I would add to Alex's excellent notes about the impact on your community that it's also a big bet to go from 20 people in open space to 20k of open space...and to keep it sustainable. Most spaces are having to incorporate private/team rooms when you get to that scale in order to sell enough memberships. I'm not the anti-open space/community lady, just the be realistic about your business model lady :-) If the 20k foot space doesn't already have offices, you'll have to talk the landlord into footing the buildout costs and you may need to pay him back before starting a revenue share as Barbara outlined.
On Thursday, April 6, 2017 at 1:47:17 PM UTC-7, Alex Hillman wrote: > > Business deals are just one side of this equation. > > Just *doubling* a community in short time is hard. I've done it myself > more than once, and each time it's created more than a years worth of > cultural work just to recover from the impact of rapid growth. Going from a > 20 person setup (presuming ~2k sq ft) to 10x that sounds like suicide. > > I was working with someone just yesterday who took over a space that had > just doubled in size and to fill it they made a TON of short term decisions > that they still haven't recovered from over a year later. Exponential > growth is extremely, extremely hard on communities. > > Is there potential for you to take a smaller portion of that 20,000 sq ft > now, and potentially expand it incrementally over time? I'd be looking for > ways to develop that kind of deal where it's not just designed to relieve > the pressure to make rent, but designed to relieve pressure of filling an > empty room. > > -Alex > > > ------------------ > *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* > Better Coworkers: http://indyhall.org > Weekly Coworking Tips: http://coworkingweekly.com > My Audiobook: https://theindyhallway.com/ten > > On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 3:46 AM, <[email protected] <javascript:>> > wrote: > >> Hello, Community. >> I started a coworking space around 6 months ago, a small setup for 20 >> people. >> Fast forward today, the space is running at 50% capacity, break even and >> slightly cash flow positive. >> I have an opportunity to expand to a 20,000 sq. ft space, where I have to >> pitch to the owner. >> >> Wondering if there are any proposals or deals which are already done by >> people here, and if you can share it with me? >> >> Thanks in advance. >> >> -- >> 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:>. >> 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.
