Hi, Kevin! I like joint ventures very well, I run a network of 6 spaces all but one of which are joint ventures of various types. The one I own so I never had any landlord problems with it. :-)
I think they are a good way to do business when done well. You have been doing very well! Um, right up to the part where it was time to close the deal which is not at all uncommon. We are not born knowing how to think about this stuff. I think you are selling yourself and your nascent community too cheaply and overvaluing what they are offering. Here's the thing: you value what they have because you do not have it. Your job now is to cause them to value what you have because they do not have it. *A joint venture works only if everyone is valued. Also you and your community.* Begin as you mean to go on, my mother told me when I was dating. This means you do not start off on one foot (slanted in their direction) and then shift as you go. It means you start off as people working together and you stay that way. Much easier for everybody. Let's think out of the box a little bit. Why do you want a lease agreement at all? Why not have a joint venture with the building owner? They let you use the space on the following terms, blah blah blah. You exploit the space on the following terms, blah blah blah. You pay these costs, they pay those costs. You keep the books in x program and they have collaborator access to the books. You maintain your community in this way and they have/do not have access to the CMS. You split the income like this. They give you permission to sublet to your coworkers and give you a Power of Attorney to sign contracts to that effect. Just for example. Where the boundaries are varies greatly from space to space I have found, I have one location where the owner opens the door and that's pretty much all they do, I have another where they do nearly all of it but the administration. And everything in between. If liability is a concern you can still set up an LLC for your side of the agreement. You probably should My approach is pretty radical, my contract is for example terminable on 30 day notice. But I figure if we are not happy together what's the point of dragging it out? And it does give us all great motivation to work together and keep each other happy. Anyway, how you do it depends on you and on them. But I really do urge you to not sell yourself and your community short. They have what you don't and you have what they don't. Sounds like a win-win to me. > -- 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 coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
