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NYC Coworking Discussion Recap and My Thoughts on Coworking
Written by Allen Stern - November 3, 2007
This morning I headed to Alphabet City for a discussion about coworking in Manhattan hosted at Gramstand. Unfortunately I didn't grab a card from everyone but here are the folks I knew: Alex Hillman of IndependentsHall (IH), Tara Hunt of CitizenSpace (CS), Nikita Bernstein of Jove, Sanford Dickert of CooperBricolage, Tony Bacigalupo of CooperBricolage, Nate Westhimer of BricaBox along with about eight other folks. I can cross another person off my 23 people to meet in 2007 list!
The conversation began with an oveview of numbers including $40/sqft for "ok" space in Manhattan and a price of $350ish for a desk. Alex noted that at IH perm desks are $275/mo, at CS they are $350/mo and that most people at IH are drop-ins at $25/mo.
There was a bit of chatter about whether coworking works for startups or just indies and could the coworking space be viewed as an incubator. Tara said that coworking competes with "free and lazy" - free being coffeeshops and lazy being working at home.
I have tried to think of an image to represent my thoughts about where coworking sits on a spectrum between working at home and the free coffee shop - or the "free and lazy" - here is my image:
I am not sure if this is the perfect image but the idea is the spectrum moves from left to right on the "social" and "business" aspects of working. First up is "working at home" which provides very little socializing but its free and if effective can provide the best business standpoint.
Next we move to "renting a desk" - this is where you (duh) rent a desk at a typical office rental location. It's not usually very social but it's more social than working at home. Usually you get a cubical plus some conference room availability. But this gets you out of the house.
Now we slide further down the social scale to where I believe the sweet spot for coworking is. It's more social than renting a desk but less social than free. It can give you an office-like atmosphere while still affording some of the benefits of socialization. Coworking can provide ways to meet new people, create and build relationships (social and biz), get out of the house, and foster overall community.
Last is free - this is the bar, the coffeeshop, park, diner, etc. I find that this has the most potential to be completely social but the least amount of raw work. Desks Tables are small, often are dark, must pack a bag daily, can't hang up the Yankees World Championship Banner or a picture of your sweetie. But this is free and accessible almost anywhere in the city.
Ok, so there are some of my thoughts about what coworking is. Now back to the meeting recap. One of my questions was around profit - in that are "we" in this for profit? Tara/Alex said it's for-profit with a non-focus on profit. As an accountant that scares me a bit :) I also wonder what the committee will look like, currently Tony and Sanford appear to be in-charge but frankly I have no idea how to get more involved. And not just because CN can spread the message to 250k monthly visitors but because I care about the project and Allen Stern the consultant needs an office (even if I never wrote another word about it). And how do others get involved? Right now someone browsing the site gets a page that basically says "here we are, join us" which from the meeting today is not really the case.
A large chunk of the discussion was around what comes first - the location or the community. The group seemed to agree that community should come first then after getting buy-in, then find the location. I struggle with this a bit - I believe it's important to drum up the community but getting a space first does offer some benefits like immediate tenancy vs. what could take a year and the community moves on. I would go for a middle of the road scenario whereby 20-30 very interested tenants get together and find the space and get in there, then open it up. Will it work for everyone, no. But it's a way to get moving.
Before any of the community enabling happens, we need a name, a logo, materials, etc. Sorry guys but cooBric doesn't cut it for me. Something direct or sexy or both and something people understand. WTF is a bricolage :) (and I have an MBA lol!) Also, having a generic business card pointing to the to-be-named site will allow us to hand out cards as we discuss the idea.
For me location is the big dealbreaker. First it was CooBric on 8th street and was barely passable for location - now it's on 14th and Ave A which is basically in Brooklyn. I could be to JFK in the same time it takes me to get to this new temporary location. A suggestion was made to have the community map out where they would be willing to travel to using tools such as Frappr and Plazes. "Home is where your LCD is" seemed to come up a bit.
I think there was decent agreement that the bar/coffeeshop location won't work as tenants want a more permanent space and being able to work after say 6pm is usually mandatory.
There was some discussion about VC-sponsored coworking and corporate coworking which I discussed before here. Here is my bottom line - to make this work, we will need to be creative about it and shooting down any idea immediately is unacceptable. I still stand by my ideas in the two referenced articles above along with speaking to some of the universities in Manhattan and Bloomberg.
For me it's boils down to this. I could afford about $300 and would prefer a location between 86th and 23rd and 3rd to 9th avenues.
I look forward to continuing this very needed discussion because I still believe that coworking can work in Manhattan. We just need to be creative about how we make it happen. We need coworking to work in NYC.
