[01.29] Selling Course Director and the beginning of Apps Events [03.34] Organising Google Education Summits For Teachers First Time in Europe [05.07] EventsFrame Education and Teaching Content [06.22] Google Education Certified Bootcamp and Summit [07.00] EventsFrame is Simple Organised System for Your Next Event [09.00] Personalised Education At EventsFrame [10.45] Dan Vision for Apps Events and EventsFrame [12.15] Managing Remote Team [13.15] Bonding Remote Team Together

Link mentioned in this episode
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[01.48] A Global Health Product For Digital Nomad [02.40] Insurance Systems are a Big Part of the Governments Function [04.10] Safety Wing Insurance Package [06.35] Claim Process Safety Wing [07.57] Build Globally Distributed Insurance Product with Tokyo Marine [09.24] A Simple, Global and Community is the Future of Insurance [13.02] The First Country on the Internet [14.24] A Simple Global Bank For Freelancers [17.23] Advice for People Who Want to Join Y Combinator

Link mentioned in this episode
Safety Wing | Tokio Marine | Y Combinator | N26 | Transferwise | Revolut

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Celerative | Positron | La Plata | Wysh | EEG | GSR | Mindcotine

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Freedom X Fest | Coworkation

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Designlab | Techstar | Code Academy | UX Academy

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Balsamiq | Twitter

The song is by:
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Meet Edgar | WeWorkRemotely

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[01.32] From Being Expat, Transition to Digital Nomad and End Up Creating Learning Hub at Cambodia [06.08] The Beginning of AngkorHub [11.04] Registering Coworking Space in Cambodia [12.58] Inside Social Innovation Center at AngkorHub [19.04] Taxation and Visa for Location-Independent [22.50] E-Resident of Estonia [26.04] AngkorHub Mission Growing Coliving Community and Learning Center

AngkorHub | NomadVisa

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The song is by:
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Chloe Oddleifson is the head of people operations at Dribbble. Dribbble is the best platform for the designer to showcase their work, to get hired, taking community and inspiration. Dribbble is one of the remote company - Distributed Company fully spread out across North America and some contractors in the UK.

[03.49] Daily collaboration and communication between the team

At Dribbble, they use a couple different tools to stay connected. For instance, slack, project management tool called Flow, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Muse, Zoom. The most important thing, stay connected and communicative with the team. No Meeting on Mondays and Fridays, Weekly Zoom Conference about company updates.

[05.12] Onboarding Session for New Hired

Onboarding session is started from the interview process, phone call candidates to get to know the company, do a lot of check-ins and preliminary calls with the manager also get to know candidates as well

[07.46] Productivity Metrics

At Dribbble, they have a unique working culture, intimate and close community. Zero percent of nutrition rate over the past year and doubled up the revenue and users.

[09.16] Hiring Process

At Dribbble hiring process is a combination of kindness, conscientiousness and collaboration building teams. Group interview and technical screening.

[10.49] The Type of Remote Worker that Dribbble Looking For

There are a couple different things that Dribbble looking for in the future hires; comfortable working remotely and people who had a value that resonates with the company value which is design community.

[12.19] Payroll System

In terms of the Payroll system, there are some salary bands that came up by looking at some salary tools and surveys.

[13.14] Vision of Dribbble in 5 till 10 years

Dribbble have a mission to build the world's best platform for designers to gain inspiration, feedback on their work, to gain jobs and employment opportunities, to gain community.

Website | Twitter | HangTime

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Pauline is an artist, designer, and entrepreneur. The Idea behind Laptop is a need of a place to work as a freelancer, to find inspiration, get focus, to meet people, have a proper place with Design Thinking methodologies.

[04.39] User Experience Business Model

The beginning process of Laptop is interview process and surveys to all Pauline networks composed of designers. Surprisingly, successful very quickly. Took the rents and created all the project, the product and find community.

[09.25] Laptop Design Academy

Laptop Design Academy started based on a need of finding a suitable school of creativity and for adults. There is two weeks program where people learn the way to solve big problems and to collaborate and know much more soft skills.

[13.33] Laptop Event and Workshop

The most of Laptop events are about art and experience. In Laptop, there’s and exhibitions and presentation of talents that organized with Adobe.

[17:06] Collaboration Work

Laptop works with culture, art, insurance, hotels, news and tries to find other new opportunities new business models.

[17.48] Membership Plan

The pricing for the membership it will be a little less if joining the training at Laptop.

[19:44] Strategy to get more member

Laptop growing by organizing design creation and experience training.

[22.01] Vision Laptop in 5 until 10 years

Laptop in the future will be a proper center of design and creation. It’s community or a hub for UX designers including recruitment.

Le Laptop | Pauline Thomas Personal Website

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Liam is Co-founder of timedoctor.com staff.com and Editor of Runningremote.com. TimeDoctor is software to manage remote employees that productive. Meanwhile, RunningRemote.com is about building large-scale remote teams. It focused on how to get more nine-figure and billion-dollar remote companies.

[01.50] Recommended TimeDoctor Feature - Tracking CRM

Using TimeDoctor, you can analyze and compare which applications, websites that you interact at the end of the particular task. It's also had an anti-distraction tool.

[03.34] Working Remotely

Working remotely is allow people to have more experience than when you are disconnected from a cubicle

[04.53] Running Remote Conference

Running remote is exclusively set up for people that run remote teams and figure out million dollar-plus remote companies. Some subjects that covering include hiring process remotely, build the remote culture at scale.

[06.38] Hiring Process Inside TimeDoctor

In TimeDoctor, they have an HR team who put together the specification of 27 different job boards. Firstly reviewed by HR team for a culture fit. Then do an assessment for each employee that will end up in a shortlist of five to ten people. Interviewing candidates then end up hiring two to three people.

[10.50] Wrong Decision When Hiring

Communication and having the video on skype or on Google Hangouts as a visual representation of the other person helping to pick up on all of the nonverbal cues that you're missing when you're working remotely.

Another big measurement for the HR team and the managers are retention rate. If you end up firing people that's a huge loss of resources.

[13.40] Scaling Strategy

Building a remote business have a lot of differences with a brick-and-mortar business. People need to know best practices, for instance, a retention rate.

[16.47] Bot as Customer Support Replacement

When it’s easier to have a chatbot that's indistinguishable from a human being, it will be replaced a lot of customer support. It's inevitable.

[19.48] Collaborating While Working Remotely

Firstly, targeting people who are okay with working alone by doing a psych test. Secondly, if there are more than three employees in a particular city, setting up a coworking space or an office. It would be a central touch point to support employees that need to interact with other human beings.

[21.40] TimeDoctor Vision in Five or 10 Years

Primarily, a goal of time doctor is to increase efficiency. Secondarily, having the framework for the employee to leave the office if they want. Distributed teams, remote teams, outsourcing and the majority of the value that TimeDoctor can provide in the developing world, empowering them to work remotely and have a better life.

Running Remote Conference | TimeDoctor | Staff

The song is by il:lo - Jesenice

Hans career is mixed between with working for large corporations or setting up startups.

He's started an incubator in Dubai called Silicon Oasis Founders. Silicon Oasis founders was a small incubator which started with funding from Dubai Silicon Oasis. They expanding into a very large hub with hundreds tech startups and we have accelerators, events, learning ventures, investment capability and labs accelerators.

[04.34] Coworking Landscape in Dubai

DTEC is the largest coworking space. There will be a lot of competition which is good because it should have alternatives but the prices remain steady.

[06.04] Smart City Development Incubator

The smart city accelerator is focused on the smart cities space. People can join as much as they can send an application and there will be a selection. DTEC actually a group of investors who have come together to fund the accelerator which is run by startup boot camp.

[08.36] IOT and Smart Device Workshop

DTEC building a smart city called Silicon Park project which is a place of residential commercial retail and space.

The next accelerators DTEC looking for probably be retail and FinTech

[10.16] DTEC Membership

DTEC proposing a new model of membership, for those who come in and out of Dubai who is not residents and if need a place to work out of months at the time.

[12.12] DTEC Marketing Strategy

Organically. DTEC have grown a phenomenally steady rate for three years without even needing to do a lot of advertising.

[13.14] DTEC Vision in Five or Ten Years

Obviously, DTEC needs to grow because fully. DTEC also proposed different opportunities to the tenant either funding events, learning labs, and acceleration.

