Re: [Coworking] Membership Percentages?

[Alex Hillman]

Matthew,

This varies quite a bit from location to location, so it'll really depend on your community's needs. 

Some places are dominated by drop-ins and flex, others heavily populated by residents/full time, many more in the middle are a blend. But you should be able to sample your local percentages based on the first 10-15 paying members. So the sooner you have members who are committed, the better feel you'll have. 

We expected to have more full time members when we started but only had 2 on the first day - most of our members were lite or basic members. Today we generally have 20-25% of our total active membership (200+) as full time members, the rest somewhere in our flex roster, the vast majority as basic members. Our non-member drop-in rate has increased over the year, but still is a very small %. 

We're gathering our 2012 numbers for a town hall next week, I'll post them when we have them compiled!

The most valuable piece of advice will be to make it easy to adjust, both right at the beginning and over time. 

-Alex

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On Dec 3, 2012, at 1:14 PM, Matthew Allen <matthew...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm a newbie around here, but am heavily invested in the researching/planning stages for a coworking space in Norman, OK. I was just curious about how your membership tends to break down? I mean, what percentage are drop-ins, light members, dedicated desks, private offices? I am trying to allocate space as well as anticipating what the space income could be.

Any help would be appreciated. I tried to search the forum, but couldn't find any related information.

Thanks.

Matthew

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[Tom Brandt]

Ditto Alex - it really depends on the nature of the space. At Workantile all desks are flex - we have no permanent desks. The other coworking space in town, Tech Brewery, which is really more of an incubator, is all permanent desking.

The question for us is how many are full (24/7 access) vs affiliate (4 days/month) members. That ratio is about 70/30 full/affiliate. 

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[Will Bennis, Locus Workspace]

Hi Matthew,

2012 numbers at the end.

I realize your question is about membership types and how they break down, but much of what's below will refer to member:desk ratios, since I suspect that's a big part of what you're trying to figure out.

Just to echo what Alex and Tom wrote, but in a slightly different way: It depends on your members (Alex) and on your space (Tom). "Your space" doesn't just mean the type of desks you offer (hot desks only or anchor desks only), but also on how it's conceived and marketed and every choice you make (desk sizes, membership-type pricing incentives, access hours, gender ratios, types of events, quality and variety of meeting room space, whether monitors are available or can be left in the space, what type of work the founding members do, neighborhood, etc.). It also depends on what country you're in and the cultural norms/expectations in that country. 

These effects don't just amount to rounding error. I read an article about a successful writer's space in New York (maybe Paragraph, but I don't remember; it was a long time ago) and it said they had 30 desks and 300 members, where all members could use the space to write during opening hours. I was a member of a different writer's space that was open to freelancers and had maybe 15 desks, and it was usually empty or with just one or two members in a beautiful space in a great Chicago neighborhood for just $90/month with 24/7 access: I'd guess they were getting better than a 10:1 ratio, though I don't know how many members they had. Though from the perspective of a coworking space for freelancers, other than the lack of regular members to give me a sense of community, it was as nice a place to sit and work as most coworking spaces I've been in. A 10:1 member:desk ratio! I've never heard of a coworking space oriented toward freelancers having anything in that ballpark. Presumably writers joined these space largely for features other than a great space to sit and write. Even though at least the latter space was welcoming to non-writers. 

Our space has all hot desks, and originally we only offered full-time membership at a very low cost (1500 Kc, about $75 / month). I thought there'd be a lot of people joining who just needed the space occasionally and who wanted to be part of the community, and I was hoping I'd get a 4:1 member desk ratio, in the spirit of that writer's space, but recognizing my members would mostly be freelancers working more hours in the space. As it turned out, potential and actual members mostly pegged the value of full-time use at the price I was asking ($75) and wanted less expensive memberships if they were only going to use it part time. People who needed the space full-time were joining, and other people weren't, and I was not getting maybe a 1.5:1 member:desk ratio. I doubled the prices for full time membership and introduced part-time memberships at slightly lower costs (still more than the 1500 Kc). It worked great. People who didn't need full-time often still signed up for it because they could see the extra value in it relative to the part-time memberships, so I ended up getting a better member/desk ratio even for just the full-time members than I originally had been!

