Hi all - I just joined this group after searching "small coworking spaces".
I'm opening my own space (hopefully) in October, and I have no more than 1,050sqft to work with. Early 2017 and I've bought the second floor of a ~ 167-year-old house in a smart little town commuting distance to a 1 million strong gov/tech/art city. The place was a disaster when I bought it, but it was in THE perfect area; right dead-centre in a busy confluence. I put a lot of muscle and (newly-found) renovation skills to work and turned it into a gem (hardwood, sliding glass doors, kitchen). It has a colonial industrial modern-ish feel. I'm aiming for a bespoke kind of place - something comfortable, charming, and inviting. The 1,050 sqft includes everything - small maintenance/server/storage room, 2-piece washroom, small galley kitchen (fridge, stove, microwave, sink, dishwasher), 2 small meeting rooms, and a large open area that's 22'x20'. There is no reception area - the space is entirely automated through SaltoKS (access control), Uquiti Unifi wifi (networking), and Office R&D (member relationship management). >From the website, any prospective member can join a plan and will instantly be given credentials and a link to a smartphone app. They log in, push a big virtual button, and the doors unlock for them. The outside door is shared with another business, my entrance door is mine alone. They can also have a key fob (with a deposit) to access the space. there are 24 small lockers (1'x1.5'x1.5') that members can use (don't think I'll charge for that, yet). Temperature is web-enabled and automated, and I'll have a low-profile CCTV system monitoring the space for my members' safety. I never have to be in the space for it to run - cleaners will be in daily at ~10pm. I toiled a bit over how-much-space-does-a-member-need. To a great degree, I'm winging it - I've had custom furniture made for the space (from India, industrial-style leather, wood, and iron). This arrives next week and I'm literally going to put the furniture into the space, move it around until I like the arrangement, then open the doors. I'm perfectly game to make adjustments to suit what the members need and want. I'll be using the space myself 2-3 days per week, which is why I did this in the first place: My home office had left me feeling lonely and without fidelity-to-purpose. I looked around for a coworking/collaboration space of any kind, and there were none. So, I built one. My marketing so far has been textbook organic - word is spreading by good ole fashioned word-of-mouth and my professional encounters. My short-term plan is to get the space paying for itself by attracting like-minded people from the immediate area - this is a smart little ville, there's plenty of smarts nearby. A well-known docu/filmmaker that I came to be friends with after buying my place has expressed real interest in being semi-regular bringing a few people with him. A friend who is an executive at a national arts facility has asked to be able to hold their 3-4 retreats per year here (and I been granted bragging rights!). My only real mental barrier is on pricing - amount, type, etc. I should be able to arrange 4-5 3'x6' tables with 4 task chairs each (16-20 seats), another 10 seats on 2 couches and 6 club chairs. Somewhere between 26 and 30 seats, packed - that's full to the brim. I'm using 25 as the magic capacity number and only a modest leverage of 20% against chance vacancies, meaning I could sell 30 memberships. I don't want to be considering dedicated desks at this point, because there are occasions where I will rent the entire space for events and special training sessions. I'm thinking of: - Hours of 6am to 10pm, 7 days - Full-time membership, open hours for ~C$300/month - Part-time, 72 hours per month for ~C200 - Evenings and weekends, 5pm-10pm m-f, 6am-10pm s&s $150 - Weekends only, 6am-10pm Saturday and Sunday $100 - Per day, any day $35 - Rent the space for a day, ~C$1,500 (it's very well-appointed) I'll try and stay in touch here with how things progress. Pardon the long post, but I thought this would be a good place to blurt that all out. :-) Cheers, Trevor On Friday, 12 January 2018 10:58:27 UTC-5, ma...@deskcowork.co.uk wrote: > > We started with a space of 1000sqf, I agree with everyone below - it's all > about the way you design the space. > > But my advice is, don't get hung up on that. Start with what suits the > numbers and keep changing the space as you go along. Let it evolve. Year > and a half later and I am finally satisfied that we have the perfect layout > for our members. > > Also agree with everything Tony said - Work out what you're doing it for > and your growth plan if you have one - if you are content on building an > awesome community and group of people who thrive together and become > friends, and you dont need a salary, then you should be just fine. However > for us we hope to make this a business that can give people jobs - our > 1000sqf is working out to pay 1 living wage salary, however looking forward > we want to expand that when we have the numbers where we want them. > > On Sunday, October 15, 2017 at 3:09:59 PM UTC+1, Kyle Thibaut wrote: >> >> Hi everyone, >> >> We have about 600 sqft of open space in our coworking space. Is there >> anyone else out there with a small space like ours? >> >> >> - What have you learned to make it work well? >> - Is it too small such that voices carry over and disturb others? >> - Have you made any creative solutions to help out with having a >> small space? >> - Bonus: What sqft per person-desk is needed and how many members per >> desk is normal? In this case, what would critical mass look like? >> >> Thanks, >> Kyle >> >> -- 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.