[14.50] DTEC Events Programming

DTEC have a hundred plus events per year, basically every week twice or third events. It's technology events called tech forum, either talk about AI or blockchain which is currently in the market. Signature events called Entrepreneur Day is both a workshops and meet ups networking.

DTEC Website | Startup Boot Camp | Silicon Oasis Founders | Silicon Park | Entrepreneur Day

The song is by il:lo - Jesenice

Ronald has a background in the hospitality industry. He comes up with Society 3.0 title for the solution about the future which influenced by technology. The vision of society 3.0 is the way we work or how to create economic value. For instance, coworking industry.

[02.32] Cada Dia Es Una Fiesta

Cada Dia Es Una Fiesta is a holding company. Under CDEF is Seats2Meet which grew into a chain of coworking centers with 220 location in 29 countries.

[04.01] Seats2Meet Coworking Center Paid by Social Capital

Seats2Meet creating an opportunity for people to grow their business which paid by social capital. If they need more services as they grow with their new business, we offer those services and those services which they have to be paid for it. In that way, Seat2Meet making money. It creates the new balance between the monetary element and social capital elements.

[06.12] Strategy to get more partner in Seats2Meet Coworking Center

In Seats2Meet ecosystem, it's very successful in matching people and utilized artificial intelligence to create the serendipitous type of meeting.

[07.31] Partnership Model

Seats2Meet invite all the locations to participate in the ecosystem and they pay 99 euro monthly fee. And partner space can access the platform and software.

The software includes reservations software for coworking and reservation software for meeting rooms, accounting, CRM review systems, and the serendipity machine which is the artificial intelligence mechanism algorithm to match relevant people to each other.

[08.34] Screening Requirement for Coworking Partner

Seats2Meet ecosystem is a self-organizing system. It's automatic review system. If the partner delivers poor quality and poor service, people won't visit your place.

[09.42] Serendipity Machine System Open To Public

Seats2Meet ecosystem has an APIs and will launch the algorithm of the serendipity machine. Within the next two months, people can use the software. It's free and open source.

[10.17] Vision of Society 3.0 in Five or Ten Years

The role of traditional organizations and traditional governments will get less important the bigger companies will disappear and will replace by more like network structures of people collaborating and creating economic value.

Society 3.0 | Seats2Meet | CDEF Holdings | Ronald Van Den Hoff Website | Twitter | Serendipity Machine

The song is by il:lo - Jesenice

Plastarc is social research and people analytics for the architectural environment. They deeply focus on the human experience of architecture and the scale of the built world both understanding how people impact architecture and design experience but also how buildings and the shape of the space and the characteristics of the space around people.

[03.18] Research Phase of User Experience in Workplace Environment

Plastarc is consulting services around the design of both the physical environment, the technology environment and the personality of the environment.

They conduct three characteristics research to get great user experience strategy. Firstly academic, secondly anthropologic and lastly analytic.

[05.52] Technology At Workplace

Smart buildings are social buildings. And the future of intelligent buildings and intelligent environment coming from both kind of social media side of data as well as direct interaction with the people.

[07.50] The Future of Work: Designing Workspace

The coworking will be driven by the freelance economy but the free desking physical environment will likely be driven by the wellness and fitness benefits of the spaces.

[10.22] Workspace Event Programming

The program or activation must be sustainable. If space isn't making money that it can't pay for digital content or event content or a curator. There needs to assist an economically sustainable programming model one of the best of those is a community.

In the best of coworking spaces which might be a good model for a community, there will be both an organization or institutional level of programming and also community-led programming.

[12.52] Workspace Amenities Impact on Employee Experience

Market leaders of coworking like WeWork who do have amenities setting an expectation and changing the kind of baselines or standard expectation from buildings that don't have amenities to buildings that do have amenity.

The amenities include fitness wellness, food, conference, event spaces, lounge, coworking, community spaces. When organizations are picking a neighborhood, they're more likely to be looking what the restaurants available around the neighborhood.

When it comes to parking and transportation, there is a couple of different shifts one is suburban locations and urban environments.

As people spending more time at work, it's important to focus improve restroom as a daily amenity in workplace environment.

[17.23] Workspace As a Social Network

Based on Allen curve research which is the closest we are physical to people, the more likely we will have an interaction with them.

The digital social network has been an extension of the physical social network, so the future is a better balance between the two.

[19.58] Vision of Plastarc in 5 or 10 years

The vision is to make the world a better place and providing services, tools, and methodologies to make workplaces better.

Twitter | Linkedin | Website | Allen Curve Research MIT

The song is by il:lo - Jesenice

Dan had an amazing entrepreneurship journey from helping technology start-ups and listed companies in a NASDAQ (US) and sold to Oracle-the second-largest tech company in the world.

He moved to Australia working with startups and helping startups in Sydney. Then, decided to create StartInno in Byron Bay.

[02.20] Inspiration to open StartInno

Creating some infrastructure in Byron Bay, there was nothing specific. Firstly coworking and secondly, he felt urged to extend and pass on his knowledge in creative industries of his Ph.D. background.

[03.23] StartInno Community

Community inside Startinno is diverse from digital nomad, working for large financial institutions, freelancers, and sustainability people.

[04.50] Programming Event and Workshop in StartInno

Tech is considered an enabler.

For example, Hustle is a group of some of StartInno community members. They did a lot of pop-up events, sharing their experiences with the big thought leaders.

[06.22] Startup Academy

Startup Academy is an online educational platform for startups. There's also screening process, the first step is mentoring session. If the applicants meet certain criteria, we help them perfectly crafting their businesses.

[08.28] Marketing Strategy

Besides word of mouth, StartInno used to focus on email marketing. Through regularly events, for instance, community lunches and start-up meet-up.

[09.41] Vision of Startinno in 5 - 10 years

The next generation of people stepping in to day-to-day in StartInno either real hands-on stuff or working with startups.

Facebook | Twitter | Website | Startup Academy | Hustle

The song is by il:lo - Jesenice

As part of pioneer coworking movement in Berlin and Europe, the idea behind Betahaus was to create a place for collaboration and personal fulfillment where you can work on your dream or a business idea to fulfill your dream and where you can find like-minded people to do things together.

[02.10] Betahaus Expanding Into 16 Locations

We're growing to 16 locations using franchise model. Each of several locations needs to pay a fee and share the revenues.

In beginning, every space who is called Betahaus gets a lot of help to set up. We have training and manual to run a coworking space. We have very good processes how to run the reception, how to find new members, how to sell our product, how to do online marketing and what kind of events to run in a coworking space.

We also work with a lot of spaces that have their own name and independence. It's also the idea behind one coworking.

[04.52] One Coworking

There's a small offer that is for free you can go for free for one day in a month. Then you have to pay.

[05.55] Project of Betahaus

Betahaus camps
We organize a camp for coworkers. A mixture of holiday and work. We offer workshops and exchange possibilities for people who want to learn while they are on holiday and work because we have WiFi and coworking area.

Hardware co
We discovered the trend. The startups in our coworking space have ideas which connected to hardware devices and IoT devices. And the most answer what we got is a laboratory or a workshop to build everything because the equipment is very expensive to build new electronics.

We talked to some sponsors and they helped us to create a hardware lab and a program to support those startups. Once or twice per year, we run a hardware accelerator. We give the startups the possibility to work on the prototypes and to learn from mentors and from successful entrepreneurs.

We offer infrastructure and tools only during the program. We have three weeks of our program and during that three weeks you can apply to be part of it then you can use everything.

A couple of years ago, we have included as part of the membership but it was very complex and complicated, so need teachers and mentors.

Betapitch and Betahaus X.
With Betahaus X, we started a consultancy or an agency which helps big corporates to understand innovation and to learn how to be innovative like a startup.

It's like an accelerator the ideas to accelerate ideas and also to have the big organizations in Germany to learn from the startups.

We organized startup competition it is called Betapitch. Betapitch is open for everybody. The idea is that everybody especially young startups can apply to be part of it and then become one of the local winners. Then you come to the final in Berlin. The idea is to bring startups to the top to improve the idea and to help them grow.

[15.10] Vision of Next 5 year Betahaus Progress

We hope to find many more partners all around the world to build a big Network also with one coworking. For Betahaus ourselves, I think we want to identify interesting growth opportunities and more locations around the world but also become a very good collaborator. I think we don't need to conquer the world alone we can do it together.

