Sorry. Wannabe programming humor there in the subject line. I just wanted to introduce myself as I've been lurking for a couple of weeks.
I'm looking into opening a coworking space in the coworking capital of Austin, TX. Coworking spaces didn't exist when I was a freelancer 6-8 years ago and I feel like they could have made a huge impact on how successful I was. For the last six years, after closing up my freelance business, I've been the lead designer at a local Austin startup. For the last year or so I've been itching to get back out on my own and I've also wanted to broaden my horizons beyond just graphic and web design (and development). I've always defined design as problem solving, so I look at creating a great coworking space to solve the problems freelancers, early startups, and work-from-homers have is just another kind of design. This will also be a lifestyle business for me. As the parent of a soon-to-be six year old and a soon-to-be two year old, I miss my family. Working at a startup means my slow weeks are 60 hour weeks and the pressure never lets up, which doesn't make me a fun or nice person to be around. Spending those same hours on my own business doesn't feel like work, it kind of feels like play. And there's an end-goal where, after a few years, I can get to a sane enough schedule that I can see my family once in a while. Why coworking instead of some other endeavor? Well, I miss the communities I used to be involved with here in town. I miss the design community, AIGA's community, the developer communities, and even the startup community (I'm rarely involved on my own time outside of my job). I miss the inspiration I get from being around other likeminded individuals. And I love creating beautiful, functional spaces. Long term, I might consider pursuing a web startup business on top of the coworking space (where better to meet likeminded people to work on something with?), but going that route today, without a sustainable revenue source, would mean taking seed money and becoming a traditional startup. I want to chart my own course, not have it charted for me by investors, and besides, investors are like bosses. There's that stress again. And if I do ever decide to pursue a second business, I wouldn't want an exit strategy. I would want to create something that was every bit as sustainable as the coworking space. So there you have it. It's nice to meet you all. PS I'm going to be GCUC this week if any of you are attending and I'm really, really hoping to win that ping pong conference table. -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
