Re: [Coworking] Re: Determining capacity

[Angel Kwiatkowski]

YES!!! It will be very helpful as you sort through a range of ways to make 
and spend money!!

Angel

On Thursday, April 27, 2017 at 12:54:24 PM UTC-6, Kevin Haggerty wrote:
>
> I'm hugely appreciative of all who have weighed in. I know you are all 
> very busy, so it means a lot to me.
>
> Angel: I went ahead and picked up your cashflow spreadsheet. I can read 
> through it while I'm listening to Alex's audiobook! :)
>

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Re: [Coworking] Re: Determining capacity

[Kevin Haggerty]

I'm hugely appreciative of all who have weighed in. I know you are all very 
busy, so it means a lot to me.

Angel: I went ahead and picked up your cashflow spreadsheet. I can read through 
it while I'm listening to Alex's audiobook! :)

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Re: [Coworking] Re: Determining capacity

[Jerome Chang]

I'd like to add that square footage calculations can vary and mislead. For 
example, some markets list, say, 5000 "rentable sf" but that might include a 
proportional share of common areas in the overall building. Others list 5000sf 
plus a load factor, say, 30%. 

Focus on usable or net square footage. That's the space most would consider as 
"their space", without hidden HVAC shafts, cavity space, etc.

FYI, gross sf is slightly misleading, up to 5-10% off because they include wall 
thicknesses that you can't occupy.

Jerome, architect
www.BLANKSPACES.com

> On Apr 27, 2017, at 8:40 AM, Angel Kwiatkowski  wrote:
> 
> Correct, you claim 28ft2 as your work area but can then wander another 
> 1,200ft2 of common areas throughout the day. Those number are super estimated 
> as I've never measured the footage of our hallways, kitchen or patio.
> 
>> On Thursday, April 27, 2017 at 9:34:01 AM UTC-6, Alex Hillman wrote:
>> Yes yes yes - look at Angel's numbers. 
>> 
>> I also really love the "total number of people/days you can sell per week" 
>> model. It's absolutely the most realistic. Also, in practice, we've learned 
>> that it's valuable to track the number of unused desks on a daily basis 
>> (even if it's a rough count) so you know how often (and on which days) you 
>> get close to capacity. This it gives you a number where worst case scenario 
>> is that you start a waiting list for higher-usage levels of membership. We 
>> often have a waiting list for full time spots, and occasionally put a 
>> temporary waiting list on our 3 day a week plans to make sure that we're not 
>> oversold to the point where someone might not have a desk. 
>>  
>>> I have 10 desks in 288 ft2 (28 ft2 per person) where we comfortably cowork 
>>> so that kind of blows the 100 ft2 thing out of the water.
>> 
>> Just to clarify this - it sounds like dense areas of desks are also balanced 
