This is all great stuff and a good launch point to form an action list to implement over the next 12 months.
One point that I have already taken action on is our community has always been designed for creative businesses and most of our (Companies who are) members identify as a Social / Design / Web / SEO / Architectural / Graphic Design / Literacy / PR... Agency. But we fell into the trap of charging more (read Sydney market prices) because we could, not because it was the best thing for the teams. The learning here is that we value the diversity our small 1-4 person companies brought to the community, but incentivised larger companies through cheaper desks (because they bought more), the old pricing structure was: 1-3 Desks... $750 a month 4-8 Desks... $700 a month 9+ Desks... $650 a month But we have now just changed it to a flat $650 per desk per month regardless of numbers, and surprisingly (or not) 6 of our smaller companies instantly committed to taking additional desks, which is going to completely replace a company of 10 that are due to move out at the start of December. @Angel your article was great, thanks for writing it and linking to it. @Alex your points on what is the actual value to members was the final prompt for me to change the pricing up for our members, and now the challenge is to reconnect with the community to identify other ways to bring them value and actively support them in leaner times - Carl, Your Desk On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 10:01:34 PM UTC+11, Jeannine van der Linden wrote: > > Oh yes, so much this. > > I find it sort of humorous that we are now talking about whether coworking > can survive a recession, there are serious articles from back then (and it > wasn't that long ago) about whether coworking was really just a > manifestation of recession and whether it would go away as soon as the > economy took an upturn. > > To which I sad then as I say now, come back in ten years, we'll see then > who's still standing. > > On Thursday, November 1, 2018 at 4:22:10 PM UTC+1, Angel Kwiatkowski wrote: >> >> Jeanine, >> I remember this woman who was familiar with Cohere but was working in a >> regular job in the next town. She showed up on our doorstep one day after >> lunch and proclaimed, "I just got laid off. I didn't want to go home so I >> came here instead." >> >> A >> >> On Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at 3:37:30 AM UTC-6, Jeannine van der >> Linden wrote: >>> >>> 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.
