We outgrew our ~1800 sq foot space and moved into a 4400sq foot space about 2.5 years ago.
A couple of things we thought long and hard about: 1) Growing overnight will change the culture. Influx of new members always does. What does that mean for your membership? 2) Meter your growth. We ran a waiting list for 6+ months to make sure that the demand wasn't just a trend. A lot of people who said they wanted to come in ended up not sticking around very long. It wasn't until the demand to grow was steady for a while that we decided to do something about it. 3) Talk to your members about it. What do they want. How do they want to grow. What opportunities does the growth present them. How does it complicate things for them? 3b) One thing I've never wanted was for somebody to have to wake up in the morning and wonder "which Indy Hall should I go to today?". 4) What's going to be the difference between the two spaces, if any? Should there be? How do you make sure each one has its own identity, and how do you communicate each one effectively? 5) What do you gain from growing? How does that get you closer to your goals? 6) How much demand do you have for growth? How far does that carry you into your new space, how much new membership do you need to gain to be sustainable again? How long will that take? There's no right or wrong, obviously. Just a few things for you to be thinking about, both from the business side and the community side, when considering growth. We did a bunch of things right, and a handful of things wrong, when we grew. Now that I know what I know, I'm confident we could grow again, better and smarter. -Alex /ah indyhall.org coworking in philadelphia *join the next coworkshop <https://indyhall.stagehq.com/events/1048>. learn to run a healthy, happy, and sustainable coworking space and community.* On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 7:30 AM, Mojo <[email protected]> wrote: > Wondering if anyone out there has any thoughts about expansion of a > coworking space. Mojo Coworking opened in April of this year in a > smallish 2,000 sqft space. www.mojocoworking.com > We have filled up pretty quickly and remain filled with more people > coming in to check it out. There was a recent article in the local > paper // > > http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20110918/BUSINESS/309180016/Asheville-entrepreneurs-find-affordable-office-space-priceless-collaboration-Mojo-Coworking > that is driving additional interest. > > The question is whether to close this location and open a new larger > one ... or find a second location in a different area and set up > there? Love to hear input. Thanks > > -- > 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. > > -- 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.
