Poll/Survey for discovering local interest

[Kelly Sims]

I'm thinking about creating an online poll (or survey) in order to help gather some feedback from my local community as I push forward on things. I did a quick search of this group but didn't find anything along those lines that had been done. Has anyone run one before, before setting up a space?

My idea is to gather a series of questions for the poll. Then I want to print up some simple cards through Moo with a short url, a QR code, and a brief blurb about the concept. I'll hand these out all over my area in order to get some feedback from people, as well as push out on Twitter, FB, etc.

I'd love some input on what questions to ask. Those that have started spaces, what would be good to know early on?

[David Clinton III]

Great idea.  I intend to do the same.  One thing we plan to try to gauge is what people are willing to pay.  So far (in mere informal conversation), we’ve heard that people love the idea “if they could afford it”.  I recommend finding out what coworking is worth to people before getting started to see if it’s viable.

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David Clinton III

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[Alex Hillman]

This is an awesome idea, and also a great way to collect contact information of people who are interested. 

One thing to be wary of: people will tell you one thing, and then do another. I've experienced this in coworking (other spaces I've advised) as well as in software businesses I've helped build.

The key is to gather this information for orientation, and then look past it. Expect that people will tell you that they'd pay for it...until the time comes to write a check and they change their mind. You need to consider their worldviews, as in how much do they spend on their business, and what other things do they buy? You may find yourself surprised, and learn things that will help you craft your offerings as well as your price points. Pricing is one of the single hardest things to do well in business, period. Coworking is no exception. We modeled after other similar membership subscriptions rather than rental models, including art co-op memberships and - believe it or not - greek life/fraternity & sorority house membership models.

I'd love to hear of any creative ways that people have learned what people will ACTUALLY want/use/pay for, after hearing something different in preliminary surveys and questionnaires. 

Remember the Henry Ford quote: "If I'd given people what they'd asked for, they would've gotten a faster horse".

-Alex

/ah
indyhall.org
coworking in philadelphia

[Susan Evans]

Hey Kelly,

Great idea! We actually have a small survey up to get some feedback for our second space here in Seattle. We've seen pretty good response so far. It is currently up on our Grow page here: http://www.officenomads.com/grow. Some things to note:

• As this is for a second space, we assume that folks know what kind of a space we're building. Therefore the survey is very short and simple. If folks want to learn more about Office Nomads, they simply swing by our space to hang out and see if it's a good fit for them.
• We did not give people a "maybe" option when it came to asking whether or not someone would sign up for a membership at this specific location. At this point in our process, we needed people to truly let us know whether they were in or not. 
• Even with that considered, having the notes field has enabled me to gauge true interest, even from those who say they would sign up. So although I currently have 35 people who have said yes, the list is more realistically about 20 people long at the moment. Possibly even shorter, and I recognize I can't depend on all 20 of those folks being there the day we open. That said, this is a list of 20 (even 35) people who I am sure are more than just slightly interested, and I can keep them abreast of our process and ensure they are a part of the process of building the second space.
• This survey is very specific to the space we are looking at. This was yet another reason we kept it so short. When we were looking to start Office Nomads originally back in 2007, we sent out a survey that asked folks which neighborhood we should be in. We repeated that process again for the second space, and now we are able to be hyper-specific about the space we are looking to have feedback on.

Anyway, that's a bit of a ramble but I hope it's helpful! I'd also say that you can only do so much with folks who reply to a survey or who state their interest. You can figure that they'll support you, but they might not show up on day 1 ready to be there for you. 

Good luck!

Susan

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Office Nomads         
officenomads.com  
206-484-5859

[Bernie Chew]

Hi

We are located in Singapore - planning a couple of coworking spaces. In our brainstorming sessions, we have also decided to create a survey to get a feel for local interest.

Like you mentioned David - pricing it right would be important.

Cheers,

Bernie

[Craig Baute - Creative Density Coworking]

This is exactly how I approached opening a coworking space in Denver.
The survey is still up at www.denvercoworking.com if you want to check
it out.I had over 65 people fill out the survey to basically get a
feel for the most important amenities and location. The locations was
key so make that an important aspect of your survey. I broke it down
by each individual neighborhood to get a hyperlocal response. Denver
has ALOT of neighborhoods for its size of city so the data was pretty
precise.

I didn't even mention price in the survey because I didn't want people
to think about it too much. Since I have a scaled model of $75 to $300
I figured people would just join on whatever price plan worked best
for them. Instead I asked them to rank on a scale from 1 - 10 how
likely they would be to join this. This also helped me weigh the
neighborhood selection based on the ratings.

When I was ready to open and design the space I simply responsed to
the survey and built the space they wanted, where they wanted. It was
a way for the community to a voice through the entire process.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions on the survey
and want a breakdown of the results.

Craig
Creative Density

[Mathis Young]

We are exploring options of opening a space in Memphis.  This is our survey http://bit.ly/co_work.  We are up to about 65 surveys so far. We went to vista print and printed up a bunch of cards that say this:

Interested in co-working?
Take this short survey!
http://bit.ly/co_work

We go in coffee shops and talk with people and give them a card so they can easily take the survey via the link. We also have people tweet the link out and post it on blogs and facebook pages.  Even our largest newspaper here has run with it and published it in the paper today.

Mathis

[Kelly Sims]

Thanks everyone for all the feedback so far. Especially to those with surveys in place already! I've got a lot of work ahead of me but you have all made it seem a lot less daunting!

Kelly Sims
http://kellysims.com

http://about.me/kellysims