Eric, fellow Long Island native here! Where do you hail from? We successfully crowdfunded New Work City's expansion in 2010 and ever since I've been largely trying to sway people against doing it until absolutely necessary.
The reason is this: almost everyone who contributed to our campaign was an existing member of the community we'd built over the course of the previous three years. I can't speak for everyone and every project, but I can say that if you focus first and foremost on identifying and rallying people who believe what you believe, and want what you want, you will have the support you need to be successful in whatever medium you need it. Do that groundwork and so many hard things become easy, believe me. If you've already got some momentum behind your effort, then a crowdfunding campaign can be a really great way to galvanize that existing support into action. I for one hope you succeed as I'd love to see more coworking happening in LI. Keep us posted! Tony On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 11:52 AM, Eric Lituchy <[email protected]> wrote: > I am new to the Cowork world and find this group to be an amazing > resource. Thanks in advance! > > In July, I am opening a coworking space on Long Island. I am currently > working on building the community and already have 6 people onboard. I > thought of raising some capital from friends and family, but started to > think that crowdfunding (Indiegogo, Plumfund, etc.) might be a better > option. Capital will be used for rent, furniture, technology, etc. > > My questions: > > 1. Does crowdfunding make sense as a way to fund a startup coworking > space? My primary goal of the crowdfunding would be to get new members > to invest in our community. > 2. I expect to offer membership deals(ex. Contribute $1000 and get > 3-months of cowork space), "Hardship" contributions to give out-of-work > individuals free coworking space and media/press mentions for larger > contributions. Any thoughts on this? Other ideas? > 3. Any potential pitfalls of going the crowdsourced route? > > Any additional advice is sincerely appreciated. > > Thank, Eric > Long Island Cowork (Finaly name TBD) > > -- > 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/d/optout. > -- 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/d/optout.
