Tiago, welcome to your first coworking community! I was in the very situation you fear about two years ago. Twice! People with more money and better connections than I had were able to move more quickly to open their own spaces before we opened Cowork Niagara. One of them is still floundering. The other has boarded up and the building is up for sale. You can read about it here.
http://www.trevortwining.me/blog/2015/10/16/community-trumps-capital-every-time.html Community wins. Every time. How did it end up for us? Within two years we became cashflow positive. We'll be posting our first profit next year (likely a significant one), and we've become actively involved in growing the independent sector of our local economy. It takes one conversation at a time. It takes one relationship at a time. It's slow, methodical, hard work, but it creates such a strong community that it will withstand these shallow attempts at 'stealing your market.' Because you'll come to realize that while markets can be stolen, communities can't. -------------------------------------------- Trevor Twining Cowork Niagara http://coworkniagara.com Home of Niagara’s independent workforce twitter: @coworkniagara, @trevortwining On Wednesday, May 4, 2016 at 7:55:27 AM UTC-4, Tiago Vasconcelos 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]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