Recently a visitor to my space recommended that I radically change my business model. He described essentially exactly what I had originally tried (and that hadn't worked for me), and then proceeded to tell me about a thriving Amsterdam space that offered only full-time memberships at about $90/month that more than a hundred members even though it only had about 20 places to sit (these are ballpark numbers, I don't remember what he specifically said). Go figure (no a members-only hash bar was not part of the design :). 

So here are the numbers for Locus Workspace in the Czech Republic right now, keeping in mind there's a large effect of historical options (a big portion of my members joined when Full Time membership was the only option) and my pricing structure rewards full-time membership:

Anchor (Full-Time access with your own desk: CZK 6000 = ~ $300): 0 members

[But I don't include the price on the website, just the option, and I generally sell the virtues of not getting it to people interested:]

Full-Time (24/7 access, no permanent desk: CZK 3600 = ~$180): 34 members (55.7%)

10-Day / month (same as Full-Time, but only 10 days use of the space per month: CZK 2400 = ~$120): 16 members (26.2%)

Evenings & Weekends (from 6pm to 9am, plus all day during the weekends: CZK 1800 = ~$90): 1 member (1.6%)

Virtual membership (one day per month plus additional days at discount prices, member rates on the meeting room, and additional member benefits: CZK 1500 = ~ USD 75 for 6 months; CZK 2400 = ~ USD 120 for 1 year): 9 members (14.8%)

[6 or 12 month membership options only]

Day Pass members (short-term only, one day at a time, limited to day-time hours: CZK 360 = ~$18): 0 members

[We often have some of these, just don't today; for people visiting Prague or those who want to "test the product" before joining longer term]

Custom (in this case, Full-Time but limited to 12pm-4pm: CZK 2400 = ~$120): 1 member (1.6%)

Member:Desk ratio = ~2.3:1 (70 members:31 desks). This is across members and based on peak-usage times. How crowded the space is varies WIDELY, from just a few people in the space even during weekday work hours, to essentially full. I don't ever want to have to turn members away, and so the ratio at peak time (rather than the mean) gives me the important measure (but it's also why I offer evenings & weekends memberships even though there's not much demand: they don't compete for space) of how many members I can sign up. If I were going to guess about the member:desk ratio when limited to full-time members, I'd guess about 1.7:1, again limited to the busiest times of day.

Best,

Will

On Monday, December 3, 2012 9:46:00 PM UTC+1, Matthew Allen wrote:

I would love to see your 2012 numbers. Thanks.

[Alex Hillman]

Beautiful summary Will, and I can confirm that I've seen these patterns play out dozens of times, including a visitor making unsolicited recommendations about changing your business model ;)

I don't think I missed it, but do you have a feel for how much of your total capacity you're using with 70 members and 31 desks? Could you add more desks, more people, or both? What is your threshold based on?

-Alex

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/ah

indyhall.org

coworking in philadelphia

pre-order my new eBook, "the business of community"

[Will Bennis, Locus Workspace]

Hi Alex,

That 70/31 number was referring to total member capacity (~ 70 members) and total desks (~31). Those numbers are based on the space being pretty close to maximum threshold already (every desk being used) with a little over 60 members. Actually, the day I wrote that post was the busiest day we've had, with every desk being used, and we only have 61 members, so I have to adjust the ratio down a little bit. The 31 desks refers to the number of comfortable sitting spaces we have, not including the couches, the kitchen, or the meeting room. We *could* have a few more desks, but it feels pretty packed with 31 people working here at one time.

Let me know if there was something more you were trying to get at!

  

Best,

Will

[Alex Hillman]

Nope that's perfect, thanks Will!

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[Maria-Christina Rus]

Hi,

I think that is really interesting. Would you say that today the ratio is the same?

Thanks!

María