Request: the manual of starting cooworking place

[Mindaugas Grajauskas]

Hey guys,

My name is Mindaugas, I’m from Lithuania (East Europe).  Coworking principle is getting more and more popular in Lithuania and we’ve already have some coworking places in some cities.  

I was trying to get to one in my own town, but the conditions weren’t good enough for me (basically the price). I started my own NGO and trying to work with the development of NGO’s (trainings, seminars, etc.). What is more, I’m focusing on helping young people to implement their ideas with my NGO’s help that they might need. So I started to think about  establishing a coworking place  for different people and NGO’s that need some place to work and some help.

But the thing is that I don’t know where exactly to start. I was thinking to ask you – people which already are working with this – about the steps of establishing the coworking place. Is there anything like a manual of this? I mean I want to know the basic steps that have to be done for creating a coworking place. The questions I’m interested in are like:

-          Do I have to find the place first or do I have to get number of people / organizations that would stay in my coworking place? If I find people / organizations first, how can I offer them something when I don’t have a place yet?

-          What are the basics of coworking place? What are the necessary things that people should have? Internet, copy center, fax, what else?

-          What are the things needed for administration of coworking place? (is it necessary to have a administrator of the place for 24/7?, etc.)

-          What else could be offered for the people / organizations? Contacts data base and things like that? Law services? What else? (maybe you have some good experience of things like this?)

I think it would be very helpful for everyone if we had some kind of manual about establishing and developing a coworking place. This manual could be supplemented time to time.

 

Thanks for your help and advices,

 

Sincerely,
--

Mindaugas Grajauskas

[Karl Long]

This space in Canada http://socialinnovation.ca provides quite a bit
of documentation here http://socialinnovation.ca/sssi - it's not
strictly coworking but the case studies they provide cover a lot of
the issues surrounding creating a shared space.

Best,

Karl

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[Alex Hillman]

Hey Mindaugas,

The problem with a "manual" is that coworking isn't a prescriptive solution. The essences are often common across coworking spaces, and over the last few years successful spaces have shared "best practices", but I don't think there's one unified guide for "getting it right".

The questions you're asking, however, have been answered many times on this forum by multiple people. I think that the best advice given here is the stuff that people know is right, but feel the need to be told is right in order to move forward.

-          Do I have to find the place first or do I have to get number of people / organizations that would stay in my coworking place? If I find people / organizations first, how can I offer them something when I don’t have a place yet?

I always recommend going people first. It only takes 10 people to get started. Try something like http://workatjelly.com. I've seen this be successful even in the smallest towns around the world. Once you're all hooked on working together, you can bootstrap a permanent home. 

 

-          What are the basics of coworking place? What are the necessary things that people should have? Internet, copy center, fax, what else?

This is one of the biggest benefits to going "people first" - you can ask THEM instead of us. There's no "necessary things". Jerome, for example, knows that BLANKSPACES couldn't live without a commercial printer. It takes Indy Hall a year to go through a case of paper. Every group is different. Once you know your members, listen to them. Don't just hear them, but listen to what they actually need and work to provide that. 

 

-          What are the things needed for administration of coworking place? (is it necessary to have a administrator of the place for 24/7?, etc.)

Again, ask your members. They may want it to be 24/7, but only use it daytime and weekends. There will always be outliers. Please everybody, and you're pleasing nobody. It took us 3.5 years to successfully build the critical mass for an evening program. Now, our wednesday "night owls" shift is one of our most popular. 

 

-          What else could be offered for the people / organizations? Contacts data base and things like that? Law services? What else? (maybe you have some good experience of things like this?)

Don't worry about this yet. Focus on creating a great experience for people, shared values, and an opportunity to spend time together. http://blog.coworking.com/quit-marketing-your-stuff-and-start-marketing-your-values/

-Alex

/ah
indyhall.org
coworking in philadelphia

[Devin]

Right on, Alex. Have you heard of many successes where someone found a partner or a popular/founding space member who did the community building for the space?

Mindagaust:
Stephanie, our intrepid intern, started a wiki handbook.  She also categorized a lot of the conversation in this google group into a spreadsheet and Erik - a numbers guy - built a sample financial model.  Both can be downloaded here.  There's a lot of knowledge in the thread of this google group - I really encourage you to browse.

We're a nonprofit (NGO) that helps other organizations and interest groups collaborate around shared interests.  It's a great industry.  I think communitytools.info is from your part of the world - have you seen their system?  Looks great for building community.

[Eli Malinsky]

This is great - very helpful! The financial model is really well put
together... :-)

Eli Malinsky
Centre for Social Innovation
Toronto, Canada