Caveat: I agree with Alex about racing to the bottom on price. That said, one thing I think is important to keep in mind for new spaces that don't have enough community/membership to feel alive is that empty coworking spaces simply don't have the same value as full coworking spaces. For people who actually want coworking and not just cheap offices, they arguably don't have any value at all. And so the prices you can expect the average person to pay who wants to be a member of a *coworking* space are vastly different depending on whether they're paying to be part of a mostly empty space that they hope will one day be what they want or they're paying to be part of an existing thriving community. I have repeatedly seen new spaces that are absolutely beautiful but mostly empty charging the same prices they'd want/need for their (ideal future) thriving space.
I think that's a mistake. You wouldn't charge full price for a space that doesn't yet have Internet or heat or or tables or whatever, and you shouldn't charge full price, IMO, for a space that doesn't have enough members to make it coworking. Especially if you need the members to finish that feature of space development (as you do for the "community" feature of a coworking space). You can get around the problem of racing to the bottom (undervaluing your space and the inherent benefits of coworking), in my opinion, by being very clear up front that you are offering a special promotional price, that the price is in recognition that the space doesn't yet have the value of the community that it promises and that this is a temporary "early supporter" price to help create the kind of space that will have that value: one of the start-up costs to get the space to its operational form as quickly as possible. We did this and were explicit about when we expected the price to increase (based on membership and time), offering a full 50% off expected future prices, a money losing rate even if the space had been completely full. We let members sign up for as much as a year membership at those discount prices. And I think it was essential to the space's success (i.e., ability to stay in business). Since everyone knew the prices were a 50% discount on expected future prices, no one was bothered when the prices increased, and the vast majority of the early committers are still members today at full-price, though I don't think any of them would have signed up at the beginning for those prices. They also often bought in for the full year to get those prices long-term, which helped with early capital needs. Granted, the ideal would be to have a large enough community by the time you start up that you don't need to do this. This post is aimed at the spaces that don't have that community ahead of time and are starting up anyway. Will On Tuesday, July 17, 2012 6:11:25 PM UTC+2, Alex Hillman wrote: > > Racing to the bottom on price isn't going to solve your problem, it's > only going to exacerbate it. > > It sounds like you're doing a lot of "push" marketing, telling people > about your space and services and expecting them to know that it's what > they want. > > My guess is that they don't know they even have the problem you're trying > to solve. > > *A few questions:* > Is nobody showing up at all? > Are people coming in the door and not signing up? > What do people say when you tell them about coworking? > More specifically, what do you tell them about coworking when they ask? > > -Alex > > > -- > /ah > indyhall.org > coworking in philadelphia > > On Tuesday, July 17, 2012 at 12:06 PM, BlueOceanBozeman wrote: > > We're the only space in our city, possibly our whole state (I think). We > recently lowered our prices, but can't really go much lower. > > > On Tuesday, July 17, 2012 4:15:27 AM UTC-6, Cecilia Durieu wrote: > > Hey, > > Are there other coworking spaces nearby ? Maybe your prices are too high > compared to shared desks ? Is the design of your space nice ? > > You can also post your place on eWorky <http://www.eworky.com>;) In > Paris, France, there are more and more coworking spaces and an owner told > me yesterday there was also more competition. On eWorky, and I'm sure it's > the same on other websites, pictures and nice description are the most > important features to get more requests. So you could maybe hire a > freelance photographer to take great pictures of your space. > > Good luck ! > Cheers, > Cecilia > > Cecilia Durieu > cofounder of eWorky <http://www.eworky.com> > [email protected] > > > > Le mercredi 11 juillet 2012 17:30:19 UTC+2, BlueOceanBozeman a écrit : > > Hey everyone, > > I'm the Administrative Coordinator for a coworking space in Montana. We're > located in a small city, and have been up and running for about a year. Our > state and city are both really active with small business owners, so we > know the crowd is out there somewhere. We currently have three permanent > coworkers at the moment, in addition to two PT workers and sporadic > conference room rentals. We'd like to get more coworkers in the space, so > I'm wondering what everyone else has done to encourage membership and get > the word out there about their space during the start-up phase? So far > we've done the following: facebook, twitter, craigslist, linkedin, > deskwanted, hotel cards, flyers, pull-tab flyers, events, networking > socials, member of Chamber of Commerce, and a newspaper ad. Anything we're > missing? Any advice at all would be really helpful! > > Thanks! > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/coworking/-/ykuFzwg3-hQJ. > 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/coworking/-/cuOxI5cMDIMJ. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. 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