Hi Jasper! Congrats on starting another space in Colorado! We're thrilled to have you.
-Angel of Cohere Coworking Community in Fort Collins, CO On Dec 12, 9:51 pm, Jazzman3 <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Coworking Community: > > After hearing Jeremy Neunerhttp://nextspace.us/team at the spring > National Business Incubation Association conference in Orlando, FL, I > was intrigued by the coworking movement. Thanks to Chris Reddin > (Grand Junction Business Incubator) for inviting Jeremy to co-present > on coworking at NBIA www.nbia.org Over the past 3 months, our co- > founder (Nancy Wharton) and I have visited Next Space (Santa Cruz, > SF), Sandbox Suites, the Hub (SoMa, Berkeley) and Independents Hall > (Philly, PA). For 11 years I have served as the director of the San > Juan College Enterprise Center (Farmington, NM)www.sjc-enterprisecenter.com > And I live in Durango, CO, a small micropolitan town in southwestern > Colorado. We have poured over the coworking Google Groups site, > inteviewed 25 people (and counting), created a full blown business > plan and cash flows. And we are taping into our community (where > most everyone is only 2 degrees (or maybe 3 degrees in some cases) > away. We heard the "Build the community load and clear" from our > fellow coworking leaders. > Then comes the point of the "leap of coworking faith", we we made this > past week. With folks wanting to join our local coworking space, we > are starting DurangoSpace over the next 30 days in downtown Durango. > When you are in town, we'll be at 1221 Main Avenue, Durango, Colorado > (in the only place to be: downtown Durango). Initial photo > shoot:http://www.flickr.com/photos/durangospace Our next step is the live > fire exercise, and we are both excited and scared to death, like most > business start-ups. Only the clinically depressed are realistic. > And it takes a bit of "I know this will work" for any new venture to > succeed. We are determined to build up our entrepreneur, freelance, > and virtual professional community at DurangoSpace. Are we > ready? As much as can be, before we overthink this. Just do it > at some point. > > So here are our questions as we start up: > 1) We are looking at a soft opening (Jan to Mar 2011), where we are > working on the community, the space and being member driven (on the > details). Generating the community and member revenue we can, but > focusing on building the community (which we basically have in a small > town, but we need to wrap around coworking model). Any suggestions > on this initial 3 month process? > 2) We have pricing, but it still can be adjusted and tweaked. > Basically the daily rate, multi-day passes (on occasional end) and > monthly and 24/7 memberships, plus a few reserved (2 per office) > memberships. Our question: How did you initial encourage the new > member commitments, when the community is getting started? Our small > Colorado town gets it, once we explain the coworking community. What > did you do to get the early adopters dailed in? > 3) What really smart (and really stupid) things do you do in the early > days of your coworking community? What really worked? And what > would you have changed? > 4) Once you survived the shakedown cruize (first 3 to 6 months), how > did you go public with the real opening? At what point did you feel > ready to really turn on the model and expand the community (from the > charter/core group)? > > Nancy & I appreciate all the models, books like "I'm Outta Here!", > site visits (thanks Next Space, the Hub and IndyHall) and the kind e- > mails (Jeremy @ NextSpace, Tony @ NewYorkCity). But until you gear > up the coworking community in your home town, then you are serious. > So here goes.... > > Your thoughts, ideas and comments are welcome. And come visit.... > > Jasper Welch [email protected] Nancy Wharton > [email protected] -- 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.
