Short-guide to opening a coworking space

If you want to open up a Coworking Space, there has never been a better time to do it. Coworking Spaces are so much in demand. Although it looks simple a lot of time, effort, and research are needed to open one. Reason being if you want to open up a coworking space you want it to be successful.

Below is a checklist of what you need to do(in the particular order) to open up a coworking space.

1. Research

2. Location

3. Mission and Audience

4. Design and Build

5. Management

6. Sales and Marketing

7. Technology

8. Investment and Finance

1. Research – You need to understand the business model, the industry the trends, the market, Demand and supply, history, and much more. You could refer to books like Coworking: Building Community as a Space Catalyst by Angel Kwiatkowski & Beth Buczynski to get an in-depth analysis of what Coworking is.

2. Location: You need to find the perfect location to open up your coworking space. Around 40% of your revenue will go into renting the real estate your space is built on. The lower the better. Not just pricing but other factors about a location like accessibility, surroundings, weather, the audience you are targeting about your location will largely impact the people coming to your space.

3. Mission and Audience: You need to have a mission of your coworking space. What differentiates you from other coworking spaces. This could be in terms of design, industry, and audience you are catering to or could be the problems you solve that other’s don’t. Your mission/goal will drive everything you do from now on. For e.g. – you want to build a coworking space purely based on improving productivity. In this case, you would design, build, and target people who are looking for pure productivity apart from having the core values and benefits of a coworking space.

4. Design and Build – You need to have a design team on board that aligns with your mission and makes the best use of your real estate without compromising the efficiency and beautiful design.

Your build team should be able to build up your space as fast as possible so that you can take advantage of your rent-free period and use that as extra time to fill up your space once it’s ready. Your landlord would usually offer 6 months or more of the rent-free period. If you are done making your space in 3 months. Then you have 3 more months to avoid burning money if you don’t fill up your space.

5. Management – To manage your space you need to hire the right people. People who are ready to take upon the challenge. Specifically people from the Hospitality industry, good at managing people and managing things. You need to make sure you never run out of things, have weekly events for your community which will help you reduce churn.

6. Sales and Marketing: Once you have a mission in mind, you know what kind of target audience you are looking at which will set goals for the marketing and sales team to reach out and convert the correct people. Offering aggressive discounts for initial periods is a great way to have people try out your product. Closing deals before opening up a coworking space is also very much achievable with the right sales and marketing.

7. Technology: Your space should be equipped with the latest stuff that technology has to offer so that you are always up with the latest compatibility and trends. You need to have a Coworking Space Management Software – CoworkingOps.com. A Coworking Space Management software helps you manage your space better, adds value to your brand, and drives community. CoworkingOps.com also comes with an inbuilt CRM so you don’t have to switch between software for different verticals of your Coworking Space.

8. Investment and Finance: You need an initial investment to build a coworking space, the numbers vary largely due to the real estate but also because of other factors like design and build. Post your space is up and running, you will need finance to run your space. Again this would vary based on how much are you generating in revenue from space. You can save money on operations for greater profits. Lastly and most importantly your pricing will decide how soon you achieve profits from your coworking space.

Yug Jain