is coworking & childcare a viable business model?

[Jessie Rymph]

Let's find out! 

The pairing of coworking & childcare seems to be a no-brainer, as obviously helpful to parents as those little clips that attach the pacifier to baby clothes. 

The US has a few examples, but the jury is still out on on the success of the model as a whole. We need more test cases! 

I'm willing to try it, for the good of the order, but I can use your help. I have a coworking space, but am asking you to help me fund the creation of a childcare space.

In Washington state, I'm required to become a fully licensed childcare provider which means extra cost to build out the space and meet the exact requirements of the law.

Would you please contribute to my Indiegogo campaign today? Thank you!! 

Sincerely,

Jessie Rymph

Seattle, WA

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Ellie's Coworking & Childcare
ElliesCoworking.com

[work@]

I'm one of two business in the Surrey, uk area that have trialed childcare services along side coworking and the bottom line is while it is desirable as a concept, there is not a sustainable marketplace and it had other implications that weaken a pure coworking experience.

We identified 3 core aspects.

1) the labour cost of the childcarers and lack of available people. (in the UK there are very specific regulations) Even with exceptions to the core obligations, we found ourselves spending so much of our time on the childcare ... we were becoming a nursery with places for people to work!

2) Population dynamics:   Typical price is £35 per 4 hr session vs ( min 2 carers with insurances and expenses £20/hr each , cost of equipment and room hire (pro/rata 4hrs ) £50, other misc costs less than £50. )

Means there needs to the +6 but not more than 12 children to break even.

However.
Site 1 achieved 4 children after marketing and running for 3 weeks, then didn't increase.
Site 2 achieved 3 different people over 2 months
.... then term time kicked in and no one came at all!

in reflection, 1)Families are either too poor and need a different solution, 2) too rich and have a nanny/other full time carer, or 3) There is family/friend relationship  so why pay for it!.... leaving only a handful of the possible people who would find it useful and they don't get enough value to make it a sustainable solution. ...Note the people who did use it thought it to be an excellent service, so we ruled out quality as a cause of failure.

3) At site 2: We experienced coworkers leaving/not joining because it detracted from the experience... noise, extra rules, extra security. etc (most coworkers were ok with it but non were .. hey what a great idea!.. most dealt with it as novel because it was a trial!.
 

In conclusion.... if you have a vision for a nursery with a usp of a place to work ... it might work. If coworking is the vision ... keep it pure.

best of luck if you disagree... and let me know how you solved the problem without two buildings, two companies and two groups of staff.

J @Reigatehub.  

[Jeannine]

For what it is worth, it looks to me as though the model that does work, is exactly "coworking with childcare" turned on its head:  that is, a place for kids which also has places for their parents to work.

I know of two such businesses in Georgia, both of which center around being what my kids call "the jumpy place" -- they have inflatable indoor playgrounds and are located in warehouses.  One of them focuses on occasional use -- parties, rainy days, that kind of thing -- and the other focuses on long term use.  The latter has a whole program which runs about the length of a school year and seems to be based on learning social skills through play.     

They focus on school aged kids, though they have a special play area for the under-5s.  

And they have a work area nearby with desks and wifi and a printer and so forth. 

What they are not trying to do is to encourage a community amoung the parents bringing their kids, which is I think the piece that could make it unique.

If you are focusing on the broad middle -- folks who haven't got a nanny/au pair but enough money to pay for a long term membership -- I think you will have to look at a kids first approach, because thet's what agrees with their values.  

[Frederick Kautz]

What region do you live in? this model might work in areas like silicon valley where people often migrate to with no family nearby and the cost of child care can be very high.

--
Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com
 
 

[Alex Hillman]

I'll toss out another couple of points/ideas/questions based on what I've learned from discussions with people who are really into this variation of coworking. 

Important caveat: I'm speaking WAY out of turn because I don't have kids. :)

Also, I admittedly haven't really spent ANY time in the coworking & childcare google group, so apologies in advance if I'm duplicating anything that's said over there. Respect.

