Jellys are awesome for introducing people to coworking but, as Jon suggests, the conversion rate from free->paid coworking is a bit of a challenge, ESPECIALLY when there's not really a difference between the two experiences.
When coworking from your space is free one day and paid the next and there's not a difference, people's ability to value the paid version goes down because…well…it was just free the other day. Running a Jelly off-site, however, is an awesome hook. Happy hours are great for the same reason. Another reason doing it off-site is to alleviate the feeling that you're hosting it in your space to sell them on membership. That's not to say you should be dishonest and pretend that's not your motive, but by hosting the event in "neutral territory," you get to build deeper relationships than when they walk in and view you as the owner/proprietor. I've long wanted to do a research project to see what provided better conversion to paying member: hosting on-site events or hosting off-site events. Anecdotal evidence says that even when the on-sites convert better to short term members (and that's not always), off-sites tend to attract people around who join and stay members, keeping churn lower. One more thing on thing to remember is the interval that Jellies (or other events) happen. MOST people don't see the coworking experience and instantly go "ah! this is for me!". It usually takes 2-3 exposures to different versions of the concept - perhaps a jelly, an educational event, and observing a normal work day - before they see how it could work for them. Making sure that you're providing this spectrum and interval for participation and on boarding helps more than just doing a periodic Jelly that doesn't really have any rhythm to it. -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org (http://indyhall.org) coworking in philadelphia building a community? http://masterclass.indyhall.org On Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 11:34 AM, Jon Graham wrote: > This is something that I have often wondered about. We just opened our doors > for our coworking space and growth is, well slow. I am not sweating it too > bad but I am always thinking of other ways to find others interested in > building a coworking community. My gut tells me that Jelly's can be a great > way to find some of these people, however, I think I might want to separate > the Jelly session from the coworking space. > > I have started a new group on meetup.com (http://meetup.com) called "Bucks > County Coworking" because I also wanted to meet others that are interested in > coworking, but more importantly, I wanted to get involved in regular Jelly's. > I think coworking and Jelly's are different with different benefits. Once > this meetup group was created, quickly two dozen people showed interested and > joined. Since then I have attempted to host a "First Meetup Happy Hour" and > one coworking session (this upcoming Friday). > > Hopefully both groups become successful communities with different norms, > expectations. Maybe then, if I meet someone during a Jelly that could be a > good fit to the coworking community, I will invite them to come and check it > out. > > - Jon Graham > Business Casual Coworking > > -- > Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com > > -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com
