Jack, Once again thanks for your insight and sorry for my late reply. I live in Beijing at the moment and it is Chinese New Year so everyone is on holidays. I still have the sound of fireworks ringing in my head!
I do agree with what you are saying about marketing. When i write my piece I am definitely going to put it in as an ongoing cost.You are right that free marketing can be done but there is also a time cost to the whole thing. At the moment, with my website i spend half my time tweeting, writing blog comments, blog posts and anything else to get some attention. Although it is free, it is not easy, especially getting noticed. One thing I have really taken from this thread and something which I am going to talk about is the whole community support aspect of starting a coworking space. As I see it there seems to be two different kinds of coworking spaces, those which were founded around a solid community and those which were started before a community was created. I think this is really a big thing when it comes to the cost of starting a space. ----------------------------------------------- Advertise/Find Coworking Spaces for FREE on Myecodesk.com http://www.myecodesk.com On Feb 2, 1:43 am, Jack Speranza <[email protected]> wrote: > 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: 866.472.1035http://mainstreetventures.comhttp://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.
