Ch-Ch-Change
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patrick...@gmail.com
Mar 26, 2008, 6:37:16 PM3/26/08
to Coworking
Hi,
We (Station C) have been open for nearly 2 months and we're wondering
if maybe a change in our plan structure would make sense. I'll detail
them further down this message -- and our new idea -- and you can give
me your opinion based on those details but my basic question would be:
most of you don't offer hourly plans for desks. Why?
----
Right now we have resident members who have a reserved desk and full
time access ($330/month), we'll keep those.
We also have Flex 14 and Flex 28 memberships who pay $143 and $236 a
month for 14 and 28 hours a week between 9am and 6pm, to be booked
online (through email currently).
Flex signups are a bit slower than expected (although we have more
residents so we are a bit ahead of estimates overall) so we're
thinking of retooling the Flex plans to Flex Points where members
would buy bundles of points, something like 200 at $3.25/pt and use
them whenever, again booked online, expiring after 6 months. 1 point
for one desk hour, tbd number of points for meeting and conference
room hours. We would also have smaller and larger bundles but the 200
would give members something similar to our current Flex 14 with the
added bonus of more freedom, of skipping a week for a vacation or
coming every day when in crunch mode.
Space isn't an issue, logistics neither since we have the webapp for
booking in the works anyway. The big disadvantage for us would be no
recurrent cash entry or at least more spreadout and maybe more
uncertain renewals as well as, in theory, the potential for more
booking conflicts if everyone "crunches at the same time".
The big advantage would be for members who don't have to worry wetter
they'll use 14 hours every week, the setup would be even more flexible
for them. We would be "gambling'" that more flexibility and simplicity
means more members and if we're right everyone would be happy.
Last thing; we are also considering expanding business hours nights
and saturday.
Thoughts? Questions?
Thx
Patrick
http://station-c.com
We (Station C) have been open for nearly 2 months and we're wondering
if maybe a change in our plan structure would make sense. I'll detail
them further down this message -- and our new idea -- and you can give
me your opinion based on those details but my basic question would be:
most of you don't offer hourly plans for desks. Why?
----
Right now we have resident members who have a reserved desk and full
time access ($330/month), we'll keep those.
We also have Flex 14 and Flex 28 memberships who pay $143 and $236 a
month for 14 and 28 hours a week between 9am and 6pm, to be booked
online (through email currently).
Flex signups are a bit slower than expected (although we have more
residents so we are a bit ahead of estimates overall) so we're
thinking of retooling the Flex plans to Flex Points where members
would buy bundles of points, something like 200 at $3.25/pt and use
them whenever, again booked online, expiring after 6 months. 1 point
for one desk hour, tbd number of points for meeting and conference
room hours. We would also have smaller and larger bundles but the 200
would give members something similar to our current Flex 14 with the
added bonus of more freedom, of skipping a week for a vacation or
coming every day when in crunch mode.
Space isn't an issue, logistics neither since we have the webapp for
booking in the works anyway. The big disadvantage for us would be no
recurrent cash entry or at least more spreadout and maybe more
uncertain renewals as well as, in theory, the potential for more
booking conflicts if everyone "crunches at the same time".
The big advantage would be for members who don't have to worry wetter
they'll use 14 hours every week, the setup would be even more flexible
for them. We would be "gambling'" that more flexibility and simplicity
means more members and if we're right everyone would be happy.
Last thing; we are also considering expanding business hours nights
and saturday.
Thoughts? Questions?
Thx
Patrick
http://station-c.com
Tara Hunt
Mar 26, 2008, 6:41:37 PM3/26/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
It sounds counter-intuitive, but we found that the more 'flexible' we made a membership, the less people were likely to use them. Now we have two memberships: you have desk or you are a drop-in. :) Our desks are all full and we have a waiting list.
T--
tara 'miss rogue' hunt
coFounder
Citizen Agency (www.citizenagency.com)
blog: www.horsepigcow.com
phone: 415-694-1951
fax: 415-727-5335
T
tara 'miss rogue' hunt
coFounder
Citizen Agency (www.citizenagency.com)
blog: www.horsepigcow.com
phone: 415-694-1951
fax: 415-727-5335
felicity at cubes
Mar 27, 2008, 11:13:35 AM3/27/08
to Coworking
Agreed with Tara. We have some flexibility for our childcare side
but for people using the office only, we have half day, full day, and
monthly options. That's it. Most people by a 10 day pass and use
when they need it. It seems to work.
We have been open just over 2 months, so congrats to you.
-Felicity
cubes&crayons coworking
Just Cubes for coworkers without kids
www.cubesandcrayons.com
On Mar 26, 3:41 pm, "Tara Hunt" <horsepig...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It sounds counter-intuitive, but we found that the more 'flexible' we made a
> membership, the less people were likely to use them. Now we have two
> memberships: you have desk or you are a drop-in. :) Our desks are all full
> and we have a waiting list.
>
> T
>
> On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 3:37 PM, patrick.tang...@gmail.com <
but for people using the office only, we have half day, full day, and
monthly options. That's it. Most people by a 10 day pass and use
when they need it. It seems to work.
We have been open just over 2 months, so congrats to you.