If you are interested in getting involved, email me or contact Tony or Sanford.
COMMENTS - Add New Comment
Allen,
First off, thanks for coming and for this great writeup.
A few (lengthy) responses:
| Tara/Alex said it's for-profit with a non-focus on profit.
That's not exactly accurate. As space owners, one of their jobs is to maximize the sustainability of the space. They still have to make the space break even or turn a profit for this to work.
However, their *motivation* for running the space is not to profit off of the revenue it generates directly. Space owners want to run a successful, profitable space-- but they don't expect to pay the bills with those revenues. Instead, they are likely in careers that would stand to benefit from the existence of a coworking facility.
| but frankly I have no idea how to get more involved.
Duly noted. When Sanford set up the deal with Cafe Fuego, he made an open call for anyone who wanted to get involved-- at that point a number of people, including myself, joined in. But I think a lot of people held back because they didn't believe in the cafe setup and the approach-- and I don't blame them.
Since then, the people participating have been pretty consistent-- but we've always maintained that anybody can join in. We have meetings usually every Tuesday around 6:30pm. You can join the CooperBricolage Organizers' group at http://groups.google.com/group/cooper-bricolage-organize/ .
That said, the message on how to participate is clearly in need of improvement. So I'll do what I can to improve that.
But let's say this now-- nobody is in charge. Coworking is a movement that exists independent of any one group or individual, and will progress on its own organically. All we can do as individuals is act as catalysts-- so anything we can do in this capacity is moving in the right direction.
If you see something that's not being done right, take charge. If you see a way you think you can help catalyze the movement, go for it. Writing this article is a good example-- it advances the conversation and gets us closer to a solution.
| cooBric doesn't cut it
I agree. After yesterday's meeting, several of us discussed this over lunch, and we brainstormed a lot of ideas for new names.
If we get a new name, it has to be a solid brand-- one which evokes NYC, technology, and physical locality. Something easy to spell and say.
I'll make a wiki page where we can discuss this further and draw up some logos.
| For me location is the big dealbreaker. First it was CooBric on 8th street and was barely passable for location.
I agree with your larger sentiment, but you might be being a tad harsh on CooBric's original location-- it was one block from the 6 and two blocks from the RW in an extremely active area.
But back to the main point-- location is critical. Both the location and environment have to overcome the "free and lazy" factors, and I think that's a not an easy task in a large city like New York.
The best you can do, if you are talking about a single coworking location (as opposed to a network of smaller locations), is shoot for the middle-- roughly between 42nd and 14th Streets, no more than a couple of short blocks from a
123ACEBDFVNQRW.
It will take people who live on the Upper East/West Side, or down in the Financial District, or near a river, or in another borough some time to get there-- just like it takes them some time to get anywhere in the city.
If a permanent space gets built, it will have to be central. No doubt about that. With regard to cafe-based coworking, this is one way you (anyone) can participate right now. Find a cafe with free wifi in a different location, one that would be comfortable to work in and wouldn't kick us out for hanging around all day.
Post it on the CooBric Google Group or elsewhere to get the word out. Tell everyone when you'll be there. I'll help you promote it however I can and I'll join you there.
If it's a location people want to go to, they will go.
One of the takeaways from yesterday's meeting was to try different locations and branch out as much as possible-- so we'll definitely be doing that.
| and shooting down any idea immediately is unacceptable.
Agreed, but I don't think anyone is in the position to shoot down an idea.
From what I recall, the response when you brought this concept up at the meeting was that the VC's contacted so far simply aren't interested-- it's not enough of a value add to them.
Re:The corporate side, I would love to see a company like Google sponsor a coworking facility-- they can make this happen in a heartbeat. The only clear point of caution is the motivation of any corporate entity-- what's in it for them?
If there's a good answer to that question, then you're on the right track.
But, as with VC-sponsored coworking, I'm not sure there's enough interest yet.
This might be one argument for building the community first before building the space-- if there's a large, active, well-formed community filling up cafes and making some noise, then maybe larger companies will take notice.
| We need coworking to work in NYC.
Amen.
Thanks again for this piece. Let's keep the discussion going. We'll get there eventually :-)
As an entrepreneur in NYC, I can say that I am a big fan of co-working and there are a lot of options as to how we as a community approach it.
I like the shot at a visual depiction of co-working. It helps highlight that there are a lot of options for people and, for me, it doesn't come down to picking just one.
