> > 1) How important is ground location? Do you rely on "walk-by traffic" or > "office space on upper floors" works just as well since most other > co-workers find the place virally? > We've been discovered nearly 100% word of mouth. Both of our offices have been 2nd floor. One was actually in an alley, whereas our new office is on a main (numbered) street. Either which way, we don't rely (or even really get) any walk-up traffic
> 2) Are credit checks standard and did you give a personal guarantee? > If you're talking about with the landlord, absolutely. Renting commercial property typically involves some credit check (like renting residential). HOWEVER I strongly urge you to NOT guarantee personally. The lease should be in your coworking business's name to protect you and your personal assets should something go wrong. Our current landlord asked us to guarentee the lease personally and we declined, and still signed the lease anyway. 3) How many months security deposit did you leave? > 2-3 is typical. We negotiated the ability to pay the 3rd month of security spread out over a our first few months of occupancy to reduce our startup costs, and they were totally cool with it. > 4) Per the awesome suggestions on the board, we've got a core group of 5 > that are going to be residents. Should we collectively form an LLC or > should one of us (me) just take on the responsibility? I understand with > more members there's more people to agree on action. It's my and Geoff's personal opinion that the purpose of forming an LLC is two-fold: a) to protect the partners b) to keep the business/decision making body lean and agile. We take ALL of our member input very seriously, and most of our innovation and growth is due to that. Them being "partners" in the LLC adds little to nothing for them, or us, since we're including them in that decision making process anyway. Since coworking businesses tend to be breakeven or low-profit, there's not buckets of money to be made being a "partner". Geoff has said many times before "being a partner of a coworking space is funny because it comes with all of the hard parts of owning a business (making decisions, holding the bag when something goes wrong) and very few of the good parts (like cash, private jets, and castles). 5 partners of an LLC sounds like too many to remain efficient in the long run to me, but that's just me. I'd pick one particularly aligned one who WANTS to be a partner so you have some checks and balances, and perhaps involve the rest in a less official "advisory board" that meets for lunch every month, -Alex /ah indyhall.org coworking in philadelphia The forum has really been beneficial for me, so I thank you! > > Regards, > Woodie > > > -- > 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]<coworking%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en. > > > >--
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