Tiago, welcome! Thanks for posting. When do you think it will be easier to learn how to build community? Now, when you can afford to take your time and learn from mistakes, or after you open a space when you have the burden of monthly rent hanging over you?
If you're working 9-19, how do you intend to build and operate a coworking space? If you don't have the freedom to build community, I'm having trouble seeing how you could have the freedom to build a space. There are some on this group who may advocate your approaching this as if you were building a hotel. Maybe you can develop a space and learn how to rent it out to people at a profit like a traditional business. Maybe that's fine if you want people to treat you like most people treat the hotels they stay in. Personally I think we're here to do something more worthwhile. Starting with building a community is so simple that many tend to overlook it. You just start talking to people. Or, more importantly, listening to people. Just get out and make genuine connections with human beings. Relationships form communities. Everything unfolds from there. -- I wonder why you are here and why you care enough to want to build a space. Maybe you can go to that core Why and look at the myriad ways you can align what you do with that drive. Maybe you care about empowering people. Or bringing people together. Or helping improve the economy. Or helping forge an alternative to traditional employment. Whatever that passion is that drove you to this group, I'm confident there are others who resonate with that. You can seek them out and connect with them, online or offline, locally or globally. You can attend Meetups. You can start a Meetup. You can befriend a bar manager and start hosting happy hours for freelancers and expats. You can host dinner parties where everyone takes turns talking about a topic of urgent importance to them. You can organize educational sessions. You can find a bar with wifi and host late night coworking sessions for people who have day jobs but also side projects. You can host weekend coworking sessions the same way. You can write. You can create art. You can stand on a street corner handing out pamphlets. I wonder, if you go back to your Why and look at how you can work towards it with what you have in front of you right now, what you will find. Know this: you're far from alone. You have a world of people who care like you care working alongside you. Rooting for you! Tony On Wednesday, May 4, 2016, Tiago Vasconcelos <[email protected]> wrote: > > I've already read your post Alex, twice. It's been a great resource for > me. The problem is, i don't really know how to start that "community"... > and i'm affraid that if i start making a hype over this that my "idea" > would get stollen by someone with much more money than i do and can swing a > cowork space in a flash!! > > I do understand your point of view but, how do i get to the people, how do > i do that market research? I've been puzzling my mind over that for quite a > few weeks by now (first time i read your post was about 2 months ago). > Surfers and nomads would be a part of the "community", i'd like to be able > to serve the locals also, people with flexible workplaces, freelancers, or > even people from here (Portugal) that would like to be a couple of months > in the beach but still be able to do some work. > > A big place is scary for me. I'd probabily be better off with a 100m² > (+/-1000sqf) for start (i think smaller than this is very tight, no?) with > a small rent to minimize the risks. > > So, how do you build a community? I don't really freelance > (unfortunatelly), it's not easy to find other people to work with, and i > have a 9-5 job (more like 9 to 19 ) that consumes my time. Is social > network a possibility? Facebook, a fb group? what would i be marketing? an > hipotetical space or just a community without mention or ties to any > commercial space that i might be considering? > > Thanks for your reply Alex, love your blog and thank you for your help! > > Best regards, > Tiago > > > -- > 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] > <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','coworking%[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.