-Felicity
cubes&crayons coworking
Just Cubes for coworkers without kids
www.cubesandcrayons.com
On Mar 26, 3:41 pm, "Tara Hunt" <horsepig...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It sounds counter-intuitive, but we found that the more 'flexible' we made a
> membership, the less people were likely to use them. Now we have two
> memberships: you have desk or you are a drop-in. :) Our desks are all full
> and we have a waiting list.
>
> T
>
Nook Share
Mar 26, 2008, 10:17:39 PM3/26/08
to Coworking
I would be interested in a worksite being available at night for those
of us trying to carve out a moonlighting career in the evening. I
also work out of my home a lot on weekends so I would want the site to
be open on weekends too.
On Mar 26, 6:37 pm, "patrick.tang...@gmail.com"
of us trying to carve out a moonlighting career in the evening. I
also work out of my home a lot on weekends so I would want the site to
be open on weekends too.
On Mar 26, 6:37 pm, "patrick.tang...@gmail.com"
James McCarthy
Mar 26, 2008, 11:27:35 PM3/26/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Patrick
We spent a lot of time thinking about our structure and as Alex has
said, lots of talk of models has gone on.
I think there are several dimensions in play here that should be taken
into consideration;
What are the working patterns of your clients / prospective clients
Where do they fit on a Need Flexibility <---------------------------
+----------------------------> Need to Belong kind of scale
What prices make people come out of their home office & starbucks
without it becoming a "I paid for it so I MUST use it" guilt trip
And finally the Peter Krug factor: how quickly can what's on offer be
clearly understood
We puzzled over these, but mostly we just opened up regularly which
(by accident more than design) allowed us to observe these things
interacting. In the end I came up with 3 models that seem to work for
us;
They are in the licence here: https://coworking.pbwiki.com/Licences+and+Agreements
James
James McCarthy
Mar 27, 2008, 8:15:53 AM3/27/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
On 26 Mar 2008, at 22:41, Tara Hunt wrote:
It sounds counter-intuitive, but we found that the more 'flexible' we made a membership, the less people were likely to use them. Now we have two memberships: you have desk or you are a drop-in. :) Our desks are all full and we have a waiting list.
+1 on this, I found the greater flexibility is in removing the need for coworkers to have to think too hard about what option and payments etc they have to choose so we settled on 3 offerings;
Day Tripper: occasional and only during standard office hours (which is pretty lax in Brighton). No fee, but it is nice if you put something back in (whether in kind, a donation or just helping out another coworker).
Regular Joe: 2-3 times a week during standard office hours. Paid subscription a month in advance $120 + Tax (60 GBP).
Early Bird / Night Owl: 3-4 times a week, need to come and go outside of standard office hours, get own keys. Paid subscription $200 + Tax (100 GBP) plus key deposit $100.
We don't track their time in detail it just adds overhead for us and the members, the easiest way is to trust to people honour and it is easy to spot if somebody is abusing the system. With a couple of regular standing subscriptions people know what they are paying, know the deal and don't have to spend any additional time during the month thinking about what they are paying for coworking, the more choices you give people, the more time they have to spend thinking about which choice they are going to make.
So in a nutshell, I say, condense things down to the simplest couple of choices that people can make once a month or even offer 3 or 6 month subscriptions and then add to that flexibility so people don't feel they have to closely track their usage.
James
Susan Evans
Mar 27, 2008, 12:09:03 PM3/27/08
to Coworking
It's a great issue, Patrick. Thanks for posting about it. It's
important to ensure all of your potential members have a minimum
barrier to entry. For us, wanting people to feel welcome also came
with the sense that we don't want people to worry about their time
here - we want them to focus on what they're here for - work (ok and
community, but I'm focused on a point :)). So making them track hours
or days/week didn't work for us - we have a very simple monthly or
daily option.
I think the important question to ask yourself is how much time
management YOU want to be responsible for - do you want to have to
manage the time of all of your members? Do you mind having to keep
track of all of their time? Make sure you keep in mind the effect
that changing your structure will have on you as the managers - it is
nearly as important as the effect on your members. Keeping yourself
sane in the madness that is starting your own space is key.
The idea of punchcards makes life easy and keeps things flexible for
members - puts the onus on them for knowing how much time (hours/days/
months) they've spent. I'd consider that as an option.
As for evening/weekend hours, the way we take care of that is to give
monthly members 24/7 access to the space. They get keycards and can
let themselves in during off-hours. We have a process (albeit a
developing one) and a little bit of paperwork in place to ensure that
we are comfortable with the monthly members in the space, but the
benefit of giving them full access is that we don't have to manage
their time. The only hours we need to focus on are the 8:30 am - 6 pm
hours we keep open for drop-ins. Pretty simple! Doesn't mean we're
not here on nights and weekends, but in terms of "managed time" at the
space, it is nice and regular for us.
Good luck, and congrats on your first 2 months!
Susan
> > On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 3:37 PM, patrick.tang...@gmail.com <patrick.tang...@gmail.com
important to ensure all of your potential members have a minimum
barrier to entry. For us, wanting people to feel welcome also came
with the sense that we don't want people to worry about their time
here - we want them to focus on what they're here for - work (ok and
community, but I'm focused on a point :)). So making them track hours
or days/week didn't work for us - we have a very simple monthly or
daily option.