>> with common areas (patio, living room, kitchen, etc), right? I only 
>> recommend the 100 ft2 thing as a starting point because it's doable. And if 
>> you can achieve more density and be comfortable, your numbers are only going 
>> to improve. I always try to estimate on the conservative side vs the optimal 
>> side. 
>> 
>> Like I said - conservative guidelines. ;) We've also packed people in and 
>> made it work! he thing to remember is that not all square feet are 
>> equal...our most recent move was only ~10% more linear square feet, but we 
>> were able to increase capacity by over 30% because of the way the room ways 
>> shaped. 
>> 
>> Looking back at our numbers, our original space maxed out at 26 desks 
>> sharing ~1800 square feet (including common areas like a kitchen, lounge, 
>> and single meeting room), so not far off from Angel's numbers. That was 
>> cozy...and worked great. I think we had ~70 members when we had readily 
>> outgrown it, and when our waiting list kept growing we decided to look at 
>> new options. 
>> 
>> There's a zillion ways to fit desks into different shaped rooms. I'm blown 
>> away how many ways we've rearranged little rectangles inside of bigger 
>> rectangles. It seems like there's always a better way we haven't tried yet. 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> 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 Thu, Apr 27, 2017 at 11:04 AM, Angel Kwiatkowski  
>>> wrote:
>>> First, here's a 50% off coupon for anything in my store. I can't recommend 
>>> the cash flow for year 1 enough to you. It will illuminate so many things 
>>> for you. http://coherecommunity.com/the-goods code: pleasehelpme
>>> It gives you realistic membership projections for a variety of membership 
>>> options as well as lines for each and every expense you could ever imagine 
>>> having to pay for.
>>> 
>>> Next, capacity is hard. I have 10 desks in 288 ft2 (28 ft2 per person) 
>>> where we comfortably cowork so that kind of blows the 100 ft2 thing out of 
>>> the water.
>>> 
>>> The simplest calculation is to Multiply how many desks you have times 5 
>>> (days/week). That gives you the TOTAL number of days you can sell per week. 
>>> So for 10 desks x 5 days you have 50 days per week to sell. Let's say you 
>>> get 10 people who want full time memberships. That's your capacity. If 
>>> they're all flex desks you can start to play around with overselling 
>>> memberships like a gym. Maybe you can handle 13 full time members at 10 
>>> desks b/c I have never found a member that uses 100% of a full time 
>>> membership.
>>> 
>>> Other numbers:
>>> 
>>> We have 58 members right now in a total of 2,500 ft2 (48 ft2/person). Half 
>>> of those members are in 7 private offices, which probably take 40% of my 
>>> total square footage. The other 26 members are all sharing the 10 desks 
>>> upstairs in addition to 7 other places 