To start, you can't answer a business viability question without asking: who is the ideal customer (a.k.a. member), and why?

Here are a few ways to slice it for illustration, hardly an exhaustive list:

• Parent who wants childcare and a place to work is a bonus
• Parent who wants a place to work and childcare is a bonus
• Parent who wants a community of other parents as coworkers, and the workplace & childcare are the bonus

Childcare and coworking both fall into what I'd consider a "pseudo-luxury" category, in the fact that they provide an adjustment to quality-of-life, from "good" to "great", for those who can afford it. There are always free/commodity alternatives: working from home/cafes, leaving kids with friends/family, but those options come with known downsides as well. Another problem with the first two options is that when the need for childcare or coworking goes away, so does the customer. 

Option 3, the community-centric version, leaves the door open for a more sustainable model. 

More specifically, I'm increasingly convinced by a few people who push forward on coworking + childcare with the idea that the idea that the real unmet need is working professional parents being lonely, not the pain of raising kids while working for yourself or from home. 

I can only speak as an observer, but I have seen a good number of friends who have their first kid suddenly feel like they were on the outside of a circle of friends because they went from being the "working pro" to the "working pro who has kids", and then struggle to find others who share that identity. Their kid-less coworkers don't want to talk about kid stuff. Meanwhile, parents have LOTS to share with each other when the main thing they have in common is the fact that they have kids. I get the feeling that this is a common story that's not being told outside of a few circles. 

As more people enter the independent workforce, but don't really slow down on starting/growing their families, I can see an increasing opportunity for this "sub community" to be given a special kind of club and clubhouse, either on its own or as a part of an existing coworking operation. 

Growing that kind of community will take some work, and the related offerings aren't completely clear to me (mostly, again, because I'm not the customer). But I'm VERY interested in finding successful examples, so if you have them please share!

-Alex

--

/ah

indyhall.org

coworking in philadelphia

building a community? http://masterclass.indyhall.org

[work@]

Hi Alex.your observations are close to our experience and insights.

We also identified your 3 categories and experimented with options targeted (separately) at the last two categories.  Agree that it certainly is pseudo-luxury... and also an Emergency plan....as a result there is a very low density of people in the category.

a Major City site might find enough people but a site with a catchment below 500,000 people will be looking at circa 50 possibles and after conversion <10 people.

... factor in normal turnover and it is hard to justify the ongoing risk, because you will make more losses than gains.

[Jacob Sayles]

Yes, as with everything, our personal passions can transform a tricky business model into something that looks easy.  

Jacob

---
Office Nomads - Individuality without Isolation
http://www.officenomads.com -  (206) 323-6500

On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 11:26 PM, Peta Ellis <pe...@rivercitylabs.net> wrote:

Thanks for posting this Alex, I have been toying with this idea for quite some time! It is interesting to hear everyone's views - especially those who have tried it before. I also understand there are different community model each with different focuses.

Keeping this in mind, I had thought of aligning with an already established childcare provider - or creating a coworking space near  ( as in next door) a childcare centre and arrange agreement with them for 'drop in care'- something which not many centres do. Centres also would need to adapt staffing levels to manage the 'drop ins' unpredictable numbers. The coworking community then could perhaps fall into  both of these categories: 

• Parent who wants childcare and a place to work is a bonus
• Parent who wants a place to work and childcare is a bonus

Working with the ambitions of: 

"A place to work from with easy accessible quality childcare close by"

"A place to work from when you need to get stuff done and have the kids looked after professionally" 

Being a coworking parent now  with no easy childcare solution this would appeal to me. I find that most other parents I work with just get in and do what thy need to get done in the limited time they have available to do it in.  We don't have a community focus among ourselves as parents our focus is our 'place to work'.  This may and most likely would also change if our children were being cared for in the same place as that would then ad a whole new level to our connection.

It's a tricky one - yet also one i'd like to pursue.:)

Peta