OUCH Didn't mean that to go to the list, but fortunately didn't include anything confidential. Sorry for bothering everyone.
-Mike On Oct 3, 2009, at 11:04 PM, Mike Schinkel wrote: > Hi Jerome, > > Long time, no talk. I hope BLANKSPACES is going well. > > Since June it's been a whirlwind for me here in Atlanta as I found a > partner to launch a coworking space and he was ready to go asap. He > was someone I've know for almost 3 years and also someone whose > company I've personally been a customer of his for 5 years. His > company is www.asmallorange.com and it's a web hosting business. > > Given our prior conversations I felt I should contact you and let > you know the direction I took. I've been meaning to contact you > sooner but each day has slipped by and it was never as urgent as the > urgent things I had to do for each day. This weekend I'm finally > getting to some of those less urgent items. > > So we opened at Ignition Alley (www.ignitionalley.com) around > September 1st and last week we started signing up members. Our model > turns out to be very different from yours. It seems your approach > based on your website title keywords is to target people wanting to > lease office space; we are catering to tech startup entrepreneurs > and freelancers and we've set our rates much lower than yours; we > are 1/5th to 1/10th as expensive as your rates. All our plans are > one price for the month, we don't have long term agreements, and > we're open 24/7. We picked a very inexpensive building and spent as > little as we could to build it out. We are more than anything trying > to help lots of startups grow successful here in Atlanta. > > In less than 10 days we've signed almost 30 members and have another > 15 requested member agreements out for signature so we are pretty > happy with our progress. We'll be breaking even with me having a > salary if we can hit 100 members which I think we'll make within 30 > days. > > Anyway, the main reason I moved forward but didn't at least contact > you to joint venture was because my partner wanted to move fast and > had the financial resources to do so. I was so happy to find someone > who would finally bankroll this thing I've tried to make happen for > two years that I didn't want to rock the boat. Not sure if there > will ever be any way we can work together moving forward but I sure > would like to keep the door open for doing so if an opportunity > arises. > > If you are ever in Atlanta I'd love to show you the place if for no > other reason than to put a face to a voice. > > -Mike Schinkel > Web Marketing Strategist and Atlanta Startup Catalyst > http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeschinkel > http://twitter.com/mikeschinkel > http://mikeschinkel.com > > P.S. I started a page of coworking locations around the world on > our website and included yours: > > http://www.ignitionalley.com/coworking-locations > > You'll note that I've done it in such a way that the links help SEO > for each space with the keywords "{city} Coworking" where "{city}" > is their city. So that means I've linked to your site to help you > with the keywords "Los Angeles Coworking." > > I'm hoping that each site we link to will reciprocate somewhere on > their site by linking back to our site at www.ignitionalley.com with > one of the following: > > -- Atlanta Coworking > -- Coworking Atlanta > -- Atlanta's Coworking Space > -- Coworking in Atlanta > -- Ignition Alley Atlanta Coworking > -- Atlanta's Coworking: Ignition Alley > > Let me know if you end up doing that, and thanks much in advance. > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to coworking@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
