Archive for 'Coworking'
Questions about starting a coworking space
Posted on 05. Apr, 2007 by Chris Messina in Coworking, blog
Genia and Jim Parker from Tucson, Arizona are in the process of creating a coworking space for creative collaborators utilizing a 1900 square foot building that they own with three distinct work areas.
They’re in the finalization stages and asked for our opinion and experience on the follow six topics:
- What surprises have you encountered in operating this concept?
- What are the operational areas of concern today?
- If you had it to do over again . . . would you?
- What services are key to attracting the clientele you desire?
- What kind of turnover do you experience?
- Who manages the overall space for you? And how are they compensated?
What surprises have you encountered in operating this concept?
Well, first off, starting and running Citizen Space has been tremendously rewarding and gratifying. We spent many, many hours working out of our dining room and out of cafes and while that was fine, it wasn’t the best situation for us, for the cafes, for our health, diet or our sanity.
Finding a space of our own, that we could in turn offer up to other independents like us who felt isolated or uninspired working from home or who were ready to graduate out of cafes and into a space that they had some control and influence over.
That we didn’t really do any advertising (besides a few community-focused events) and still managed to attract four anchors was probably the most surprising; at the same time, we knew that there was a strong desire from many folks for a cafe-like environment in which they could have social interaction but also be productive.
So I’d like to say that I’m surprised by our success so far, and of the growth of the network, though in retrospect, I think we knew that we’d very soon joining and helping to cultivate a rather widespread movement to establish and then network spaces of a like kind.
What are the operational areas of concern today?
For the most part it’s keeping the place clean and tidy; but because we’re very lax on ground rules, we put a lot of trust and faith into the anchors that the space is theirs as much as it is ours and that they should look after it as such. I think we’ve been very fortunate to have the calibre of individuals take the to space as we have; the only real issues that have arisen have had to do with outside groups using the space for meetings and meetups, but even those issues have been minor.
Because of the way that we run the space — where either you have a key and have access or you don’t, we really don’t need to worry about constantly staffing the space, whereas if we charged for use of the coworking area, I think we’d feel something of an obligation to take care and serve those folks. To keep our overhead down and flexibility up, so far we only charge people who have a desk and a key. Everything else is free, except events that charge.
We’re making it up as we go and not trying to guess too much at things we don’t know yet.
My biggest concern is figuring out how we can afford to keep the place going longterm, but I’m not too worried about. These things have ways of working themselves out.
If you had it to do over again . . . would you?
Without a doubt. And y’know, we’ll probably do it again… and again… and again… If not personally, through the many efforts and initiatives of others.
I mean, what’s better than both establishing your own local economy and investing in the place that you live? What’s better than having a startup that hundreds of people around the world care about whether it survives or not?
If we didn’t start at the Hat Factory and then meiosis to Citizen Space, would the network be growing as it is? And really, it’s the network that will be the most interesting thing to see emerge over time.
So yes, definitely, I would do it again.
What services are key to attracting the clientele you desire?
It isn’t much of a service, but the most important thing that a space can offer (I think) is community.
People come back and they stay based on how they feel when they’re in the space. You might offer a lot of fancy things, but if the culture doesn’t feel right, you’ll probably end up back home or at the cafe.
Now, in terms of the basics, you should be prepared to offer high speed wireless internet, water service, trash/recycling/composting… and flower service if you’re particularly ambitious.
We invested in lots of furniture, in power supplies, in cabinets, a projector, cups and a coffee maker, various kinds of seats, whiteboards, a big couch… all on our own dime. But those things are necessary for creating the ambiance and flavor of the space. Our anchors bring themselves, their laptops, an office chair and a positive attitude.
So far it’s seemed to work out well, though it’s not quite sustainable yet at the rates we charge.
What kind of turnover do you experience?
Virtually none so far. We have lots of transitory guests who come and go, but they’re not paying, so we don’t really need to worry too much about that kind of turnover.
We’ve only had one person leave, but that was because of a change in employment.
Who manages the overall space for you? And how are they compensated?
We manage the space! It is certainly a challenge, what with running a consultancy as well, but again, we’ve been conservative in both the number of people we’ve taken in to the space as paying members as well as the services we provide. We don’t have the money to hire anyone but our awesome event planner and assistant, so it all comes down to us and our anchors.
I don’t know how well that works for other spaces, but given our previous experiment with cooperative management, we realized that we needed someone on the lease who could answer questions about the space definitely and take care of issues that the other anchors don’t have time or attention to deal with. That’s part of the attractiveness of the cafe-model — you show up and work and buy coffee — it doesn’t get much simpler. So that’s kind of what we’re competing against, though I think the enticements I mentioned above do give us some advantage.
So, there you go. These are certainly good questions to be asking — and I’d be curious what other spaces think about these topics.
Thanks for asking Genia!
Baring it all: the costs of Citizen Space
Posted on 20. Mar, 2007 by missrogue in Coworking, blog
We have received many questions on what it costs to run our coworking space and, although our situation isn’t ideal for everyone (we eat much of the cost of running the space), we have been pretty good about spending the minimum on things like furniture (Ikea) and equipment (eBay, sales + donations). We add some ‘touches’ that are pricey to the space that we think makes it special (like a space/event coordinator + fresh flowers weekly) and spend money on cleaners, etc. because we found people are too busy to pitch in consistently. These are sort of ‘luxury’ costs that aren’t necessary.
So, here are our costs (some of them averaged or estimated):
- The base rent = $1500
- The utilities (electric) = $150 (avg.)
- The internet (speakeasy.net) = $140
- Cleaning service (2x/month) = $160
- Water = $25
- Nice flowers for the entry way (fresh every week) = $160
- Original space investment = $10,000 (furniture, equipment, paint, labour)
- We’ve now hired Tara 2.0 to help manage the space and events = $1500
Thus, monthly expenses work out to roughly $4,135/month (with furniture costs…and estimated replacement, upgrades, etc. estimated at $500/month). With 5 tenants, we collect $1750 (not including our ‘portion’), so we ‘eat’ about$2,385/month. We currently don’t charge for events unless they are charging (but we may start asking for a deposit based on some not-so-cool recent damage). We don’t want to rent out any more desks in the current space…if we expand to next door (here’s hoping), we willThat being said, we are always planning improvements to the space, we just want to be smart about them.
Our priorities for the next big spend are:
- New windows in the back – for both sound & climate barrier (I think these will be costly…around $2,500)
- Better projector screen (around $200)
- Better phones for the front door (around $150)
Our amenities in the space include such things as:
- Internet connection
- Coffee/water/tea …usually snacks
- A mini fridge for lunches + microwave and toaster oven for warming them up
- A central stereo system, which individuals can control through airtunes
- A fax machine/scanner/printer (two of them, actually)
- A really nice space in an awesome location
- A boardroom for private conversations (with a chandelier)
- A library of business and tech books for borrowing
- A lounge for customers to wait for you in
- Really cool ongoing community events to tap into for networking
- Whiteboards galore (even a rolling one for the active presenters)
- A projector + screen
- Desks (you can use our chairs, but they aren’t fancy, so we recommend you bring your own if you are a regular tenant)
We are also working on doing things like paying into carbon offsets and green certifying the space (Ivan talks about how we are doing this over here)
I think that’s it…If you have any questions…drop us a line!