Re: [Coworking] Re: Determining capacity

[Angel Kwiatkowski]

Correct, you claim 28ft2 as your work area but can then wander another 
1,200ft2 of common areas throughout the day. Those number are super 
estimated as I've never measured the footage of our hallways, kitchen or 
patio.

On Thursday, April 27, 2017 at 9:34:01 AM UTC-6, Alex Hillman wrote:
>
> Yes yes yes - look at Angel's numbers. 
>
> I also really love the "total number of people/days you can sell per week" 
> model. It's absolutely the most realistic. Also, in practice, we've learned 
> that it's valuable to track the number of unused desks on a daily basis 
> (even if it's a rough count) so you know how often (and on which days) you 
> get close to capacity. This it gives you a number where worst case scenario 
> is that you start a waiting list for higher-usage levels of membership. We 
> often have a waiting list for full time spots, and occasionally put a 
> temporary waiting list on our 3 day a week plans to make sure that we're 
> not oversold to the point where someone might not have a desk. 
>  
>
>> I have 10 desks in 288 ft2 (28 ft2 per person) where we comfortably 
>> cowork so that kind of blows the 100 ft2 thing out of the water.
>
>
> Just to clarify this - it sounds like dense areas of desks are also 
> balanced with common areas (patio, living room, kitchen, etc), right? I 
> only recommend the 100 ft2 thing as a starting point because it's *doable*. 
> And if you can achieve more density and be comfortable, your numbers are 
> only going to improve. I always try to estimate on the conservative side vs 
> the optimal side. 
>
> Like I said - conservative guidelines. ;) We've also packed people in and 
> made it work! he thing to remember is that not all square feet are 
> equal...our most recent move was only ~10% more linear square feet, but we 
> were able to increase capacity by over 30% because of the way the room ways 
> shaped. 
>
> Looking back at our numbers, our original space maxed out at 26 desks 
> sharing ~1800 square feet (including common areas like a kitchen, lounge, 
> and single meeting room), so not far off from Angel's numbers. That was 
> cozy...and worked great. I think we had ~70 members when we had readily 
> outgrown it, and when our waiting list kept growing we decided to look at 
> new options. 
>
> There's a zillion ways to fit desks into different shaped rooms. I'm blown 
> away how many ways we've rearranged little rectangles inside of bigger 
> rectangles. It seems like there's always a better way we haven't tried yet. 
>
>
>
>
> --
> *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 Thu, Apr 27, 2017 at 11:04 AM, Angel Kwiatkowski  > wrote:
>
>> First, here's a 50% off coupon for anything in my store. I can't 
>> recommend the cash flow for year 1 enough to you. It will illuminate so 
>> many things for you. http://coherecommunity.com/the-goods code: 
>> pleasehelpme
>> It gives you realistic membership projections for a variety of membership 
>> options as well as lines for each and every expense you could ever imagine 
>> having to pay for.
>>
>> Next, capacity is hard. I have 10 desks in 288 ft2 (28 ft2 per person) 
>> where we comfortably cowork so that kind of blows the 100 ft2 thing out of 
>> the water.
>>
>> The simplest calculation is to Multiply how many desks you have times 5 
>> (days/week). That gives you the TOTAL number of days you can sell per week. 
>> So for 10 desks x 5 days you have 50 days per week to sell. Let's say you 
>> get 10 people who want full time memberships. That's your capacity. If 
>> they're all flex desks you can start to play around with overselling 
>> memberships like a gym. Maybe you can handle 13 full time members at 10 
>> desks b/c I have never found a member that uses 100% of a full time 
>> membership.
>>
>> Other numbers:
>>
>> We have 58 members right now in a total of 2,500 ft2 (48 ft2/person). 
>> Half of those members are in 7 private offices, which probably take 40% of 
>> my total square footage. The other 26 members are all sharing the 10 desks 
>> upstairs in addition to 7 other places (closets turned into workspaces, 
>> chairs on stair landings, patio, living room and kitchen) they can work 
>> throughout the building so I *could* cram 17 flex deskers in here at any 
>> given moment but I keep my number around 10-11 per day. Cohere's members 
>> are highly engaged and tend to use most of their membership allowance which 
>> drives down how much I can oversell memberships.
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, April 25, 2017 at 7:50:08 PM UTC-6, Kevin Haggerty wrote:
>>>
>>> How did you guys determine where to cap number of memberships,  etc, 
>>> since the building is used at different times by different people? Hope my 
>>> question makes sense.  :)
>>
>> -- 
>> Visit this forum on the web at 

Re: [Coworking] Re: Determining capacity

[Angel Kwiatkowski]

Our smallest office is 8x11 ft and rents for $425/month, our largest office 
is $208 ft2 and sells for $700/month but it's in the basement with only 1 
little window. 

Aside from size, anything can be worked as a private office as long as it 
has a door, adding exterior windows seems to be the thing that drives up 
price and therefore profitability. You just want to make sure that you can 
get at least 40% more for the square footage of an office than what you pay 
in rent.

