Re: Finding New Coworkers

[Cecilia Durieu]

Hey,

Are there other coworking spaces nearby ? Maybe your prices are too high compared to shared desks ? Is the design of your space nice ?

You can also post your place on eWorky ;) In Paris, France, there are more and more coworking spaces and an owner told me yesterday there was also more competition. On eWorky, and I'm sure it's the same on other websites, pictures and nice description are the most important features to get more requests. So you could maybe hire a freelance photographer to take great pictures of your space. 

Good luck !

Cheers,

Cecilia

Cecilia Durieu

cofounder of eWorky 

cec...@eworky.com



Le mercredi 11 juillet 2012 17:30:19 UTC+2, BlueOceanBozeman a écrit :

Hey everyone,

I'm the Administrative Coordinator for a coworking space in Montana. We're located in a small city, and have been up and running for about a year. Our state and city are both really active with small business owners, so we know the crowd is out there somewhere. We currently have three permanent coworkers at the moment, in addition to two PT workers and sporadic conference room rentals. We'd like to get more coworkers in the space, so I'm wondering what everyone else has done to encourage membership and get the word out there about their space during the start-up phase? So far we've done the following: facebook, twitter, craigslist, linkedin, deskwanted, hotel cards, flyers, pull-tab flyers, events, networking socials, member of Chamber of Commerce, and a newspaper ad. Anything we're missing? Any advice at all would be really helpful!

Thanks!

[Veel Hoeden- Where Many Hats Meet!]

I would encourage you to read through some of the info on the Coworking Wiki regarding rural (small town) spaces.  Some good info here: http://wiki.coworking.com/w/page/42355006/Rural%20Coworking

 

Thanks & God Bless,

 

Joel Bennett

Chief Dreamchaser

Veel Hoeden

641-780-7858

veelhoeden.posterous.com

Join Us on Facebook!

 

 

From: cowo...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cowo...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of BlueOceanBozeman
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 10:30 AM
To: cowo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Coworking] Finding New Coworkers

 

Hey everyone,

I'm the Administrative Coordinator for a coworking space in Montana. We're located in a small city, and have been up and running for about a year. Our state and city are both really active with small business owners, so we know the crowd is out there somewhere. We currently have three permanent coworkers at the moment, in addition to two PT workers and sporadic conference room rentals. We'd like to get more coworkers in the space, so I'm wondering what everyone else has done to encourage membership and get the word out there about their space during the start-up phase? So far we've done the following: facebook, twitter, craigslist, linkedin, deskwanted, hotel cards, flyers, pull-tab flyers, events, networking socials, member of Chamber of Commerce, and a newspaper ad. Anything we're missing? Any advice at all would be really helpful!

Thanks!

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[BlueOceanBozeman]

We're the only space in our city, possibly our whole state (I think). We recently lowered our prices, but can't really go much lower.

[BlueOceanBozeman]

I've read through those before, but I think I should read through them again. You never know what I've forgotten since first reading them. :)

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[Alex Hillman]

Racing to the bottom on price isn't going to solve your problem, it's only going to exacerbate it.

It sounds like you're doing a lot of "push" marketing, telling people about your space and services and expecting them to know that it's what they want. 

My guess is that they don't know they even have the problem you're trying to solve. 

A few questions:

Is nobody showing up at all? 

Are people coming in the door and not signing up? 

What do people say when you tell them about coworking? 

More specifically, what do you tell them about coworking when they ask?

-Alex

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/ah

indyhall.org

coworking in philadelphia

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[BlueOceanBozeman]

We do have a few people using the space, and we offer separate conference room rates, so we are bringing money in. We're not completely at the bottom of our pricing, but we're at the lowest our founder is willing to go.

When people come inquire about our space we let them know that we're not just office rentals: we're a community. We provide the comforts of having their own office without all the hassle or expense. We have other small-businesses and entrepreneurs in our space for them to network with and use as resources, and if they ever have a problem or are in need of anything, we'll do whatever we can to help solve their problem as quickly as possible so their business can run as efficiently as possible. We let them know what we offer as amenities (coffee, espresso, wifi, printing, etc.), and tell them the advantages of working in our space compared to the local coffee shop. We ask them what sort of issues they're facing now, and try to brainstorm with them how we can work together to fix it. We also inform them of the upcoming events we hold, including workshops and Brown Bag Lunches, that they might be interested in.