Reference Site:
Betahaus | Betahaus Camps | Hardware co | Betapitch | Betahaus X | One Coworking | DNX

The song is by il:lo - Jessenice

Having background as an educator in different environment, taught mostly teenagers and different a lot of woman. For herself, entrepreneurship is a way of creative life.

[03.20] Her Inspiration To Build Space With Feminine Value

Meeting different of girls and women when she was working with Youth and G-Days Toronto, inspired her to see
the need of a place for women when they can fully express themselves. A place that designed with feminine value, for instance, emotional authenticity, being able to be vulnerable, collaborative, being holistic human.

[06.10] Energy Exchange

A Program in Shecosystem which allow member to get six months free membership in exchange to running the space. Setting up the front-desk, giving a tour, doing administrative task or special project, for example, social media and consulting business.

[10.00] Opening Circle

Opening circle, discussions, potluck and intimated discussion with outside speaker occasionally .

[12.52] Women Entrepreneurship Toronto

Women's Enterprise Center and Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum.

[14.29] Free 1 Week Trial

Beside using social media, the successful strategy that works to get new member in Shecosystem is give out one week free trial.

[16.39] Vision of The Future of Shecosystem

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Website | SheEO | Energy Exchange | Women's Enterprise Center | Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum

The song is by Anitek - Glenn

I actually have a not a classic background for coworking space even though I'm not sure there's a classic background. I studied economics, my masters were in environmental and energy economics. I was always interested in the environment and sustainability. Before I came then when I came to Australia, I started working in events, always around energy then I joined Energy Lab last August. Energy Lab is launched in March.

The idea of Energy Lab is really to help people want to innovate in the clean energy space. It's more about helping the energy industry which is leaving a complete revolution. We know in 50 Years, the Energy industry will look nothing like it looks like today. It's not just about climate change but it's also really a technical progress like engineering challenge.

What we want to do is to help the entrepreneurs who want to disrupt this industry and make a good forward with more clean energy solutions.

[02.42] The Biggest Challenge for Cleantech Entrepreneurs

One of the biggest challenges of Energy industry, it's a very regulated area, you could compare it to fintech that extent. It's heavily regulated area and mainly controlled by big utilities and that's where Energy Lab is helping them. Energy Lab has partnered our main sponsor is Origin Energy which is one of the biggest utilities in Australia.

Our role is to connect these entrepreneurs, these innovators with the big guys and help them work together to a brighter energy future and cleaner.

[03.47] The Designated of Energy Lab Hub

Energy Lab is part of the University of Technology Sydney. Our building is in the UTS. UTS is sponsoring us, by giving us the space. It's a beautiful heritage building where we are. We don't have a workshop but we're working on it. We still like try to do cool things. We installed a small meter, for example, to track our energy usage and try to optimize it. We also used this data for like some cool projects.

We don't have the specific infrastructure for prototyping cleantech product because of Energy Lab still in the building which part of the university, so it's not really up to us.

[05.09] The Benefits For Energy Lab Member

Energy lab is constructed as a hub. We run the acceleration program but we also run events and we also coworking space. If you want to take part in our acceleration program, we provide seed fundings for AUD 50k to help companies get up and going. In addition to that, we were in a lot of workshops, connect them with mentors to really help them develop their idea, develop their project and take it to the next stage.

[05.52] Mentorship program from Energy Lab

Both of our founders actually our serial entrepreneurs. They meet with the startups probably like once every three weeks in a month to follow up with them, give them valuable contact. We also have a full network of people working in renewable energy in Australia— either in venture capital banking or utilities or lawyers and the oldest network— can help our members and people in our acceleration program, in particular, to reach their goals and help them with specific aspects of the projects.

[06.42] Application for cleantech startup to Join Energy Lab

There's an application process. You have to apply then once you selected you can go through the acceleration program but we also offer coworking space. If you are a stage, where you already received seed funding from someone else or if your startup has been more established, you can just rent a desk from us and you still have the advantage of living in a hub. We run a lot of events, so there's always some cool people working in clean energy that pass by and you can meet them and connect.

We run a few different programs. We run internship programs for students who are interested in entrepreneurship but don't know where to start and didn't get experience, so we help them get experience startup in clean energy so they can learn more about the sector and also what does it entail to do to be an entrepreneur. It's not like all pink and flowers like you can't imagine your movies, hands-on experience with this.

We run hackathons as well. It's a great way for us to have people come up with ideas, innovate it and find potential cofounders if they already have an idea. At the end of the hackathons, if it's an interesting idea of course get the idea up and running and for that, we run a springboard program.

The springboard program would be more of a pre-acceleration program, a tracking workshop— where we see where you are will see, where you need to go before you can apply for the acceleration program— and we help you connect with the right people and tailor or your application for later.

[09.06] The Future Plan of Energy Lab

It will bring Australia to more clean energy Australia. Hopefully, from some of the startups that came out of our acceleration program, we'll have some unicorn I hope. Bringing Australia to 100% renewable.

Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter | Website | Origin Energy

The song is by Happy Days by Scott Holmes.

I'm France Hoang, the creator of Chisel. I'm also a partner at FH+H.

I'm Tom Craig. I'm the Managing Partner at FH+H and the Director of Chisel.

We're here in DC which has actually the highest per capita population and the highest raw number of lawyers in the United States. Our firm has been around for about seven years now. We've always been entrepreneurial, not afraid to try new and innovative things. As we were building out  our new offices one of the things that occurred to us was that there was this empty space in the market that – while coworking had been tried for a number of different industries mostly technology – that no one had done it in the DC area for lawyers. The practice of law was changing as well and that there was a space for something less than a law firm but more than a Bar (Law) Association. We thought that Chisel, both as the coworking space and as a community for entrepreneurial lawyers, would be well received.

Coworking is something most lawyers and private practice are actually solos or in small firms. Alot of timesin the marketplace, we focus on the big law firms when the fact is most lawyers aren't in that situation and coworking has appealed to those lawyers. Ordinary coworking space doesn't meet some of their specialized needs, especially, when it comes to things like client confidentiality. It's also the ability to be around and work with other legal professionals instead of being in an environment of different kinds of professions. We hope Chisel is a way to address all of those concerns while providing lawyers the kind of coworking environment that other professions already enjoy.

[02.39] Onboarding Process for Lawyer to join Chisel

In order to be a member of Chisel, you have to be an active member of a Bar (Law) or work for a member of an active Bar (Law). In other words, we want practicing attorneys and their staff.

Our focus is on three different types of lawyers. First, the solo lawyer. Lawyers who are more junior or not as experienced still are obviously great lawyers but they're just kind of starting out their solo practices. Second, the small law firm is the one-two-three partner law firm that maybe has a small staff— one or two associates, a paralegal, receptionist. The third group is lawyers who belong to other law firms but who want a place to practice law when they're not at their home law firm, for example maybe their partner— a senior partner who lives in Virginia whose law firm is located in downtown DC— but they are allowed to work away from the office and when they choose to do so, perhaps they prefer a place in Virginia

[03.55] Event and Workshop at Chisel

We have a variety of events and one of the things we're trying to do with this space is to provide some added value to people who use the space. We have a dedicated event space right in our office, so we don't have to leave here to have events. We have a variety of things. We have classes everything from a series on government contracting for lawyers. We had an outside speaker in this week to talk about exit strategies for small businesses. We have speakers coming to talk about private equity investment and other transactional issues.

In general, we have a variety of events to enhance people's professional knowledge. At the same time we do networking events where we'll have happy hours and other events where people can come and just meet other lawyers. In addition, to give an opportunity for them the network.

[05.00] Coworking Space Landscape in Virginia

We're the very first coworking space solely dedicated to lawyers in the Greater Washington metro area. We're located in Tysons— which is a suburb of DC but it’s part of the greater DC area. There are nationally about four or five active coworking spaces focused on lawyers but we're the first in the DC area.

The coworking community as a whole in DC is very vibrant. There are over a hundred coworking spaces and some of them like Chisel are becomingspecialized for example, Capital Post is a coworking space largely focused on veterans. There's a coworking space called Eastern Foundry that’s largely focused on government contractors. There's another space called Hera which is for women as well.