Angel

On Thursday, April 27, 2017 at 9:16:08 AM UTC-6, Jen Luby wrote:
>
> While we're on the subject, is there a guideline for private office 
> size (i.e. offices that are permanently rented out to members on a 
> monthly or even yearly basis)? I was originally thinking 10'x10', 
> which fits into the 100sf rule. But maybe it's different when you've 
> got four walls to define "your" space? 
>
> Jen 
>
> On Thu, Apr 27, 2017 at 8:48 AM, Alex Hillman 
>  wrote: 
> > Jen's numbers are pretty close - 100sf per person (that's counts for all 
> > common areas, too) is a decent rule of thumb. The 4-to-1 ratio only 
> works on 
> > flex desks though, so that final count isn't quite right. 
> > 
> > I generally recommend staying between 40-60% full time desks, and 
> keeping 
> > the rest flex, to avoid territorialism and maximize the 
> > serendipity/collision potential that everyone raves about with 
> coworking. 
> > 
> > So 5000 sq ft would could be 50 spots, and if you did an even split of 
> full 
> > and flex (you'd have a estimated membership capacity of 25 + (25*4), or 
> 125. 
> > For a 5000 square foot space, this is a much more realistic number 
> before 
> > you start running into issues or ever needing to worry about 
> overbooking. 
> > 
> > With all of that math said, two caveats: 
> > this calculation depends SO heavily on everything from the kinds of 
> members 
> > in your community, the other work environments they have access to/use 
> > already, and even the seasons and weather. 
> > 
> > The OTHER thing, and this is the most important, is that knowing what I 
> know 
> > now I would actively try to avoid tying membership capacity to square 
> > footage. Yes, the workspace has finite resources but the COMMUNITY can 
> exist 
> > (and thrive) beyond the walls of the space. 60%+ of our members almost 
> never 
> > use the space, but get value from membership through events and online 
> > community interactions. 
> > 
> > Honestly, we had this baked into our founding community and it kinda 
> fell 
> > off a few years in, but once we started focusing on it again it's been 
> the 
> > biggest aspect of our growth. People join before they need a desk to 
> have a 
> > supportive community as they figure out their next professional move, 
> and 
> > people keep memberships after job changes and physical relocations where 
> > they don't need a desk, but still have ways to belong and contribute. 
> > 
> > So get the numbers as a baseline, and make sure they add up. Then look 
> for 
> > ways to grow membership that aren't tied to square footage. That's where 
> the 
> > growth and resiliency is! 
> > 
> > -Alex 
> > 
> > 
> > On Apr 27, 2017, 9:30 AM -0400, Kevin Haggerty  >, 
> > wrote: 
> > 
> > Thank you, Jen. This was very helpful. :) 
> > 
> > -- 
> > 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+...@googlegroups.com . 
> > 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 a topic in the 
> > Google Groups "Coworking" group. 
> > To unsubscribe from this topic, visit 
> > https://groups.google.com/d/topic/coworking/dcS5nb6vpvQ/unsubscribe. 
> > To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to 
> > coworking+...@googlegroups.com . 
> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. 
>
>
>
> -- 
>  
> Jennifer Dunham Luby 
> jenni...@gmail.com  
> c: 847.207.0358 
>

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Re: [Coworking] Re: Determining capacity

[Alex Hillman]

Yes yes yes - look at Angel's numbers.

I also really love the "total number of people/days you can sell per week"
model. It's absolutely the most realistic. Also, in practice, we've learned
that it's valuable to track the number of unused desks on a daily basis
(even if it's a rough count) so you know how often (and on which days) you
get close to capacity. This it gives you a number where worst case scenario
is that you start a waiting list for higher-usage levels of membership. We
often have a waiting list for full time spots, and occasionally put a
temporary waiting list on our 3 day a week plans to make sure that we're
not oversold to the point where someone might not have a desk.


> I have 10 desks in 288 ft2 (28 ft2 per person) where we comfortably cowork
> so that kind of blows the 100 ft2 thing out of the water.


Just to clarify this - it sounds like dense areas of desks are also
balanced with common areas (patio, living room, kitchen, etc), right? I
only recommend the 100 ft2 thing as a starting point because it's *doable*.
And if you can achieve more density and be comfortable, your numbers are
only going to improve. I always try to estimate on the conservative side vs
the optimal side.

Like I said - conservative guidelines. ;) We've also packed people in and
made it work! he thing to remember is that not all square feet are
equal...our most recent move was only ~10% more linear square feet, but we
were able to increase capacity by over 30% because of the way the room ways
shaped.

Looking back at our numbers, our original space maxed out at 26 desks
sharing ~1800 square feet (including common areas like a kitchen, lounge,
and single meeting room), so not far off from Angel's numbers. That was
cozy...and worked great. I think we had ~70 members when we had readily
outgrown it, and when our waiting list kept growing we decided to look at
new options.

There's a zillion ways to fit desks into different shaped rooms. I'm blown
away how many ways we've rearranged little rectangles inside of bigger
rectangles. It seems like there's always a better way we haven't tried yet.




