Hi everyone.
Sorry for the delay — I've been traveling. I'm going to try to respond to
some of your posts, below:
Melissa, Jamie, Gretchen, Alex and Ramon - you're welcome! We're happy to
share.
Jeannine - you're more than welcome to link to the post and share it
however you like, absolutely! We're happy to chat about developing it
further, if you like. Hit us up via email (theskillery.com/contact).
Some of you asked a question about the "license fee" that's part of our
revenue. Great question. This is comprised of one, two or all three of the
following things:
1. A coffee shop just opened in our building. Before they opened, I
invited them to operate a pop-up coffee shop our of our kitchenette. This
gave them nine months of operational experience before they moved into
their own space. My deal with them was that they pay us a monthly stipend
to cover utilities (which shows up in the license fee) and they had to give
our members free coffee. They moved out a few months ago, leaving us
without their licensing fee, and, more importantly, without their coffee. =)
2. I invited a local writers collective to call The Skillery home. They
hold their classes in our space, and their two directors are full-time
members. We also list their writing classes on the /classes page of our
website. This is a slightly unique arrangement from a typical membership,
so we consider them "licensees" and they pay us a monthly fee to call The
Skillery their home.
3. We invited a local company to occupy the 1,700 square foot section in
the rear of our space. They use it for client work 5-10 days per month.
When not in use, the space is still available to our members. We
consider this company a "roommate". This is a good situation for us for a
few reasons:
1. First and foremost, we like these people. We have known them for a
long time, and are glad to see them in our space on a daily basis.
2. We like the work they do. They teach design thinking, prototyping,
empathy, storytelling, and other skills that we feel are a good fit for
our
members and our community.
3. They furnished the space that they license from us, which saved us
capital expenses in the early days. That meant that we didn't have to pay
to furnish almost 1/3 of our space.
4. Their space is stocked with whiteboards, flexible furniture, and
tons of post-it notes. Our members love the resources back there.
5. Their license fee pays half of our rent.
These arrangements are unique. They are more than memberships. They are
possible for us because our space is big enough to accommodate them, but,
more importantly, because the people involved understand that they are part
of a shared space. A community. They are good roommates, tenants,
licensees, members and friends. These relationships work. Nonetheless, the
agreements are month-to-month, and we're constantly reevaluating whether
they're a good fit.
Happy to answer other questions!
-Matt
On Thursday, July 9, 2015 at 7:34:02 AM UTC-4, Matt D. wrote:
>>
>> Hey everyone.
>>
>> I own a space in Nashville, Tennessee, here in the US, and we've just hit
>> our one-year anniversary. We decided to write a blog post with lessons
>> we've learned along the way, and we included a lot of data about membership
>> numbers, revenue, expenses, etc...
>>
>> There's also a link at the bottom of the post to download a 12-page PDF
>> that we created with much of the same info and data, in case that's an
>> easier read. It also contains a spreadsheet view of our revenue and
>> expenses that might be helpful for those planning a new space.
>>
>> The post is here:
>> http://www.theskillery.com/blog/2015/7/8/lessons-from-our-first-year-of-running-a-coworking-space
>>
>> Hope y'all find it helpful. Would love to hear your thoughts, and we're
>> happy to answer questions via the blog comments, and/or here, or wherever...
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Matt
>> The Skillery
>> theskillery.com | @theskillery
>>
>
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