I think the important question to ask yourself is how much time
management YOU want to be responsible for - do you want to have to
manage the time of all of your members? Do you mind having to keep
track of all of their time? Make sure you keep in mind the effect
that changing your structure will have on you as the managers - it is
nearly as important as the effect on your members. Keeping yourself
sane in the madness that is starting your own space is key.
The idea of punchcards makes life easy and keeps things flexible for
members - puts the onus on them for knowing how much time (hours/days/
months) they've spent. I'd consider that as an option.
As for evening/weekend hours, the way we take care of that is to give
monthly members 24/7 access to the space. They get keycards and can
let themselves in during off-hours. We have a process (albeit a
developing one) and a little bit of paperwork in place to ensure that
we are comfortable with the monthly members in the space, but the
benefit of giving them full access is that we don't have to manage
their time. The only hours we need to focus on are the 8:30 am - 6 pm
hours we keep open for drop-ins. Pretty simple! Doesn't mean we're
not here on nights and weekends, but in terms of "managed time" at the
space, it is nice and regular for us.
Good luck, and congrats on your first 2 months!
Susan
patrick...@gmail.com
Mar 28, 2008, 2:40:13 PM3/28/08
to Coworking
Thanks everyone, some food for thought there. A few of the models you
mention I hadn't heard of. I'm wondering though, how are you planning
to manage overcrowding on some days? If you have no schedule or
booking and people are free to drop by any day, some days you'll have
"too many" people no?
Most of us are not running at full capacity yet but it will come and
I'm wondering if these loose systems will work as well.
Not that hour banks will fix that but wetter we change systems or not,
we plan on a booking site so people can confirm a desk before heading
here. The bigger advantage you mention for the day or half day systems
is less management which, again, I'm afraid will lead to too many
people on some days.
Patrick
mention I hadn't heard of. I'm wondering though, how are you planning
to manage overcrowding on some days? If you have no schedule or
booking and people are free to drop by any day, some days you'll have
"too many" people no?
Most of us are not running at full capacity yet but it will come and
I'm wondering if these loose systems will work as well.
Not that hour banks will fix that but wetter we change systems or not,
we plan on a booking site so people can confirm a desk before heading
here. The bigger advantage you mention for the day or half day systems
is less management which, again, I'm afraid will lead to too many
people on some days.
Patrick
Chris Messina
Mar 28, 2008, 7:46:58 PM3/28/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
We've never had too many people since we've been open. In some ways,
this is why the reservation system proved to be unnecessary once we
got underway. I was sure that having a reservation system would be
necessary to "assure" people that they wouldn't be wasting their time
if they showed up... turned out that we typically have 2-3 people
most of the time, maybe up to 5, but rarely more than that.
this is why the reservation system proved to be unnecessary once we
got underway. I was sure that having a reservation system would be
necessary to "assure" people that they wouldn't be wasting their time
if they showed up... turned out that we typically have 2-3 people
most of the time, maybe up to 5, but rarely more than that.
It could be because we don't do any promotion and people find out
about us through the web or word or mouth, but it's just not been an
issue.
Now, *were* it to become an issue and we became insanely popular with
15-20 dropins showing up, that's different, but that would radically
change our business, and make it worthwhile to invest in some kind of
scheduling or charging scenario. One thing we've learned though, given
how easy it is to build a custom Rails app these days, is to not
prematurely optimize or to invest in behavior that may never
materialize. It's almost as though you want to reach a pain threshold
where you *must* take action... taking action in advance of something
is a risk that a bootstrapped project probably should avoid, if only
to limit wasting resources.
Y'know? Now, that isn't to say that you *can't* build something like
this, maybe to attract new folks, but we've seen personal connections
and community tend to be *much* ways to build interest. Anyway...! ;)
Chris
--
Chris Messina
Citizen-Participant &
Open Source Advocate-at-Large
Work: http://citizenagency.com
Blog: http://factoryjoe.com/blog
Cell: 412.225.1051
IM: factoryjoe
This email is: [ ] bloggable [X] ask first [ ] private
James McCarthy
Apr 4, 2008, 8:44:04 PM4/4/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
We get anywhere between 1 - 15 or so people, but that isn't as yet an
issue as we have the capacity, but come the day it is, we have been
working on a side project so that people can just ping us (probably
via twitter) to see who is there and if there is space.
issue as we have the capacity, but come the day it is, we have been
working on a side project so that people can just ping us (probably
via twitter) to see who is there and if there is space.
James McCarthy
http://thewerks.org.uk
Tara Hunt
Apr 5, 2008, 1:12:07 PM4/5/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Has anyone looked into the FireEagle API?
Tara
Tara
James McCarthy
Apr 5, 2008, 6:21:07 PM4/5/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
On 5 Apr 2008, at 18:12, Tara Hunt wrote:
Has anyone looked into the FireEagle API?
I signed up.
I want to get a public service up there when I am done with all this taxes & billing stuff that I'm current embroiled in. Eugh!
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