Fabulous resources and it was shared on the GCUC page, too. I'm intrigued by your license fee for the extra space that you can utilize, as well. Makes me think that a larger space may not be a bad thing. Will present to our cowork community, too.
On Monday, July 13, 2015 at 8:50:19 PM UTC-5, Matt D. wrote: > > 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 >>> >> -- 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.
