This right here. I opened my first space just as the last recession was hitting -- though it was a slower, shallower curve here in Europe, the sudden shift to mandatory entrepreneurship came in like a bomb. Suddenly people were being confronted with doing the same job they always had done as an employee, as a freelancer. They were nervous and worried and not at all sure they were up for this Brave New World.
I intentionally made that space homey and personal and intimate. A shiny, corporate environment was exactly what they did not want. We had a guy from the tax office come in and give lessons on how to keep books and records as a freelancer, we had intentional freelancers come in and talk about what it's like to freelance, we had folks come in and talk about how to manage your retirement now you are a freelancer. We are now two cycles away from that and have changed a lot of things since then. I sort of miss it sometimes, though I am glad those folks are settled now mostly. Tip for Coworking in a recession: keep your costs low and your powder dry. :-) On Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 6:09:25 PM UTC+1, Alex Hillman wrote: > > > > Another thing is that when we opened (at the beginning of the last > recession) we had an INFLUX of people who were "newly independent" - some > by choice, many by force. They weren't looking for an office, they were > *looking > for people* who were already independent and they might be able to learn > from. That was literally the foundation of our first wave of growth. > > In our next economic downturn, I expect we're going to see something > similar except that a decade later the physical and social infrastructure > to support a newly minted independent is WAY better. I think this will > likely be a good thing for coworking spaces, with a caveat that people see > and feel a sense of connection to the other members. If not, the coworking > space is simply a cost that can be removed/reduced. And I think *that's* > going to hurt a lot of spaces, especially the larger ones. > > >> -- 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.