--
*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 Thu, Apr 27, 2017 at 11:04 AM, Angel Kwiatkowski 
wrote:

> First, here's a 50% off coupon for anything in my store. I can't recommend
> the cash flow for year 1 enough to you. It will illuminate so many things
> for you. http://coherecommunity.com/the-goods code: pleasehelpme
> It gives you realistic membership projections for a variety of membership
> options as well as lines for each and every expense you could ever imagine
> having to pay for.
>
> Next, capacity is hard. I have 10 desks in 288 ft2 (28 ft2 per person)
> where we comfortably cowork so that kind of blows the 100 ft2 thing out of
> the water.
>
> The simplest calculation is to Multiply how many desks you have times 5
> (days/week). That gives you the TOTAL number of days you can sell per week.
> So for 10 desks x 5 days you have 50 days per week to sell. Let's say you
> get 10 people who want full time memberships. That's your capacity. If
> they're all flex desks you can start to play around with overselling
> memberships like a gym. Maybe you can handle 13 full time members at 10
> desks b/c I have never found a member that uses 100% of a full time
> membership.
>
> Other numbers:
>
> We have 58 members right now in a total of 2,500 ft2 (48 ft2/person). Half
> of those members are in 7 private offices, which probably take 40% of my
> total square footage. The other 26 members are all sharing the 10 desks
> upstairs in addition to 7 other places (closets turned into workspaces,
> chairs on stair landings, patio, living room and kitchen) they can work
> throughout the building so I *could* cram 17 flex deskers in here at any
> given moment but I keep my number around 10-11 per day. Cohere's members
> are highly engaged and tend to use most of their membership allowance which
> drives down how much I can oversell memberships.
>
>
> On Tuesday, April 25, 2017 at 7:50:08 PM UTC-6, Kevin Haggerty wrote:
>>
>> How did you guys determine where to cap number of memberships,  etc,
>> since the building is used at different times by different people? Hope my
>> question makes sense.  :)
>
> --
> 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.
>

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Re: [Coworking] Re: Determining capacity

[Kevin Haggerty]

Thanks, Angel!

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Re: [Coworking] Re: Determining capacity

[Kevin Haggerty]

Alex,

Thank you! This is hugely helpful too!

Totally hear you on adding value beyond the space. I've recently begun to talk 
to another local entrepreneur who had previously been interested in starting a 
local small business incubator. A mutual friend of ours (who acts as a mentor 
for us both) put us in contact with each other a few days ago, and we really 
hit it off. Turns out, we both had a similar vision, which was to help small 
businesses and entrepreneurs in Gloucester, VA to be successful -- we just were 
pursuing it in different ways.

Moreover, we both felt (and feel) that our different strengths and connections 
complement the others', and it just seemed like it made more sense to 
collaborate than to compete against each other with such similar ideas and 
visions.

So, we decided that we are going to partner together to create what will be a 
coworking space that also happens to be a small business incubator. We're 
working to establish an advisory of local businesspeople who would essentially 
act as mentors. The mentors all would come from diverse fields (local business 
owners, accountants, lawyers, marketers, and various other consultants who will 
bring value), and they'd be asked to donate an hour a month of 
consulting/advising for the members. The advisors will also  
be asked / have the opportunity to lead classes and workshops which will give 
them opportunity to pour into the members, but also to advertise their 
services, so it's reciprocal value, hopefully.

We know that the incubator aspect will not appeal to all, but that is true of 
the coffee, the printer, the meeting room, and even the coworking space to an 
extent, right? :)

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Re: [Coworking] Re: Determining capacity

[Jen Luby]

While we're on the subject, is there a guideline for private office
size (i.e. offices that are permanently rented out to members on a
monthly or even yearly basis)? I was originally thinking 10'x10',
which fits into the 100sf rule. But maybe it's different when you've
got four walls to define "your" space?

