Hey Lloyd - I think perhaps the things that we found unique to the UK
were...
1) the desire of tech and design schools to create entrepreneurial
opportunities for their students and programmes. Incubators are
common, but kinda lame and don't suit the new style of working
presented by coworking. We tried to create an advisory board that
included academia, VCs and entrepreneurs as well as geek culture to
help steer how our coworking space works. Local VCs are liking the
idea, enterprising students are able to find collaborators and cheap
space and entrepreneurs are able to hook up with talented, energetic
people.
2) Targeting places with an urban renaissance underway - the older
Northern cities undergoing regeneration are perfect, Leeds,
Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool and Sheffield - with a great
cosmopolitan lifestyle, great schools and a spirit of freelancing :)
3) We found that entrepreneurial investors from outside tech wanted to
invest in the property (lucrative stuff in the UK!) as low risk way of
entering the industry and finding opportuntiies to take equity in
willing coworkers or geek entrepreneurs.
4) Serendipity rules! We spent a lotta time getting around
bootstrapping grassroots meetups, surfacing people at OpenCoffee and
BarCamp style events (often running them ourselves), talking to people
at digital development agencies, watching for bloggers and
freelancers, then finding out what people needed, offering them a free
venue for their own meetups, trial periods for coworking, targetting
serviced office users etc
5) Depending on the coworking mailing list and the advice of people
like Tara (yay!) to help guide us.
6) A huge does of LUCK - the property and equipment was paid for, they
didn't know what do to with it, so we were able to make a huge saving.
However, we planned to just buy a downtown apartment and gear it up
regardless!
You can IM me as [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] if you'd
like to talk more :)
On Feb 11, 10:06 pm, "Lloyd Davis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Imran,
>
> congratulations it all looks very cool.
>
> I'd love to hear more from you about the whole experience - especially
> what you've learned that you think is peculiar to the UK (if
> anything).
>
> All the best :)
>
> Lloyd
>
> On 11/02/2008, Imran... <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Hey everyone - just wanted to let the group know about met:space, a
> > coworking space we just launched in Leeds, located at former old BBC
> > facility (Old Broadcasting House) now operated by Leeds Met
> > University.
>
> > The university acquired the property about 18 months ago, filled it
> > with $200k of Apple equipment and then didn't know what to do next! So
> > we helped them think about developing a coworking community,
> > understanding and applying the values of the community, develop some
> > pricing plans & extras as well start creating a culture and plug them
> > into the city's meetup culture and the university's tech & creative
> > schools :)
>
> > It's gone pretty well so far with a half dozen residents (designers,
> > developers, PR, R&D, investors), so we wanted to share all that we'd
> > learned with the wider community on the economics and culture and also
> > to thank y'all for sharing the idealism, values and motivations that
> > helped get met:space off the ground.
>
> > We helped met:space with some backend stuff too, so we're really happy
> > to help the group here with what we learned on billing, ticketing,
> > social software and publishing.
>
> > You can find out more at... {www.oldbroadcastinghouse.com}
>
> --
> Lloyd Davis
> Perfect Path Consulting Ltd
> Helping people be brilliant in the knowledge
> economyhttp://www.perfectpath.co.uk/http://tinyurl.com/2zejjsto subscribe to
> my blog by e-mailhttp://feeds.feedburner.com/PerfectPathto subscribe to my
> blog by RSS
> Call me: +44 (0)79191 82825
> Skype me: perfectpath
> Follow me on Twitterhttp://www.twitter.com/LloydDavis
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