many of them don’t stay in business. I watch a lot of coworking spaces close, because they forget what business they’re in, and that being a commodity is a race to the bottom. Which brings me to…

2 – You already answered how they differentiate in your first paragraph. “A fulfilling, tight-knit family experience.”

Do families compete with each other? Or do neighborhoods thrive when they’re full a little tight knit interconnected but different families?

Do neighborhoods compete with each other? Or do cities thrive when they’re full of little tight knit interconnected but different neighborhoods?