[05.55] Marketing Strategy

We use a variety of methodologies, but a lot of it is simply networking and referring the lawyers – people already associated with Chisel reach out to lawyers they know. At the same time we do have an advertising campaign, principally social media based. We are also reaching out to the lawyers we know at law firms to take advantage of as we discussed earlier some of the big law firms’ partners sometimes need space outside their location to work out, so we're reaching out through that network as well.

What we do here is providing infrastructure for people to practice law but under the bar (law) rulesthere are certain things we can't do, for example, we can't treat them like a member of our own firm because under the bar (law) rules they would consider them a member of our firm. For example, we don't share lawyers, we don't provide full reception of services and business development.

While we do have programs that teach lawyers how to do business development and we certainly encourage networking and referrals among our members but we don't do any sales or business development on behalf of the Chisel members to grow their practices.

[07.32] The Future Plan of Chisel

We have our current space and we're going to make that successful and grow and hopefully reach full capacity here in the not-too-distant future, there could be additional spaces in the DC area like I mentioned— this is the highest raw numbers and per capita population of lawyers in the United States. There are other cities where there are equally dense population of lawyers where the space and the concept could work – so that’s from from a geographical growth perspectives.

From a services growth perspective we’re in phase one, which is providing a coworking space; phase two is really building a great set of program that supports the lawyers who are in a space, for instance, teaching them how to grow a practice, teaching them how to run a business, giving them opportunities to network and really creating a community of entrepreneurial lawyers which doesn't really exist right now, you're either in a law firm or you're not. There's nothing kind of in-between that's meaningful.

Eventually, the service we'd like to provide is create an ecosystem where we have these Chisel lawyers, paralegals and associates where they can have a place to work, network, learn and then engage in work with one another. For example, if you're a partner who needs an associate on a case instead of hiring an associate you can look inside the Chisel ecosystem and hire from there for your one matter for the legal help you need.

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The song is by Anitek - The Same under CC license.

The Food Loft started in 2013, but prior to that I actually spend a lot of time working in Food Media, cookbook publishing specifically. It was really how I got started in food. The company that I joined was a small independent publishing company. The owner was very interested in finding new ways to take our content and expertise around food and apply it to food startup - new business channel.

We got started our meeting with a different company that could make use our content, our network and our knowledge around food. We were trying to find a new revenue source outside of cookbooks. We ended up getting connected with whole bunch of food startup doing different things with technology. One was company called Yummly, this was in 2008. Yummly hadn't launch yet but they have the vision to become of google for recipe search. We were intrigued because of our recipe content background. We got to know the founder over about a year and made a financial investment company in late 2008.

It was really opened the opportunity for us and trust us come into the food innovation space. We ended up started to get into communication from other startups. Either working in strategic advisement, mentorship, and fundraising.

Flash forward over the past almost 10 years, my life has been really much focus on sourcing potential deals. Working with food startups, invented many dozens of deals. The food loft really came out after that. Early work, where we have office space in Boston, about 5000 sq ft. At the time, we didn't really see a space for food entrepreneurs to join the community.

A lot of food startup just working from standard coworking spaces like WeWork etc, others working from their apartments or their living rooms. It wasn't really a great way to connect the community and collaborated coworking environment. It was really what gave us the idea the food loft could be a ecosystem in Boston organization in 2013. We learn a lot since then about coworking. We learn a lot about what kind of things that we need to offer.

The initial idea was food startup is very specific kind of startup. There very specific things that you can offer entrepreneurs whether the kind of mentorship you bring to the table or resource you provide them. Focusing the coworking space center of food. We do better job to broadly focus workspace. That was really what we want to testing.

[04.23] The Designated of The Food Loft

Right now, we don't have commercial grade kitchen space. We are not the test kitchen in sort of way. We do have a kitchen is more for making lunch. We have a member do recipe tasting in The Food Loft. We do have people working in tech, startup, marketing, sales, and media. We do one member have consumer package product, his work outsource production facility.

[05.25] The Food Loft Community

There are 3 pieces what we working in the food loft. One hand is coworking space itself. We have about 10 companies that have office space with us. We have open desk seating and some private offices. We certainly looking for others to fill the space.

In addition to that, we also offering mentorship. We are working closely with the startups that are not necessarily based in the office. Our part is virtual membership environment. The third is all about Yummly and other companies coming is our investment. We are continuing to make the strategic investment, especially early-stage investment in food tech startups.

Yummly, Caviar, Crowdly, and Alchemista are all company that we've invested in. None of those based at food loft. We don't require the company to move in The Food Loft before they to get funding or after got funding. It's more separated I supposed that it might seem. All of those are company that we made invested in.

[06.55] Getting Investment in the Food Loft

There are some parameters that we are looking for typically early stage I'd say. The food startup coming in pre-seed or seed round. Usually, we'd like to invest company at least have some revenue even it's modest revenue because it can prove product-market fit. In terms of documentation from startup, the biggest thing we looking for is the financial plan. It really shows how the company builds their worth time. And demonstrated how entrepreneur really understands their market by conceptualizing how much the market they're going to capture and how diverse the groups are.

The financial plan is the core of how we do our diligence in evaluating the startup. The other big piece of criteria outside of the company traction are the team and the founders. Who the founders are, how they're working together, how they communicate together, what their experiences.

Investing in startup whether food startup, biotech startup or others 90% of the time is about people. They're investing to the people. Because quite frankly, I never met startup that didn't evolve their startup or their model. We do invest people whether with ideas or companies and think through the process to find the right team in terms of innovation food space.

[08.33] The Food Loft Business Model

In terms of programming, we do a few different things. We'll have a larger scale event. It's about 150-200 people at The Food Loft. We do an event 2 or 3 times a year. We bring startup companies to exhibit what they're doing, what their programming, similar to a panel discussion. They come to see the space, having conversation typically 2 or 3 hrs.

We also have a workshop. Workshop are more intensive than hands-on. We do those usually around per month typically we don't put frequency on it. It's about finding the right ideas and the right concept. We've done a workshop on accounting and financial planning for food startup on the legal requirement- while setting up the company.

We've done other on marketing and brand. An intensive hands-on workshop-less than 10 people working directly with mentor similar with the classroom environment. Aside from that, we do the mentorship. We have a network of 25 business leader in Boston area addressing everything from marketing and sales, e-commerce, product design and branding to develop first pitch deck in investing. The mentor helping company tackle very strategic issues. The company might come to us or one of our members might come to us with something that they're trying to solve in the short time.

[10.53] The Future Plan of The Food Loft

The Food Loft Model is going to continue to evolve. We first started by providing only space. We think to expand our models. We recently rolled out the virtual membership that very cost effective on monthly basis. The virtual membership really focuses on giving startup access to the mentorship.

I would think for the next 5 years The Food Loft would become a bigger. It allows us to expand to other cities. It would be a big growth for ours. We also want to start working with more companies and more cities in virtual membership type way. Exploring partnership and community for the new location.

I'm not necessarily interested in building a whole new space in other cities but there are number different of organization and potential partner where we could go to them for this concept and with the template from what we're doing here in Boston and help that partner build out the problematic solution to having food focus coworking in mentorship and doing that we get Food Loft brand out there. We can decrease some other cost and resources expense objective.

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The song is by Ketsa - Whisper under CC license.

We're from a little town in Australia. It's a rural environment, fairly diverse population and our background is in a lot of community work. Rhonda is a consultant in overseas aid and development and I come from a background of community services businesses and business coaching.

We were looking at the future and the future of work being that geography doesn't matter where you were you want to be, where you want to work. And it seemed to suit a lot of our plans and would be good for our community. We put the idea out there and it had very strong community support and support from our local government. I think was it was a good thing for us. The coworking concept seemed to bring together and we pioneered the independent coworking space in rural Victoria, Australia.

It's almost three years ago, we started. It was pretty lonely at the start because there wasn't much support. Everyone's in big cities and they operate in a different way but that was how we got into it anyway.

In the last year, in our state of Australia, Victoria, there has maybe twelve in regional and rural areas. Some of them more business hubs and coworking but they call themselves coworking. Since Australia's population follows the coastline, a lot of rural areas around the coastline but there's very a few inland. We're a bit inland and there are a few others but not that many. What's really good in the last six months, we're found each other and we can do things together because individually we have no influence.