Jen

On Thu, Apr 27, 2017 at 8:48 AM, Alex Hillman
 wrote:
> Jen's numbers are pretty close - 100sf per person (that's counts for all
> common areas, too) is a decent rule of thumb. The 4-to-1 ratio only works on
> flex desks though, so that final count isn't quite right.
>
> I generally recommend staying between 40-60% full time desks, and keeping
> the rest flex, to avoid territorialism and maximize the
> serendipity/collision potential that everyone raves about with coworking.
>
> So 5000 sq ft would could be 50 spots, and if you did an even split of full
> and flex (you'd have a estimated membership capacity of 25 + (25*4), or 125.
> For a 5000 square foot space, this is a much more realistic number before
> you start running into issues or ever needing to worry about overbooking.
>
> With all of that math said, two caveats:
> this calculation depends SO heavily on everything from the kinds of members
> in your community, the other work environments they have access to/use
> already, and even the seasons and weather.
>
> The OTHER thing, and this is the most important, is that knowing what I know
> now I would actively try to avoid tying membership capacity to square
> footage. Yes, the workspace has finite resources but the COMMUNITY can exist
> (and thrive) beyond the walls of the space. 60%+ of our members almost never
> use the space, but get value from membership through events and online
> community interactions.
>
> Honestly, we had this baked into our founding community and it kinda fell
> off a few years in, but once we started focusing on it again it's been the
> biggest aspect of our growth. People join before they need a desk to have a
> supportive community as they figure out their next professional move, and
> people keep memberships after job changes and physical relocations where
> they don't need a desk, but still have ways to belong and contribute.
>
> So get the numbers as a baseline, and make sure they add up. Then look for
> ways to grow membership that aren't tied to square footage. That's where the
> growth and resiliency is!
>
> -Alex
>
>
> On Apr 27, 2017, 9:30 AM -0400, Kevin Haggerty ,
> wrote:
>
> Thank you, Jen. This was very helpful. :)
>
> --
> 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
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> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>
> --
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-- 

Jennifer Dunham Luby
jennife...@gmail.com
c: 847.207.0358

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Re: [Coworking] Re: Determining capacity

[Alex Hillman]

Jen's numbers are pretty close - 100sf per person (that's counts for all common 
areas, too) is a decent rule of thumb. The 4-to-1 ratio only works on flex 
desks though, so that final count isn't quite right.

I generally recommend staying between 40-60% full time desks, and keeping the 
rest flex, to avoid territorialism and maximize the serendipity/collision 
potential that everyone raves about with coworking.

So 5000 sq ft would could be 50 spots, and if you did an even split of full and 
flex (you'd have a estimated membership capacity of 25 + (25*4), or 125. For a 
5000 square foot space, this is a much more realistic number before you start 
running into issues or ever needing to worry about overbooking.

With all of that math said, two caveats:
this calculation depends SO heavily on everything from the kinds of members in 
your community, the other work environments they have access to/use already, 
and even the seasons and weather.

The OTHER thing, and this is the most important, is that knowing what I know 
now I would actively try to avoid tying membership capacity to square footage. 
Yes, the workspace has finite resources but the COMMUNITY can exist (and 
thrive) beyond the walls of the space. 60%+ of our members almost never use the 
space, but get value from membership through events and online community 
interactions.

Honestly, we had this baked into our founding community and it kinda fell off a 
few years in, but once we started focusing on it again it's been the biggest 
aspect of our growth. People join before they need a desk to have a supportive 
community as they figure out their next professional move, and people keep 
memberships after job changes and physical relocations where they don't need a 
desk, but still have ways to belong and contribute.

So get the numbers as a baseline, and make sure they add up. Then look for ways 
to grow membership that aren't tied to square footage. That's where the growth 
and resiliency is!

-Alex

On Apr 27, 2017, 9:30 AM -0400, Kevin Haggerty , 
wrote:
> Thank you, Jen. This was very helpful. :)
>
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