This is so helpful and timely! Thanks so much for sharing, Matt. Anca.
On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 6:50 PM, Matt D. <[email protected]> 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. > -- -=-=-=- Anca Mosoiu | Tech Liminal [email protected] M: (510) 220-6660 http://techliminal.com | T: @techliminal | F: facebook.com/techliminal -- 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.
