Angel, When I attended the GCUC 2014 I realized that there are so many different spaces. Some are started by real estate owners looking for a creative solution to the down longterm commercial rental market. Some are started by venture capital/government private/public partnerships to accelerate startups. Some are started by independent creative professionals. Even among these there is differentiation.
Not knowing more details about your former landlord, I suspect he/she falls into one of the above categories and will attract the folks that fit. We are veteran marketing/sales independent professionals who started out with a mission to support the independent creative professional and the existing businesses they serve to improve a broken creative business. We bet the bank on a professional yet fun space. We assumed that we may have to fill it with hedge fund guys while we networked our way to attracting the right creative professionals and then to promote them to the business community. But we have been very surprised to find that the right creative professionals are the first to make a commitment of at least 6 months to private offices and dedicated desks. The lesson I hope is to be true to your reason for developing the space and the right people will get it. I believe there is someone for everyone. So your landlord will attract the people looking for real estate without a long term commitment. Do you want those people? The implication for a regional or global coworking directory is this - if you focus on what makes you different, you will standout in coworking directory and attract those looking for what you have to offer vs someone else. If you are so unique, Coworking directories are a great way to market yourself on the web - because lets fact is there are not millions of people searching for coworking - so to the extent there is one landing page on which to try to stand out vs the whole friggin web that's great. But nothing replaces personal networking and community outreach. I know I saw your post about encouraging the work at home people to put their pants on and come to the space to work. And we've seen that as a challenge too. WE have about 35 members who are "mobile members". I think the magic there is believing it is worth the investment in convenience, time and money. ROI - as much as we all think this about warm fuzzy stuff - it is also about expanding business horizons. I happen to think the two are related. When people feel safe they create better stuff, they find partners to up their game. Back to the higher purpose of this thread . . . . I think we would all benefit from sharing real live examples of how a coworking space renewed creative confidence that resulted in a new business opportunity or an unexpected synergy that turned a little project into a bigger one or the confidence to ask a client to pay more, etc. etc. etc. K- -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
