Alex Hillman Writes Here - Latest Comments

Re: How To Fund Your Coworking Space

alexknowshtml — Sun, 31 Mar 2019 18:27:47 -0000

The community was a part of looking for the space, and they wanted it to happen!

In our case, we were able to move very fast (from signups to fully open in ~1 month) but I've helped others follow this playbook in various situations. In all cases, the key is community (not just people who want offices/desks). I've got way more detail of the process in my audiobook: http://theindyhallway.com/ten

Re: How To Fund Your Coworking Space

Melissa Smith — Sun, 31 Mar 2019 16:55:27 -0000

Hi Alex - thanks for the tips! You said you had your first 10 members before even having the office space lease. How did you convince them to hand over a check without having/seeing the office space, and how long was it from check signage to the office space actually opening up?

Re: How To Fund Your Coworking Space

Henk Werner — Sun, 03 Feb 2019 07:22:43 -0000

Alex,
Thanks for writing this helpful post. We have started our co-working/maker space with $0 funding. And now that we're almost three years running we still haven't asked for funding, sponsoring or grants. I cannot stress the fact of building community before you kick off hard enough.
I've shared your article on our Facebook page:
https://m.facebook.com/stor...

Re: My Crash Course in Lighting Design for Coworking

alexknowshtml — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 12:31:24 -0000

Fixed! It's the X32 Clear Panel - several sellers on Alibaba have them.

Re: My Crash Course in Lighting Design for Coworking

Jen — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 10:47:05 -0000

Hey there Alex, could you update the link for "this incredible fixture"? The link seems to be broken, but I'd love to check it out...

Re: How Much Does It Cost To Start A Coworking Space

Helen — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 15:38:31 -0000

Hi Alex, again, thank you for this post! I'm curious, when you say "Community members contributed heavily to operations, pitching in where paid staff would normally service office share-ers", what, more specifically, would community members do? Thank you!

Re: The ultimate guide to structuring your coworking space memberships

Thiago Villa — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 14:07:25 -0000

It's been a long ride, but we're getting there. How about you @Cali Ann ?

Re: How To Fund Your Coworking Space

Anthony Preston — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 14:33:24 -0000

Nice rundown here. I'm in the "I want to do a coworking space" phase and moving on to the planning, etc. This is a great read and helps me know what I need to do first.

Re: How Much Does It Cost To Start A Coworking Space

Sasha Herdsman — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 15:02:49 -0000

How much does it cost for the cleaners

Re: How to get the best insurance for your coworking space

Jonathan Mercer — Tue, 05 Jun 2018 16:35:09 -0000

Hey Alex. Thanks for this. Opening a space in Doylestown. Would love Diane's contact.

Re: How Much Does It Cost To Start A Coworking Space

alexknowshtml — Thu, 31 May 2018 18:03:38 -0000

Believe it or not, we didn't have coffee when we opened! We didn't have much of anything besides desks, chairs, power and internet.

But we had something that most brand new coworking spaces don't have: we had people who wanted to be around each other.

Business licensing costs vary from place to place (and Philly is notoriously complex and expensive compared to other places but it never registered as a barrier). In the grand scheme of everything, our licensing costs were a rounding error in terms of scale.

The more complex you make your business, the more expensive and difficult it is to get it off the ground.

Simplify, simplify, simplify. You won't win competing on amenities. You will absolutely win if you have a dedicated community built long before you ever sign a lease.

Re: How Much Does It Cost To Start A Coworking Space

Carmella Lanni — Wed, 30 May 2018 12:01:21 -0000

Great post! I'm so glad I came upon it today. In the past hour, I literally thought about opening a co-working space and just did a search on how to start up costs for co-working spaces.

Did you have to consider anything in regards to city permits & licenses, especially since you have coffee? i mean you often don't know what you need until you're in the thick of things. Was that something that you had planned for in your start-up budget?

Re: How Much Does It Cost To Start A Coworking Space

dee behan — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 19:58:35 -0000

brilliant! thank you. SO helpful!

Re: How Much Does It Cost To Start A Coworking Space

alexknowshtml — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 18:47:17 -0000

The whole process is throughly covered in my audiobook! https://theindyhallway.com/...

Re: How Much Does It Cost To Start A Coworking Space

dee behan — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 18:41:46 -0000

Hi Alex, thanks so much for all this info. Just wondering what your strategy was for building the community prior to opening? Where did you find your people!?

