Ichsan, Wow, what a story!
So much to respond to: - Your English is excellent, no worries there. - You did the right thing by reevaluating and reworking you model quickly; it's very common that the initial model doesn't work well so the faster you can identify what *does* work the better. - Continue to look to your members and potential members for constant feedback-- if people who were initially excited didn't show up, find out what it would take to change their minds-- perhaps it is something minor. Best of luck! Cheers, Tony On Aug 14, 2009, at 5:45 AM, ichsan <[email protected]> wrote: > > (Sorry if you receive it twice). > > Hello everybody, > > My name is Ichsan. I'm a freelance architect in Bandung, Indonesia. > I've been lurking in this mail list for more than 3 months before > finally decided to set up our own coworking space early July. Yes, > that's almost 1 1/5 months ago; I just want to see how it's going > before sharing the news (after all, I don't want to spoil all your > excitement and optimism if our space end up prematurely). You can see > the latest photos of our space here > http://www.flickr.com/photos/32321...@n04/sets/72157622026078160/ > or visit www.workpod.wordpress.com (sorry, it's in our native > language, Bahasa Indonesia). > > Being the first coworking space in the city (dare to say in the > country, too) things wasn't easy at first. We have optimistically > projected to get 20 members in the first month, because almost every > people from our initially targeted market (one-man-freelancer) says > that this is a great idea, and they'll check the space immediately > after the official opening. Well, they didn't. And so, our first > month was very-very slow: aside from our 6 founder members (mostly > architect. Perhaps things are a little different here), only 3 new > low- > level members were registered in the first week. > > It took another week to realize that only our innermost circle of > friends can tolerate the ad-hoc ('add-as-it-grow') approach. It's an > entirely different concept of 'working in the cafe' here in this > side of the world : most of freelancers in our city consider it as a > lifestyle (even McDonald's is considered as a delicacy here). Being > in a coffee shop is an opportunity to 'seen-and to-be-seen', as well > as to parade their latest gadgets in the table. > > So we've decided to change the appearance, and redefined our targeted > market. We've refined our space by adding two custom-built large > worktables, installing a 42" LCD TV and a large artwork on the main > wall. But the most important thing was redefining the market. Instead > of aiming at one-man-freelancers that will eventually registered as > low-level members, we've shifted the target to the so-called 'group > freelancers' and small-scale-enterprises that regularly need a quite > representative meeting place but couldn't afford an office. We've even > planned to include small offices (with 'reduce overhead' jargon) as > our target in the future. > > Another important thing was the change in marketing approach. Instead > of waiting things to happen, we've finally decided to go out and > introduce the concept of coworking. Each of our founder members was > required to bring at least 1 potential visitor everyday in average. > They were also encouraged to actively engaged in various special- > interest groups now easily accessed thanks to Facebook (This thing is > a reeeaaaaally big help. I couldn't say enough). Lomo photography > groups. Analog/film photography groups (yes, it alive and kicking). > Downhill bikers group. Linux group. Sunday painters group. Anything > that needs regular showoff moments can use our space. We even organize > regular workshops on almost anything that can leverage a freelancer's > skill and broaden their network. > > Things are started to picking up since. Within last 2 weeks we have 6 > low-level members, 3 middle level members, and several potential > high- > level members to come. We really hope that this will continue for next > month (we need at least 6 high-level members to sustain), and we're > very thankful for all your suggestions and ideas. We'll keep you > posted. > > By the way, most of our members are quite interested in the coworking > visa concept. Any progress on this one? > > (Pardon my English. The concept of embedding past, present and future > in any language is alien to me. After all, our concept of time is > cyclic, not linear as yours ;-) ). > > Best Regards, > Ichsan > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
