Hi from New Jersey - Researching Coworking

👋 Intros
1

Hi all,

I’m an IT professional hailing from the NYC area. At the moment I am doing a bit of research on coworking spaces as I would like to start one in one of the local Northern New Jersey suburbs. Really glad I stumbled across this forum, and I’m interested to hear about others experiences and any helpful tips.

Regards,
Aaron

2

Hey Aaron,

We just opened The Station last summer. We’re in the heart of Chatham Borough and our building is adjacent to the train station. We started The Station with the belief that the younger, modern workforce will return from the cities to the suburbs.

We’ve noticed a lot of our initial customer base lived in the immediate area, but worked in NYC and they were looking for a place to split their time during the week. Most have flexible work schedules that allow them to work from home, but they quickly realized working from home comes with distractions (pets, kids, etc).

Temporarily, our space is closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, but we’re moving a lot of events and community discussions to digital platforms like Slack.

Let me know if I can help answer any questions you have at all. We’re definitely polishing our practices as we grow.

3

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your reply. After you better understood your market/customer base, how did you determine that it was time to actually build out a co-working space? One thing that I’d fear is putting in effort to lease and outfit a space and no one show up. Did you create community engagement and then host freelancers, etc in a smaller, interim location first?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Aaron