Re: The ultimate guide to structuring your coworking space memberships

Brian Burgett — Wed, 07 Mar 2018 16:25:00 -0000

Much of life can be managed by setting expectations. Thanks.

Re: The ultimate guide to structuring your coworking space memberships

alexknowshtml — Wed, 07 Mar 2018 15:08:06 -0000

We have lots of places for people to spread out on tables without taking over a conference room. That's by design.

Meeting rooms are for meeting. Most members aren't in meetings all day, every day, and if they are there's a good chance that they really need an office...not a coworking space.

And if someone tries to take advantage of any of our shared resources, we just talk to them about it.

There's nothing inherently wrong with renting meeting rooms or charging for copies. I just would rather find other ways to create lasting value for members than jamming extra transactions into their day.

(This has always been our guiding philosophy, but more and more we hear from people who've been nickel and dimed at other spaces, and they realized that the value just wasn't there to back it up.)

The "problems" that people fear about abuse of shared resources aren't really stopped by transactions, either. Worse, people start acting ENTITLED to those resources. That's poison.

I'd rather avoid the problems entirely (or at least almost entirely) by setting expectations. If you let people treat you like a serviced office, they'll treat you like a serviced office.

Re: The ultimate guide to structuring your coworking space memberships

Brian Burgett — Wed, 07 Mar 2018 14:37:24 -0000

Hi Alex. Great post!
I love the basic membership idea!
So you don't charge for copies or conference/huddle spaces?
Do you have a copy limit?
Is it hard to get in a meeting room if needed? I have heard of some spaces offering 12 (or
insert your number) hours a month of meeting room space. Seems like a good idea.
I can just imagine one of my marketing friends in the conference room three days a week with her flyers spread on the table half the day!
So many questions.
Thank you for all you do!

Re: The first advice I give to almost everyone starting a new coworking space

alexknowshtml — Tue, 27 Feb 2018 08:22:23 -0000

Same advice and QUADRUPLE important when coworking is an unknown concept.
The mistake I see people make is trying to "educate people on coworking" instead of demonstrating the value of bringing people together. That's why my community first playbook is so crucial.
Remember, when I started in 2006 NOBODY in the world knew what coworking was. This is how we built the momentum needed to open.

Re: The first advice I give to almost everyone starting a new coworking space

Cindy Nyakio — Tue, 27 Feb 2018 05:56:55 -0000

Hi! Really enjoying going through all your artlcles, so incredibly insightful! I was wondering whether you would give the same advice for someone starting the first space in a city (2nd largest in a developing country) with no other coworking spaces already established? The population is urban and semi-urban based and is 1.2million strong.

Re: The ultimate guide to structuring your coworking space memberships

Jenn | The CE L.A.B. — Fri, 09 Feb 2018 11:16:07 -0000

I just have to say that I LOVE the idea of a Community Membership! We'll have some awesome virtual and in-person classes and hot-seat business coaching sessions for members, so I was thinking about offering something like that for the coworking space I'm opening, but I wasn't sure if anyone would actually use it. Sounds like that could be more of a Yes than I thought! Thanks so much for sharing all of this great info, Alex.

Re: How To Fund Your Coworking Space

Jenn | The CE L.A.B. — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 17:49:46 -0000

I know this is a pretty old post at this point, but I just came across it while doing some research for my own upcoming coworking space and I just wanted to say thanks! I love the idea of starting with mini coworking sessions and building from there. We're already taking a similar approach, but I may have to expand it to include this. =)

Re: Coworking Core Values 5 of 5: Collaboration

Bianca J — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 07:20:28 -0000

I'm late to the party, but while I'm working on clarifying my missions, vision and values for my new coworking space, these articles have been immensely helpful!

I'm starting to really feel that I'm getting my head in the right space to make our community one of the best, and therefor our space one of the best options for our niche!

Re: Towards a More Diverse & Inclusive Coworking Community

Joel Bennett — Thu, 25 Jan 2018 10:33:08 -0000

Alex- Fantastic stuff here. Appreciate how you navigated keeping your values and identity while embracing what that looks like for a larger audience on a personal level. Keep up the great work brother!

Re: The ultimate guide to structuring your coworking space memberships

Cali Ann — Tue, 28 Nov 2017 01:48:02 -0000

Hi Thiago! It's a lot to figure out. Good luck to you.