I’m considering real estate (for lease) in Round Rock, north of Austin (basically just up the road) Most options are professional office suites styles and some come with a large open space, ideal for open desking, but none are just right which has me question: is it better to build out first or hear what the members want, see how they use the space and build out later? (knowing that causes an imposition). Not all landlords offer tenant improvement dollars or concessions otherwise.
Is this a case of the Henry Ford question, “If you asked people what they wanted, they’d want faster horses?” Considering that this community doesn’t have coworking, yet. Am I the one to ‘teach’ them how to cowork through the use of space, services, and community?
Can a cowork take root and move forward in a space that looks like a ‘traditional’ office space, but offers a completely different experience? Do walls keep the community from forming successfully? Could a community room offer the collective space although each office would have 4 desks per (most are overly large offices)?
Mostly I’m concerned that I build in a conference room and no one really needs/uses it. I build in an audio studio and no one needs/uses it. I have local area alternatives for these needs that I can purchase and pass on to the members at a discount and/or value add.
Your mileage may vary, but we got absolutely no response from any kind of value added feature we tried to build in to coworking. There are definitely businesses that have built coworking around a specific feature (like Weld in Dallas, which has a very nice photography/video studio available for it’s members) but IMO, the only people who are really concerned with built in features are the ones looking for higher end coworking. We’re at a fairly low price point for the area, and our members/leads are pretty much only interested in location, atmosphere, price, and if they have a place to take phone calls.
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On Tuesday, September 8, 2015 at 5:52:42 PM UTC-5, Jennifer Kready wrote:
I’m considering real estate (for lease) in Round Rock, north of Austin (basically just up the road) Most options are professional office suites styles and some come with a large open space, ideal for open desking, but none are just right which has me question: is it better to build out first or hear what the members want, see how they use the space and build out later? (knowing that causes an imposition). Not all landlords offer tenant improvement dollars or concessions otherwise.
Is this a case of the Henry Ford question, “If you asked people what they wanted, they’d want faster horses?” Considering that this community doesn’t have coworking, yet. Am I the one to ‘teach’ them how to cowork through the use of space, services, and community?
Can a cowork take root and move forward in a space that looks like a ‘traditional’ office space, but offers a completely different experience? Do walls keep the community from forming successfully? Could a community room offer the collective space although each office would have 4 desks per (most are overly large offices)?
Mostly I’m concerned that I build in a conference room and no one really needs/uses it. I build in an audio studio and no one needs/uses it. I have local area alternatives for these needs that I can purchase and pass on to the members at a discount and/or value add.
We are using Typeform to do a few surveys. First we’re focusing on nonprofit Directors, because they collectively spend thousands of dollars a month on offices typically used 3 days a week. We ask about # of phone calls a day, how many people on the phone at once, if they are loud talkers or sales people and what their privacy concerns are. Find your launch audience and talk to them a lot.
This has been helpful to realize that having a few retro phone booths in the space (fairly common in coworking spaces) aren’t as useful as a larger space with a small desk for two people. No offices either! If they want that they can rent across the street in a cool old mill building. The better we define our space early on, the easier it is to find and accept people who are a good fit. Conference room can be $5-$10k depending on how much glass and sound proofing you want. We’re considering making cheap ones out of windows to delineate space for launch, and we’ll upgrade to wall to ceiling glass once revenue kicks in and demand is clearly stated. We’re only 12,000 people in town and our space is open plan all the way. I’d rather have great people than spend $20k on offices and privacy for people who really just want cheap office space.
Don’t bolt anything to the wall and make everything reconfigurable to keep the space looking fresh. Stackable desks and chairs, movable walls, all really key, at least for us.
Audio studio seems like a stretch, but I’ve never even thought of offering that as there are a bunch of recording studios around and what is that demand like?
I’d agree with Jensen and keep your space as flexible and general-purpose as possible. You never know what your members will want, because truthfully, they don’t know what they want until they need it.
As for whether or not to build out, that was a question I faced early on - mainly because of the limited, suitable real estate options in my area and because there’s no such thing as a turnkey coworking space. I found a few vacant office spaces with open areas that could have worked, but I knew I’d be compromising my vision from day one by retrofitting a space that wasn’t purpose-built for coworking. Ultimately, I focused on vacant spaces (or spaces I could demo) so that I could design it from the ground up. THE CATCH: it’s f*cking expensive! Work with an architect to estimate your costs, and factor it into your business plan to make sure it makes sense for you. If you can get tenant improvement allowance from your landlord (and you should from any decent landlord that isn’t underwater on their property), then all the better!
Slightly divergent question, but since part of the problem seems to be the spaces you’re finding…what sources are you using to find potential locations?
I’m currently going through the space search process again and I quickly had to remind the folks that are helping me that we’re not going to find the kind of space we’re looking for on MLS listings and other commercial lease/sale directories. They’re all full of cookie cutter vanilla space.
Craigslist is a massively underrated source for finding awesome oddball spots that need minimal overhaul, but there’s also ZERO replacement for knocking on doors.
I look back on the last spot we found and realizing that our current space wasn’t on the market, anywhere. We found it because one of our members was having a meeting in the building, thought “this is interesting and I know that Indy Hall is looking for a new home” and then asking for landlord contact info from the other tenant.
I’d agree with Jensen and keep your space as flexible and general-purpose as possible. You never know what your members will want, because truthfully, they don’t know what they want until they need it.
As for whether or not to build out, that was a question I faced early on - mainly because of the limited, suitable real estate options in my area and because there’s no such thing as a turnkey coworking space. I found a few vacant office spaces with open areas that could have worked, but I knew I’d be compromising my vision from day one by retrofitting a space that wasn’t purpose-built for coworking. Ultimately, I focused on vacant spaces (or spaces I could demo) so that I could design it from the ground up. THE CATCH: it’s f*cking expensive! Work with an architect to estimate your costs, and factor it into your business plan to make sure it makes sense for you. If you can get tenant improvement allowance from your landlord (and you should from any decent landlord that isn’t underwater on their property), then all the better!
Jensen: I didn’t make it down for your grand opening Thank you for your thoughts on the ‘value add ins’ that may price me out of opening the doors.
David - check… don’t bolt anything to the walls
Josh - great to hear your opinion. I lost sight of flexibility being the key. Semper Gumby. Your f’in expensive motto is one I’m trying to mitigate for sure. Until I have capital and credibility under my belt, I don’t want to invest too much $ into a building I may not stay in.
And as always - Alex. I have a tenant rep who combs the back halls of MLS that I can’t see and I do my own searches otherwise. I have not fully considered Craigslist and will spend some time combing that offering. Perhaps I need to put my Mazda6 in drive more often, as I’m looking at MLS, to see what’s out there. I should use my 100+ cowork member community for their eyes (and ears) more than not. Good reminder!
As always, it’s great to ask questions because I know I’m not the only one with them. Until next week’s question…
