A few months ago I wrote a piece on the Business of Coworking. It received a decent amount of attention, both positive and negative. Frankly, more negative than anything, but that was the point.
Can coworking be a business? Should it?
Clearly there are different answers that can be provided here. What I am interested in writing about today, though, are existing models that more or less acknowledge/embrace basic business constraints as part of their model.
Le Bureau
Earlier this summer I visited Le Bureau, in London’s Battersea Park area. Peter Spencer, Le Bureau’s fearless leader, has put together a space that can only be described as beautiful. 99 desks, most of them full- and profitable. Yet the word that most accurately describes Le Bureau is Designed. The desks, chairs, lamps- just about everything- was designed specfically for the space. As are the Buddha statues and meditation rooms that adorn the space. Aromatheraphy oils are vented into the AC system at set intervals through the day, according to an overarching New Ageish view of work (and life). One relaxes upon entering the scent bubble…
On the one hand, Le Bureau is hippy dippy, but it is also profitable. That is, it is a business.
The Hive
Another space worth noting in any conversation about ‘the business of coworking’ is The Hive, in Denver. Also a beautifully designed space, The Hive falls very much within the frame of many other coworking spaces in North America. Collaborative, shared work space, in an cafe-like environment, with all the other social aspects that many of us crave…
But there is a difference at The Hive. The Hive is the brainchild of Andrew Luter, a venture capitalist (at BaseCamp Capital) who invests largely in offbeat real estate plays…That’s right real estate.
Why is this important?
The Importance of Real Estate
In our research for our book on coworking, we’ve seen time and again the central constraint that often prevents a community (a proven community with lots of loving peeps ready to commit) from getting into a space and getting started. This is a real drag. But it’s a business. Because, as it turns out, business is usually a drag.
It is an unavoidable reality of any business that hinges (to a greater or lesser extent) on real estate, that one needs:
Capital and leverage are easy enough to understand, but sometimes it takes whuffie to develop the relationships to get started into leverage, and this should not be underestimated.
But dive into coworking, and one way or another you are in business. It is somewhat brutal (and typically American) to talk about it in this way, but one way or another if you are involved in coworking you are involved in the real estate business.
I’m not jumping up and down with happiness here, I’m just writing it down.
Real estate IS brutal. Just ask Native Americans …They were on the losing end of the largest real estate transaction in the history of the species. This is why Wall Street cynics refer to Thanksgiving as national real estate day.
Coworking- as a cultural movement and way of working- can’t get around this.
Time to saddle up the horses, get out the bows and arrows, and take some scalps-
On the War Trail
The Butcher
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