Some days, I like working out of a cafe. Other days, I need a more traditional desk. Sometimes, I even prefer to work out of my apt. It's one of those things that really depends on what we have planned for the day. On the cafe front, I'll typically go to the closest free wifi cafe that has good food / coffee, music, and comfortable spots.
Perhaps we could start a low-priced ($10 - $20 / month) subscription model for entrepreneurs here to have access to an overarching network of these good locations and knowing who's going to be where, when. We could pick a couple of free spots around the city so it's not tied to one location. Members put their membership cards on the table so we can find each other.
There's also an opportunity to tie it to something like the NY Tech meetup (i.e. part of the subscription goes to getting members into the Meetup for free by showing a membership card).
If we had traction in something like this, we could get a sense for the level of funds that could come in and the ability to use those funds to subsidize events or a centrally located office environment. Before we work on picking a permanent office-like space, we'd have to be sure that if we built it, they would come.
Also, compaines may also be more inclined to donate money knowing that there's an ongoing stream of dues supporting the community, events, etc. It would all have to be non-profit.
Overall, I like the discussion that's happening but I don't think it's a question of picking one location or building the community. The community is here and will always be spread across lots of locations. Let's figure out how to make it easier to find the people and the locations.
At Startup Weekend Chapel Hill this weekend we built workperch, a site that will match "workperchers" with short term, temporary, or co-working work spaces. When the plans for Manhattan coworking get nailed down, you could register with workperch to connect with potential customers. Also, the workperch widget will let you tell your friends where you're perching for the day or week, even if you're doing the coffee shop thing. We're still developing the site, but follow our blog - we'd love feedback on the concept!
Allen - Nice writeup. I'm trying to get coworking off the ground here in Houston and am facing the same challenge; what comes first, community, location or a mix of both, which is what I'm leaning towards.
I've also spoken to a couple of Houston and Austin based VC firms about sponsoring a coworking space, which to me is a no-brainer, so long as they are "hands-off". Both are very interested but both also expressed concerns about security and the leaking or sharing of proprietary information, intellectual property, etc...
Allen -
Away - out of the country - at the moment, but wanted to follow up with a couple of thoughts:
1. Coworking - the concept is terrific and thoughtful - but as a business model, it rails against most business minds (What? No margin control? Just to break even? And I want to get involved in that because why?), but it has a societal good and a long-term value proposition that is difficult to quantify in the short-term.
We are proposing a concept that is not very unlike the consideration a state or a city has to do when creating tax credits for a technology center or a university. While revenues are easily measured in terms of tax base or rents, the real value of these locations are the aggregation of like individuals that form the community necessary for expansion and growth within the area of interest.
In this case, we are talking about technology and innovation in the Internet/New Media space. And making this happen, we are STILL dealing with the fallout of the past experiences and having to overcome a number of biases.
CooBric and other coworking efforts have seemed to be driven by personalities (Nate, Tara/Chris, Amit, Alex in PA) who have taken a step out of their normal mode and created a vortex around them to make the efforts happen. The CooBric team is slightly different in that Tony, Jennifer, Alex, Dan, Nate and myself are part of a team working together to use our strengths to make our version of coworking happen.
If not for one individual suggesting Gramstand to talk to us, we would still be discussing the use of a bar or of the small space I have at Cooper Union. If not for Jennifer's energies, we would not have the small nestegg of cash we have to do some of our work. If not for Alex, we would not have insights into the people that make up the CooBric/coworking community. And so on.
Simply put Allen (and others) - we are building. We are a team of people working together as a community building out what we can. Yes, based on people's strengths, we do specific things that stand out in some ways - but it is the efforts of all to make this happen.
So Allen - you do have a very important thing you can contribute to this effort: publicity. We need some additional reach to get people to know we are needing physical space for a reasonable price and willing to risk with us. This is a social and societal good we are building - and will have LONG TERM ramifications into the coming years for New York City. This is where you (and others) can help.
As Tony said - we have our weekly meetings every Tuesday (as long as we do not conflict with other major events, like tonight's NY Tech Meetup). Join us.
Masterfully conceived article Allen — Paul here, hoping to get the movement on legs in Dublin, Ireland, after getting set up with small room for coworking in Central Dublin.
I would say that in terms of location or community, it takes a bit of both — but finding people is the first step. I originally got together a bunch of 16 people interested in the idea at BarCamp in Dublin. In the end there were only 5 or 6 replies when I put out a call after finding a space that would work and was open to the idea in central Dublin — early adopter syndrome I think.
I agree somewhat with your co-working sweet spot, although for me co-working represents something that diverges from the line of just 'somewhere to work' altogether. I've written about this in the last few days here.