[04.36] The Demographic of Cohoots

The majority demographic people who come to Cohoots are mostly freelancers and a few employees who commute. Usually, just like in big cities the coworking spaces and community vary and some do concentrate on startups, tech startups and others have more general. We're a general one and in our town, we have very few startups but we have a lot of freelancers and people who are writers, sales managers, executive officers, IT people architect people who do community work.

We have a community organization, a couple of people who come in the mornings then go off and do their stuff and contractors. Since most people at part-time, we don't have fulltime officers which are just the nature of our space. In our town, where there's another organization who gets funded to offer cheap rent. We don't tend to have many of those people but each coworking space in rural areas is different. Some have main offices and without many part-time members, I suppose where the office of we have a lot of members but not many people in offices.

[06.30] Events and Workshop at Cohoots

We started doing the events when we first opened. It was a way for us to get to know our community. In most of this little sort of small business ideas, we could have spent a lot of money doing market research. We did some pretty low-key market research but we didn't have time or money to do invest a lot in that area. Having both of us coming from a strong community development background, the easiest way for us to reach out to the community, to listen to them and to have events.

The idea was we just started with a couple of small events with different people to get to know them, to listen to them and to ask them what a space like ours could offer some of those. We got a bit of interest I think, we were quite new and a lot of people weren't sure what this whole coworking thing was. You get curious people and a lot of people who I think thought oh it's nothing to do with me.

The event which was successful, the women's group. As you would know, women love getting together, swapping stories and sharing. We started doing that on a regular basis and we've run that pretty consistently for two years. I have to say this year we haven't been running so many. There's a whole number of reasons that we can't talk to you about, partly because of the amount of time and actually costs us quite a bit of money to run those events. When we opened the event, they were a really good way to get to know our community.

Last year, we've been running events specifically focused for the small business festival which is a state government festival focused on small business. For the last two years, we've run a couple of workshops and events. I think one of the challenges is the viability of a coworking space in a small country town. It's particularly challenging when we need to pay our mortgage and have food on the table in consulting business. Honestly, it's the biggest issue.

I think one of the secrets of rural coworking is you have to do another job. Generally, people in little towns but they're not as consumer-oriented. They're not used to pay for everything. We have a saying in the country in Australia, people more self-reliant. They're not used to pay for everything instead to do it themselves. They live in bigger houses so they don't need an office as much as what they do say in the big cities. All of those things mean that we do charge for events but we don't charge a lot of money and the numbers are low.

There are other benefits for every event you run is basically marketing as well another return on investment. We still do a lot of different events and we have different community groups using this place because we have some good exposure. People have put artworks around in windows. We've done a lot of community workers events as well as events which we always use local expertise. We don't bring outsiders to tell you how to do things. Some people will suggest in the need for a workshop on social media so we'll get a few people in the area who use a bit of social media and get them together. People come to the event and we do peer learning. They talk to each other about how they use social media and get work out what's best for them rather than having an expert telling you.

[12.00] The Definition of Coworking in Cohoots

In the beginning, we thought everyone's digital. From the website and with social media exposure and things like that people will get the idea of coworking. What we found it when we asked them, how did you find out about us, they would say the sign on the building on the outside. The trend is happening now, more people are saying, I found you on the internet or I googled you or Google coworking in our town Castlemaine and the awareness is actually has grown.

I think by running events, having people come in and they see how it works and they probably know one of our members. Our members are always talking it up and explaining how it works but there's probably a lot of people who understand what coworking but maybe not how it works, how you become a member and you pay for certain hours and all kind of thing but generally it's through events and word-of-mouth.

We've also always used the idea, showing not telling. We offer people a free trial day. We get our members after the first year. Our members telling testimonials in a good way. We're very comfortable and people know us they're pretty relaxed. We show people around a lot. The interesting one was, we still get people three years later asking how does it work, what do you do. One of the lessons I need to learn is people tend to say it's hot-desking. Actually, it's proper coworking.

When Tim built our website, he was very conscious of making sure there were little pieces of information and videos from GCUC video, explain the story of coworking. We're getting better at telling that story now. We've got a little flyer that we share with people that talks about what's the difference between coworking, working in a coffee shop and working at home.

[15.00] The Inside Out Coworking and Innovation Coworking Book

We've had this concept of what we call inside-out coworking. Essentially, it's a community approach to economic development. There's a lot of hype about innovation and startup, the answers to economic development and looking into the research around what traditionally has been happening as far as business support, entrepreneurs support and looking at how what we thought was right but looking at research to say is that right or not.

The inside-out concept came up, where what happens in inside a coworking space is the community of coworkers. What we do is take that concept and put it out into our whole community. Nearly 90% businesses, in our town micro enterprises traders. Not all of them will want to come and work in the coworking space but they all want to get support and they all want to network. They want to talk to each other and they want emotional connection as well as business skills.

The inside-out coworking approach is just involving the whole community of entrepreneurs in our coworking spaces through events. It's coming up to Christmas, we're having members Christmas party. We're also partnering with theater, in town hotel theater, having orphans work Christmas. For all of the sole traders who don't have Christmas parties and for all the micro enterprises who don't have Christmas parties come together, have fun and celebrate. What we bring in the energy and the actual resources and enterprise that we bring to the community so that's an example of inside-out coworking.

The book is going to go through the research and present a way to help people who may want to set up a coworking space in rural areas. What I wanted to do is to give people support business in traditional ways by looking around of the people.

[18.45] The Future Plan of Cohoots

We're not young people to start this up. We would like to see, Cohoots to be viable on its own basis by making its own money. Becomes its own successful business and hiring or running with someone so it could free up our time.

The vision for Cohoots is a little bit tied up in our vision for ourselves and our family which I think is the challenge when you start a business with your partner. Having a few more permanent members. We're looking at converting some space that we don't use very much at the moment into permanent office space. So, we can rent the building out for people who might want more permanent space. It's less hot-desking and some permanent spaces. Increased the membership. What we'd really like to do is start telling the story more broadly about rural coworking, a different way of working and regional enterprise development.

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I studied in industrial design and working as a freelancer. At the end of the day, I was tired and decided to quit. I went to work in community center back in 2011. The company that running community center asking their employees about the future opportunities. One of the plans is coworking space. I am with seven people, if I'm not wrong, started to think about the target of our coworking space. It was December 2011 then CREC born. Technically, I'm the only one of that group that can participate in the coworking spaces. That's my story how I end up in the coworking world. We opened in January 2013.

I met a lot of people in Coworking Spain Conference, Coworking Europe Conference and last year I went to Cowork Buzz which is Portuguese Coworking Conference which is really awesome. I help Manuel Zea creating content for Coworking Spain Conference.

[04.18] The Interior Design that suit Coworking Spaces

I think it depends on terms of availability in your space but at the end, the percentage of open space will decrease. When we design our space CREC, we mix. We created some closed offices and the most part of the space is open space. I think the future spaces not just in CREC but in Barcelona which going to be developed mostly are closed offices.

Depending on the kind of business, depending on the size of the team. It's about the privacy issue. In CREC, we manage to create a culture inside the space which people is very respectful and people is really surprised when they reach our space but the volume of sound, the voice it's really tiny for such a big space.

I think the challenge for the owners of business centers is to create a new design which looks less formal and manage the community. They need to create new spaces and invest money also give the member the intangible value which is connecting people. So, they can increase the rates in the future.

We are working in a real estate environment. Real estate going higher and higher. So, we need to keep raising our rate. It's a nice challenge and I think it's the funniest interesting moment in the coworking history since I'm part of it.

[10.15] Coworking Hybrid

There was a way to create public coworking, paid with public funds in private spaces and I call that a coworking hybrid. I proposed a system which the government each year make a selection of people with a list of requisites that they need to fulfill so you must have these characteristics and then they give the coworking leader the list of coworking who participated in that project so they can go there.

Coworkers can choose which coworking they want to attend. Coworking spaces will benefit from people who are getting started their business. Coworking consultant also can do their job better because there are professionals in their business and can help people. Everyone wins.

When government invests a certain amount of money because they are paying for that membership that fixed amount. On the other hand, the coworking space is getting that money so they secure the membership for one year but they are obligated to be part of the project to during six months give a discount of the final rate. The magic happens because they invested one money in the citizen and getting the money plus the discount for six months.

