Hi Michael -- Didn't mean to suggest a scholarly approach to your article, just a recognition that "costs" will have different meanings to different people, and to make the info you relate both relevant and valid, something you want to be thinking about / clarifying as you go through this data gathering process rather than trying to figure it all out after the fact ;-)
In any event, to answer your direct question, I did reach out to a number of folks and organizations prior to opening before opening my space, and was able to obtain a small handful of folks to join once we opened the doors. Right now, I'm in the process of looking to grow the community, but I haven't been able to give this the attention it deserves due to other commitments. That said, the folks working in the space right now have been great evangelists... all I really need to do is harness a lot of what they are doing on their own, put a little more strategic direction behind it, and we should be able to fill out pretty quickly. I'd be surprised if any of the existing spaces haven't found a need for some form of ongoing marketing efforts (doesn't have to be "paid," but the time involved to maintain Craigslist postings, tweeting, blogging and hosting events essentially all boils down to ongoing marketing efforts and comes with a "cost"). In my opinion, if you're not accounting for the time involved in creating and maintaining this ongoing "free advertising" -- even if the time is volunteered -- then you're not truly measuring your cost of operations or able to evaluate the true sustainability of the business. ---------------------------------------------- Jack Speranza Principal, Main Street Ventures 15 Main Street, 2nd Floor Hopkinton, MA 01748 T: 508.858.5440 x101 F: 508.858.5441 Toll Free: 866.472.1035 http://mainstreetventures.com http://zenbungalow.com ---------------------------------------------- On Feb 1, 6:26 am, Michael <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey Jack, > > Thanks for your detailed response, I really appreciate it. > > Right now I am looking to write something which is more of a helpful > article, rather than anything too scholarly. I understand that when it > comes to opening up a coworking space many factors (location;time;size > of community etc.) will effect how much it is going to cost to set up. > I would like to give the would-be coworking space founder a simple > idea of what kind of costs are expected when opening up a coworking > space. It is always great to have some examples from people who have > experience doing it and I thank you, Alex and Blair for giving them. > > I did not initially consider ongoing costs for marketing and sales > related activities, but I guess for coworking spaces which are not > founded on an already established community they must be pretty > important too. > > Did you have a community ready when you started or did you have to > build it? -- 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.
