March of 2007, Long Island, NY, Age 22 I thought I’d invented something new. I was standing around the kitchen table at my parents’ home, where I’d just completed my quintessentially Millennial boomerang by calling it home again after college. We were brainstorming about the paradox of working from home versus working for someone else in an office. The idea … Read More
“I don’t need an exit strategy.” I remember thinking this when I got started building New Work City. I was so passionate, so committed, that I thought the very notion of walking away from this thing I was building was a betrayal. There were a lot of things I didn’t know about business when I got started. I certainly didn’t … Read More
This is part of a series on how to start a coworking space. If you haven’t done so already, read Part 1: The Commitment, and then Part 2: Seeding the Community. Then head back here! By now, you’ve got an active community of people who are committed to helping realize their shared dream of a home for their community. Now, you’ve … Read More
In the course of talking to some awesome coworking space owners from the US and Europe, I uncovered an interesting trend when it comes to what they wish they’d known when they got started. I was expecting logistical things. Technical things. Business things! But what I got was, almost universally, an emphasis on identity: “We’ve been open for 6 (!) years now … Read More
This is part of a series on how to start a coworking space. If you haven’t done so already, read How to Start a Coworking Space, Part 1: The Commitment. Then head back here! “People don’t buy coffee. They buy the smell of coffee.” I’m going to let you in on a crazy secret. It’s not really a secret, but in … Read More
I’ve been interviewing lots of coworking space managers, and am noticing some common challenges: (1) attracting and retaining members, (2) maintaining a strong culture and avoiding the “everyone just walks in and puts on their headphones” phenomenon, and (3) lessening the load on the founders and decreasing burnout. I believe I have a solution that addresses all of those … Read More
Recently, in the Coworking Google Group (you’re on that, right?), Trevor Twining from Cowork Niagra started a conversation about the difficulty (or relative lack thereof) in establishing a coworking space as a co-op. Many other founders, including me, looked at the possibility of doing this, but judged it too complicated/scary/confusing to dive into. Trevor, thankfully, not just powered through such resistance, he … Read More
There are over 12,000 coworking spaces in the world now, with another 5,000 or so joining the ranks in 2016 alone. Nobody owns coworking. Nobody controls it, nobody licenses it. So where’s the manual? How are so many people around the world building what are, in many ways, the same thing? The answer is, there is no manual. Coworking is a natural, … Read More
Firstly, congrats on deciding to start a coworking community! Every year, thousands of new spaces open around the world. That means coworking is continuing to grow… fast. What does that mean for you? It means you’re riding the crest of a big wave–a wave that’s transforming our world’s relationship with work for the better. It also means you’re going to have to … Read More
Having had a chance to take a step back and really look at what’s happening with the coworking world for some time now, I’ve noticed some alarming trends: Alarming Trend #1: All but a relative handful of spaces, it seems, are facing the same issue: trouble attracting and retaining members. This is largely due to their struggles to build (or … Read More