The buildings which are currently being dedicated for coworking can be used to another goal or rent it to private companies. And make more money for public use. It's should be controlled by someone from the government or digitally controlled using beacons or other tools.

[16.15] Corporate Coworking

There's a trend in big companies they are really concerned about how to keep talent inside and how to attract talent. Back in late 2015, I get the information that Endessa companies looking for someone to help them to create a coworking space in their headquarters. They have been working with someone specializes in working with companies to develop their projects and they need an actual coworking expert.

I think when you work in such a huge environment with a lot of people. In terms of new ways of work, they have huge structures, they need to be really structured very ordered, there are a lot of silos. I mean it's like a huge amount of people so you need to have rules and help them to get the improvement.

I'm really open to someone who approaches me to help them create a coworking space inside their company to change the way their company works in terms of space, in terms of relationship. And take those strategies, those tricks, those philosophies from coworking which make them in increasing their value in terms of personal value also to improve how the company works. I mean to make people better. The company also make more money or spend less too. There are a lot of things which have been tested in coworking since coworking started and now can be can be implemented in in companies.

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The song is by Anitek - Durban under CC license.

Kassem and Hugh running the design agency for many years. We had a small office in a very little amount of square footage. Apart from the office, we invited our cofounder Gracia Lam amazing illustrator. We were three of us and including some contractors working in the smaller space and we all went to school, university together.

We found some of our freelancer friends and creative peers would constantly joining us in our office, work with us or play board games and having a general discussion about the industry. It happens for a couple years and at one point what we wanted to do is create weekly meetings and weekly events. In addition to that, the discussion of Coworking space was starting to begin as a group.

We decided to think about how coworking space looks like. We're all our friends, members and community can join. The way we started is inviting people on a weekly basis and asking them what do you want in your space, what do you imagine a space where you can ask them questions or get instant feedback from creative peers, or what if you have an issue with a client.

Having a group where young entrepreneurs just come out from university and able to ask questions to someone that's already in industry for 10 plus years. Or if you have technical feedback as well on a weekly basis. By the word of mouth, new people joining us. There's weekly meetings that said where a place that we want to create this coworking space. We had people that wanted to create it, had more discussion about it. And we initially found space where we were able to create the ecosystem or business that would create all the requirements of people were willing to have.

Everyone had a sense of leadership about this space. We give them better background about the space that happens to be creative coworking space. Freelancers who work in an illustration, designers, advertising, copywriters, and anything that revolves around the industry.

[04.35] The Majority Demographic of Good Gorilla Member

If we go into more details about the community, one of things that's really specific about our space, we don't let everybody into the coworking space. There is some vetting process. Let say, whether you're working in a creative industry or not. We're the founders are all from a creative industry. Our language that we speak helping you from the struggling that we understand and we trying to resolve.

What we decided to do is really cater to creative demographic but we're also open and flexible about the diversity. As long as you're creating something, it could be a developer, it'd be a writer, marketing, developing a new product, we let you into the space.

I think that the demographic is between 25 until 45 and the average would be 30. From just graduated or have been in the fields for a few years. They have worked for a little bit and starting to generate revenue as a creative freelancer. or maybe they're looking a space for something bigger than their home office.

[06.16] The process to be Good Gorilla Member

The process is to sign up for an account on the web and having a tour first. We walk you through space, ask a few questions about what you do. We also want to have a diversity in terms of experience. We want people who are just fresh out of school, people who have a lot of experience and we want that synergy between all different levels. Because the person who just came out of school could learn a lot from somebody who has been doing it for a long time and vice versa.

[07.27] Mentorship in Good Gorilla

It's unofficial membership at mentorship. The community is designed to be very supportive. We have a slack channel, we share and check on. We encourage all our members to ask questions and then for other members to contribute answers to them. We have designed discussions on a bi-weekly basis where we just sit down and have a bunch of people shows up.

We talk about new topics every week, every two weeks. Let say, this week we're talking about taxes, how do freelancers deal with taxes and how do you charge a client. How do you deal with contracts, how do you tackle new business and we share all knowledge. It's really about contributing and receiving information on a continuous basis.

For instance, how to find the clients. There's a lot of different ways to go, you can send newsletters, you can go send out cold emails or phone calls, go to conferences and events. Ultimately, you need to put in the hours and try the different variations. The cycle could be Monday to Friday send emails, made phone calls, did some work, updated their portfolio. They spent a lot of hours and started to slowly get more work and more working now.

We have somebody who came out of school and join. That person was here every single day. When we show up, they would be there. When we leave, they would still be there. A year and a half after school, they were starting to hire other freelancers, to help them with the amount of work. It's really about working discipline and being part of the community.

We see members constantly hiring each other. First just being present and seeing another person working the same amount of hours next to you. Or hustling as much as you spending all those hours. Then you see the process, start to understand your work, get a project and allocating somebody else for sort of specific tasks.

[10.55] The Healthcare COHIP

For those who don't know COHIP Canada, it's it basically means the coworking health insurance plan and it's available for coworking spaces and members of coworking spaces. We pay a membership and we have access to these plans that are discounted otherwise you can be paying the full price. After three months of being our members are eligible to apply.

We don't force the healthcare on everybody. It's added as a bonus to your membership if you want. Some people have their own healthcare plans or get it from their partner but it's available in it. It makes a bit easier to survive in an industry that's not designed for freelancers.

[11.55] Coworking Space Landscape in Toronto

We've been working together for the last five years and we saw a rise in coworking space focused on startups and a lot of the tech industry. Toronto is growing really fast and becoming a number one class city around the world. We're noticing through after the wave of tons of space has been open for the coworking space. We're seeing more spaces focused for very specialized and tailored for a specific crowd. We focus on creatives and two doors down here, there's a space focused on do-it-yourself building robots or different mechanical things. We have another coworking spaces focused on architects. It's very specialized.

They're seeing more population who work in the freelancing field. They're seeing that they're able to build this kind of crowd. The lawyers also build a space that there will be tons of lawyers. Barbershops also doing the same kind of model as well, having community and collaboration.

[13.53] Funding

One great thing about building weekly meetings before we open the space is we wanted to know people who interested in joining the space. What we wanted to do is create Kickstarter program providing early bird options. It's building a sense of ownership in the space. By paying for six months membership, we're gonna take and build the space. All of us contributed and it's the self-funded business-the majority of the project.

It's a massive group of people and helping each other. We couldn't have done it without the members. Spending that whole year on a weekly basis, talking to them and making sure we build something for them. They're able and excited to join us. It gives them a lot of ownership. The ownership has not stayed longer but also want to participate and fund it.

One of the great things is we're not owned by a big corporation that trying to churn out money of every seat. We're not trying to squeeze everybody in here and try to get anybody into space. It's about keeping a very good quality community. It's not about making a lot of money. It's about generating the energy of sharing and collaborating.

When we were going through the process even finding the location of where space would be, we even brought some of the members. And say, "let's go check it out together!" And getting feedback from members.

[17.24] The Meaning of the Station Name

We're slowly removing the station. It was the name when we were starting. We quickly moved to Good Gorilla. It will be the brand that's gonna be running everything. Also speaks to some of our vision for the future. The coworking space is run by Good Gorilla. The way we broke it down as we saw we looked at what is the life cycle of the freelancer.

Basically, we broke it down by learn something new or acquire new knowledge to apply for new work. Then going to proliferate or sell the work that they've produced. And the cycle through these three steps and so.

As an organization, we use the word of the incubator. Actually, we want to see how we can tackle all three steps that really supporting freelancers and what they're doing. The space is the first product of providing a space to work from and to a network. We're also building a series of workshops and events to learn from. We are putting together a store and a job board to sell the books they've made, sell the illustration they've been drawing and create an ecosystem that supports them across the industry.

We believe that the industry not yet designed for freelancers. It's designed for somebody who gets a job and that company will give health care. It will give you retirement money. If you're a freelancer and you're moving around, nobody's taking care of your retirement, nobody's taking care of your insurance, nobody's care if you get sued and you're stuck. This a company that's gonna come and help you. We want to create space that empowers freelancers and support them in an industry that against them. Giving all the tools and the necessary resources so they can move a lot faster and become really the best in their industry.

