Hi all,
As someone who is relatively new to the world of coworking (I only realised it existed about 6 months ago!) I was curious to hear people’s views on community vs corporate coworking spaces.
As someone who is looking to setup a coworking space there appear to be two distinct views as far as I can see.
One side - community - seems to come from the side of most commonly associated with the original view of coworking - start a community first, figure out what they want and then create a space to suit the community.
The other side - corporate - looks like it takes the view, create some amazing spaces and “they will come”. I’m thinking specifically about WeWork and the other companies that are like them. For example, I could be wrong, but I’m not sure that WeWork necessarily invest massive amounts of resources in creating a community in an area before they launch a new space?
Is this simply a question of things moving on or is there evidence to suggest that the community method is preferable and therefore more sustainable?
My hunch would be that there are more “community” minded people in this forum which might make things a little biased bit I’d be interested to hear regardless.
I’m in the process of looking at launching a dedicated coworking space in a city in the UK that doesn’t have any spaces yet, and so (again) my hunch would be that community first is the way to go in order to quantify the demand.
Thanks again!
Mark