Two years ago I was in a few conversations to expand my Denver based coworking chain through operations management agreements. My partners and I were in the final stages of lease negotiations and then they both fell through. In one situation, the landlord decided to go with a project that wouldn’t require much renovation and the other was for out of nerves for starting a business as costs became all too real. As the experieenced coworking operator, I was the steady handed partner for new entrpreneurs that wanted to enter the coworking world. In both situations, I was going to be the operator of the space and simply share in 5% to 10% of the monthly reevenue.
Operations Management Agreements can be a win-win for both parties and it’s something that a lot of us space owners have talked about for years now. There are two big hurdles - finding the right owner/partner, and getting the expensive legal work completed.
Once I was far enough along with the process with my two potential partners I needed to get the legal documents created for our new partnership. Operating agreements can be complicated beasts because of state laws and they flirt with the world of franchising, a very highly regulated segment. I contacted a few space owners that did operating agreements before and asked to purchase their agreements as templates. They were too busy to get things in order in the time frame that I needed. So, I had to work with a lawyer and draft my own coworking operating agreement documents. It still took a few weeks and over $8,000 to get it 95% of the way completed.
As you can imagine, when both deals fell through, this was disappointing and my bank account took a good hit without anything to show.
However, it wasn’t for nothing. I figure these documents should be available to shorten the timeline and lower the cost for all other coworking entrepreneurs looking to develop Operating Management Agreements.
If you are interested in expanding through an operations management partnership let me know. I would be happy to see if they are a good fit your needs.
These documents were orginally written for my coworking spaces in Denver, CO called Creative Density.