The way we help selling members product is by putting it online and we're also gonna put it in a retail space. Our coworking space is in a beautiful building here at Toronto called 401 Richmond building. The building has a lot of galleries, bookstores and art stores. It's the perfect crowd for the creative community. Inside the retail space where people passing by will see the work of some of our artists. We're also going to have a gallery to show some of the work. Hopefully, that thing accelerated for them.

[21.18] The Future of Good Gorilla

Hopefully, in ten years, we spread up to a few cities. There's a lot of great cities with a lot of freelancers and creatives. I mean just to mention a few, New York is really big, London is really big, LA is really big. Those are all places where there's a high concentration of creative freelancers. Hopefully, we can grow our ecosystem. We can have a lot of products by freelancers that designed for freelancers, books, education, learning tools and online resources. It's really good communities across different cities. If we can reach that in ten years and have all of those, we will be super happy.

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My personal background, I have a master degree in languages specializing in Slavonic languages in Russian. I joined game development as a part of a writing team back in 2010, for company name Rain known as writing games developers of the game called Teslagrad. Since then, in 2015 I was asked to step in as the manager of the recently established Bergen game collective.

The Bergen Game Collective established a community combined platform for game developers in Bergen. We work together cooperating and combining resources and exchanging experiences contacts. It was founded by game developing companies. The experience was great and we were talking to each other about the companies and exchange of skills like 3D and mentorship.

The Bergen Game Collective was a coworking space for the last two years. We had this large office building which the collective leased and granted out companies could sit in the same office space. We have a similar situation to an Open Office solution. We did not have any large physical walls but the companies did have their own separate space. They leased for a certain amount of money and also paid for shared common costs like electricity, internet, and goods.

The Bergen Game Collective was intended as a non-profit, at the beginning along the way the business entity has either to be a completely nonprofit which means making no money at all or you have to generate some certain income to report to the authorities. Due to taxes, we ended up basically being a profit organization with a very small margin meaning the most of the money would go back to develop the collective.

[04.05] The Name of Collective

The collective itself means that you have a group of people working within the same kind of business but we also had an exchange of people between companies. We also had freelance workers like freelance 3D artist renting a small office space. They working privately on their own project within the game development. We also hosting events for game development in Bergen for instance, coming together parties or meetings with representatives of them from the municipal services.

The idea was to have a combined platform where game developers could meet and they could relate. We could exchange experience and build game developer community closed to each other

Game Development in Norway at the moment is still in its infancy. You have small companies established or founded by people who usually do game development in spare time. If you're gonna work on game development you have to go full, all-in. Due to that reason, you need contacts of the experienced game developers, funding. The collector was supposed to provide a certain basis for the companies to start with.

[06.23] Game Programming Language

Unity 3D is probably the widest used game development engine within our community. The Unreal Engine just recently being made available at no charge for people who want to try it out. Unity 3D has been free to use from the beginning or you could upgrade to pro. You can get a whole list of different options.

Some companies will choose to write their own game engines. They just thought it would be simple for them. For instance, a company called D-Pad studios. Recently, they released a beautiful and successful title called Owl Boy. They have basically brought their own engine because it was easier for the programmer to the process.

[07.32] Helping Member Got a Job as Game Developer or Funding For Their Own Game

We were working on matching the job between employer and employee. The thing is the companies that founded the Bergen Game Collective, they're still not completely full grown companies that have a large amount of available money. It's a little bit limited for what we can offer in terms of a job. We could offer of course expertise, where to find jobs and how to apply for jobs and how to see do it for jobs within the community.

We also helping people to get connected to the game development companies who were actually hiring and to exchange the information about the investors of putting them together, putting them in touch with each other. As I said the idea was to have a combined platform to work with game development but again being a still a small collective and with no funding from the outside. it's a little bit limited what we could do.

[10.00] Game Development Event in Europe

Unfortunately, we haven't given much time to come to coworking event. I think it's probably because we were not aware of such a community that existing.

Norway already has one game developing collective called Hamar Game Collective which is based on on the east side of Norway. They've been in business for a lot longer than us. We did have a lot of exchange information, email and coming together at the conferences.

We do attend gaming events, for instance, the the Game Developers Conference the EuroGamer Expo. The events overseas like the parks West and parks prime these are mostly attended by companies separately not a collective fortunately because traveling.

We tried that as well the challenge is to getting companies together and paying their own sum of money to join the conference. Actually, Norwegian Film Institute does give you a certain amount of money as funding to travel abroad to these game conferences which is good. It's not possible to apply as a large collective, unfortunately.

To apply for funding, you need to have a legal entity which means that you need to have a company with a name and the official registration number. Of course a game a project to show and filling out a couple of applications. It's also possible if you are apply independently. They also can give you a scholarship to travel to Game Developers Conference.

The problem of game development in Norway right now is the lack of investors. Many companies are struggling financially because the Norwegian Film Institute is essentially the only funding that you can get. It's always a chance you will not receive any money and there is also chance you get less than you applied.

The reason for lack of investors is basically the most of the investors decided to invest in things that they can profit purely for instance oil, IT businesses and the building industry. Game development in Norway as I said it's still in its infancy especially compared to larger countries like Sweden and Finland which are larger not in terms of population or money that they have but in the terms of game developing communities. Everybody would know about Rovio and Angry Bird but how about the Swedish Dice Battlefield Series. You need to have a good game and marketing is one essential part.

[15.15] Bergen Game Collective Marketing Strategy

The game collective would be promoting games on social med, on events and within the community itself. If you have a really good game, you still need to have a nice budget for marketing and it's not just posting on Facebook anymore it's not just keeping this team community going but somewhat beyond that.

The main focus in expertise in game development in Norway should be specifically on marketing and targeting the right audience at the right time and decide the better time of the releasing game.

If you release at the same time as a something called a five hundred pound gorilla in games basically an open-top adventure game and you release at the same time as Zelda you're not going anywhere. If you release a platform at the same time as a Mario game you're not going anywhere either. Since you cannot affect when those large games will be released.

We hope VR and AR will be more bringing potential. In Norway, there is not that much expertise in working with the virtual reality yet. There were some projects based on the augmented reality development Norway and hopefully the VR and AR will be growing. For me, VR has a unique way to experience the games with complete full immersion and can also be applied not just to horror games or shooter games or running. It could be applied to for instance story. Hopefully, we'll see more VR projects coming along and the investors as well.

It also depends on where the markets are going with the VR because you have to use the new Sony console which will have support for the VR. You have the VR consoles like Steam. The possibility for a larger consumer base in the VR even though the equipment itself is a little bit expensive right now but still within the reach.

[18.40] Coworking Space Landscape in Norway

There is a trend in Norway right now, something called like an open space. It's a situation where people don't sit in the cubicles but they have desks close to each other. They sit on those desks and there's literally no walls separating them. This open office idea gives people feeling like being closer to the colleagues.

It's a debated thing right now the effect of open space within companies. Some studies show the open space policy effects negatively that the workers performance is being affected. And some studies show that the performance is indeed increasing.

In our case, having come companies close to each other was actually refreshing because you can always know their game, their problem, asking advice, mentorship, sit together at lunch.

[20.20] Mentoring one-on-one session

The CEO of rain games, Peter, he has a long experience with companies and also long experience with game development. He has also a lot of game connection. He has been to many conferences. It was easier for him to talk to other game development companies and give them advice on how to get started, how to secure funding, how to approach the government authorities that could give you funding in the right way.

In Norway, we have something called the Norwegian Film Institute which is responsible to hand out a certain amount of money every year. It's dedicated specifically to game development.

The government supporting game development industry is something not very much seen outside Scandinavia; Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland. They have government initiatives to help promote and develop game development outside of Scandinavia probably not so much the catch is there.

You have to meet certain criteria to apply for funding from Nowegian Film Institute and you need to have a creative and innovative game. It has to be based on a Norwegian or European law or culture traditions and has to be in European language. Once you get past those criteria you can actually apply for funding and can get a quite nice amount of funding as well which helps you a lot.

[22.51] Funding

The Funding basically just the members paying into the Bergen game collective. The amount of money they were paying was to lease the office space and the shared common costs. We also charge a very small amount of money for the administrative purposes.

