I am considering starting a coworking space and I am wondering if anyone here has any suggestions for resources that can assist me in doing market research, developing a business plan, etc…
I am looking at opening in a city that is saturated with co-working spaces in the downtown core but has a lot of suburban “cities” with downtowns of their own that do not have any spaces at all - I’m trying to find a way to assess demand and plug that into a business plan to see if the business idea is feasible.
What communities are you already a part of, involved in, or have personal connections into, that might benefit from having a better way to gather?
Market demand for coworking is easy to confuse for things like “market demand for office” - the last thing you want to do is find market demand, but it’s for a commodity!
I have the same question
I`m from Argentina.
There are interesting trends about the coworking industry in my country (30-40% annual growth rates in sqft offered) so we’re considering opening a for-profit space.
We already have an investor so fortunately that item is already checked out of our list.
What I’m trying to figure out is about location: right now we are considering two options:
Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area: around 10 million inhabitants, the capital city of our country, and one of the biggest cities in South America. . Right now it takes account of almost 75% of the coworking space offering. Much of this offer is concentrated in 2 or 3 big players.
Rosario city: 1.5 inhabitants (the 3rd. biggest city in the country), 4% of the coworking space offering.
Of course, Buenos Aires seems attractive since it’s full of businesses, start-ups, middle and big size companies, etc. but still, the location would be self-limiting to a specific area (it is a really big city!) and, fo course, there are competitors everywhere!
On the other hand, Rosario is a much smaller city (but with a strong entrepreneurial community), where there are already some players already established. Definitely operating costs are going to be a lot cheaper in Rosario than Buenos Aires.
The big question I’m trying to answer is: should I mainly prioritize population/offer ratios (that is, decide to start the business in Buenos Aires, where there is a lot more population) or should I consider establishing the business in a smaller city where there is already some competition in place, but with more chances of being able to differentiate our offer?
Is there an estimation of how “saturated” the market is to make this decision?
Thanks in advance for any advice given.
Regards
Cecilia
I am a lawyer that is looking at coworking as a potential side business. I don’t think that the coworking model is suitable to the legal profession (at least not the way that I’m envisioning the space) for a number of reasons including client confidentiality. Other than that I’m not really tied into any professional or creative communities - I would be seeking strategic partnerships to help market the space to freelancers, creatives and entrepreneurs.
Couple of thoughts here - first up Cecilia I’ve built a free tool that is designed to help you answer that specific question. Not going to link to it here but if you look up my profile and go to our companies website - you’ll find it.
Ilan I’ve seen a couple of legal-specific coworking spaces - it’s actually a surprisingly profitable model - maybe lawyers are rich! The floorplan’s I’ve seen were loads of 1-person and 2-person offices, with ~3 meeting rooms. I guess it’s not coworking in the sense of community and shared workspaces but it was run like a coworking space and from talking to the owner he was able to build up a ‘stable’ of lawyers across different domains - such that one lawyer would refer the client to another one and so on… kinda cool
kinda cool