Since my original posting we've actually had a few more people sign up for smaller passes, so hopefully things are starting to snowball. It's still not enough to completely break-even, but I think we're finally starting to get there.


-Karen

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[Alex Hillman]

Glad to hear things are picking up :)

Can you communicate a clear picture to prospective members why your existing members have chosen to join? That may give you clues as to what value you need to communicate better to newbies who don't understand why community is different, important, or valuable. What do you as a community value, and care about? How can that be shared with prospects better?

Also, have your members weigh in on what would attract more members! Include them in this problem solving challenge. 

Once you've got some critical mass this all gets a bit easier. Good luck!

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/ah
indyhall.org
coworking in philadelphia

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[BlueOceanBozeman]

This is actually one of the reasons why I love our community members: they're awesome at this! We have Brown Bags once a month for just the community members were we talk about these exact issues. Usually one of them is in the space when prospective members come in to view the space, so we get everyone talking together and try to begin building a relationship before they've even signed up.

I guess at this point we just have to sit and wait. It's times like this that I wish I were a more patient person. :)

[Alex Hillman]

Don't wait - keep it up!! :)

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/ah

indyhall.org

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[BlueOceanBozeman]

I am! No way I'm giving up yet! :)

[Aliza Torok Schlabach]

Have you contacted the local press and gotten any articles written up about your space and community? 

Aliza Schlabach
Founder

Coworking for Parents (soon to be "Juice Box")

www.CoworkingForParents.com

215.858.4658

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[BlueOceanBozeman]

We did when we first opened, and just today we had Anna from DeskWanted write a proposal to a local journalist to do another, so we're in the process of (hopefully) having another.

[Will Bennis, Locus Workspace]

Caveat: I agree with Alex about racing to the bottom on price. 

That said, one thing I think is important to keep in mind for new spaces that don't have enough community/membership to feel alive is that empty coworking spaces simply don't have the same value as full coworking spaces. For people who actually want coworking and not just cheap offices, they arguably don't have any value at all. And so the prices you can expect the average person to pay who wants to be a member of a *coworking* space are vastly different depending on whether they're paying to be part of a mostly empty space that they hope will one day be what they want or they're paying to be part of an existing thriving community. I have repeatedly seen new spaces that are absolutely beautiful but mostly empty charging the same prices they'd want/need for their (ideal future) thriving space. 

I think that's a mistake. You wouldn't charge full price for a space that doesn't yet have Internet or heat or or tables or whatever, and you shouldn't charge full price, IMO, for a space that doesn't have enough members to make it coworking. Especially if you need the members to finish that feature of space development (as you do for the "community" feature of a coworking space). 

You can get around the problem of racing to the bottom (undervaluing your space and the inherent benefits of coworking), in my opinion, by being very clear up front that you are offering a special promotional price, that the price is in recognition that the space doesn't yet have the value of the community that it promises and that this is a temporary "early supporter" price to help create the kind of space that will have that value: one of the start-up costs to get the space to its operational form as quickly as possible.

We did this and were explicit about when we expected the price to increase (based on membership and time), offering a full 50% off expected future prices, a money losing rate even if the space had been completely full. We let members sign up for as much as a year membership at those discount prices. And I think it was essential to the space's success (i.e., ability to stay in business). Since everyone knew the prices were a 50% discount on expected future prices, no one was bothered when the prices increased, and the vast majority of the early committers are still members today at full-price, though I don't think any of them would have signed up at the beginning for those prices. They also often bought in for the full year to get those prices long-term, which helped with early capital needs.

Granted, the ideal would be to have a large enough community by the time you start up that you don't need to do this. This post is aimed at the spaces that don't have that community ahead of time and are starting up anyway.

Will

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