Basically, the things to pay for the accountant and the audition that we applied for funding to the government and municipal authorities. Bergen has a large potential within game development because you have three schools of Arts in Bergen; two private and one government. The University of Bergen or the colleges offering courses in game development and even education in game development; modeling or graphical design but also coding scripting and game design.

[25.03] Member of Bergen Game Collective

Game Development company who is a member of Bergen Collective, for instance, Rain Games. They were prior to joining Bergen Game Collective. This year, they have launched World To The West a slightly larger title than Teslagrad. It was launched in May. We have a company called henchman and goon who is working on a cooperative project called Pode and Flem.

There's also a company called RetroGene. They made a mobile game called SpinSling and the last company called Squad also a founding member of the game collective. A very successful studio called Dirty Bit they make games Fun Run.

[27.20] The Unique Selling Point of Bergen Game Collective

When we were getting in touch with potential companies and individuals to join their collective we offered things for instance mentorship as you mentioned, office space with all the costs covered by one single sum of money paid per month. We also offered a place in a thriving and positive and social community and also chance to be a part of the game global network and get help with starting a company or help with your project.

Let say, if you need advice on how to get started financially or how to apply for funding or how to find people that you need for your project for instance a freelance basis. Mostly there's expertise and it should never be underestimated because the amount of knowledge that you can generate within the community. It's important for the community to share this knowledge so that the other companies would not have to repeat for instance the same mistakes although they would have a simpler path to establishing the company so yeah it helps to exchange experience.

Twitter | Website

Reference sites that mention on the show:

Rain Games
Teslagrad
D-Pad Studios
Owl Boy
Hamar Game Collective
Euro Gamer Expo
World to the West
Henchman and Goon
Pode
Flem
RetroGene Studio
Dirty Bit
Fun Run

The song is by Ketsa Wild Plain under CC license.

My background, I went to college at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. I graduated with a degree in journalism and I worked for a small startup. It was similar like as Dell computers in early year. Later on, I lost all of my deals to Dell, so I believed if you can't beat them join them. I quit working for the small startup and move to Austin to work for Dell.

I found a position at Dell and selling computers. I started out at the lowest level and when I left, I was almost 15 years at the top level. I worked way up to a Global Account Manager, where I had one account which I handled globally. It was a lot of fun, but I was working out of my home for nine years, I was isolated. I feel alone. I was checking my refrigerator way too often. I was way too happy to see the delivery man.

I started dreaming of this place where I could work around other people. So I started going to a lot of Starbucks. I was super inspired to be in a more buzzy space,yet it felt really weird to ask somebody to watch my stuff when I went go to the bathroom. I didn't really talk to anybody there. I was working around people, but not with people.
I started doing research and I found thing called coworking. I read every website of coworking space in the world, visited a bunch of coworking spaces, and I wrote a business plan. Seven years ago, this August, I opened my first coworking space. Now I have three spaces in Austin, Texas. I did help form the League of Extraordinary coworking spaces. I did also form JUICY which is GCUC and is the world's largest coworking conference series.

[04.27] Liz Contribution to Open Work Agency and The Idea Behind GCUC

I was someone who doing some consulting independently and starting looking around. I found The Open Work Agency. I saw that it was my friend, David Walker from Conjunctured and Drew Jones. We were on the same panel South by Southwest.

I knew them both. Looked at their website and called him up. I was, "You guys are doing amazing work and I've got more leads than I can handle, can we work together?". Now, I'm part of The Open Work team.
I get bought into consulting gigs when it makes sense for me. But we manage to help a lot of people launch coworking brands. We do feasibility studies. We look at the tipping point of different cities and we help people with marketing. We help people with growth and it is a really fun business to work on.

GCUC started actually as a little tiny meetup around South by Southwest(SXSW). There were two meetups at the San Jose Hotel. I went there around 2009 and 2010. I meet all the operators that had already launched, we're doing all this stuff, asked them some of my burning questions, and got answered. It was awesome. In 2011, there was a company called LooseCubes. They did a half-day conference in Austin. I met all these people from all over the world who were into coworking and found this is amazing. I got to meet Carsten from Deskmag, Jean-Yves from Coworking Europe, guys from Gangplank, and people from NextSpace. Feel as if I found my tribe.

In that summer, I got a call. It was from the folks at LooseCubes and they were, "Hey, we don't really want to continue doing this. You seemed super into it and live in Austin Texas. So, why don't you take it over?"
I immediately rebranded it the global unconference conference, in my ode to ridiculous nomenclature everywhere and Stephen Colbert. I was sitting with my friend Jeff from Steelcase, and I was, "What do you think about The Global Coworking Unconference Conference?" and he said GCUC. I was, “ yeah, we' will just call it JUICY.” That's how it all started.

[07.35] The Topic Inside the Event from Different Location

It depends on a several of thing. If it is our first time doing GCUC, we typically cover the basics. Which mean we are going to cover design, technology, community, real estate, kind of some other basics you know, and set the foundation. Then, every year we grow on that knowledge.

The other thing that we do which set GCUC apart from others. At every single GCUC, we take a survey immediately after the conference. We read every survey, we pivot based off of the feedback, and if it comes back overwhelming. It means everybody wants more unconference the next year, they will get more unconference. If it comes back as they need more time to network, then we going to give them more time to network. In my personal opinion, I think GCUC is unique. We really take feedback into consideration and change year to year based on that.

[08.46] The Definition of Camp

The camp is something we have been offering in the US for a few years. We will be offering Camp in China for the first time this year. Camp is basically a primer to GCUC. If you're coming in GCUC for the very first time in China, this is our third year, we were not going to cover the basics at this stage because we've already covered up.
What camp does, it let you get up to speed it.

The camp is generally on some basic topics. Again, it was the community, finance, design, technology, negotiations with real estate; and what that does, it lets people get their burning question one on one of the way. Then, they can really concentrate on next level when they're out GCUC.

The camp is about giving them the very basics they need, on how to build a community, how to design their space, how to get the right technology for their space, and how to spend money appropriately for that. We do talk about negotiations and finance, but it was really for people who are looking to open a space and doing a bunch of research.

[10.11] The Definition of Coworky Awards

We launched it at the first time in the USA, past May. We had been thinking about doing awards for years and we felt it was time to make it happen. The Coworky Awards were a way for us to recognize coworking operators for different things from social impact, design, or some fun categories such as best tagline. It is a way for us to bring some visibility to the industry and honor some people that have been contributing to this industry for a long time.

[11.19] The Support from GCUC to others Coworking Operators

I think GCUC is looking at how we better able to support our members on an ongoing basis. Right now, we are working on getting some additional investment into GCUC. Then, we can provide more programming and support for people. Right now, a lot of the support been done through Facebook groups. There is a Facebook group for GCUC members who have been attended a GCUC and also the GCUC coworking forum, which is for people who haven't attended but want to talk about coworking.

We try to support people in that way and there's also a lot of great tools, such as the coworking Google group. It is out there and there is a lot of people providing support for coworking, but GCUC is looking at ways that we can come more embedded in the day-to-day of coworking operators around the world.

[12.27] The Strategy to Get More People Coming to GCUC Event

Our strategy is to provide great content and has super engaging speakers. We're always trying to one-up ourselves, year after year. Then, also providing a really good mix of technology and products which we considered coworking owners and operators need.

For instance, we went and hunted down Jabberbox. Due we thought their phone booth was really cool. Something which people needed to see and we bought them to GCUC. I'm currently chasing down some people who make amazing sound masking materials because we think they should be at GCUC.

One of the things we do is curating the conference and the speakers. Despite doing all that work, we also go out and look for people whose we thought should be in GCUC to show their products to coworking operators. Just like clay which has great walking solutions and sees who has locking solutions. We bring them to JUICY so that you guys can see them.

[13.49] The Unique Selling Point Of GCUC

It is run by people who ran coworking spaces. We utilize our surveys to continue to improve and grow year-over-year. We've been able to amass a big following and take a lot of pride in that. I think if we do our best to continually improve and make the conference more interesting, more challenging, so coworking owners can continue to thrive and grow in this ever emerging market.

[14.37] The Future Plan of GCUC

What I would hope is that GCUC would be able to better support coworking operators in their health and wellness, and continued to provide education not only point in time but ongoing. The GCUC could continue to inspire and help spaces thrives because it is really hard to be a space owner and we got a lot of competition nowadays. I think GCUC can help change the world for the better.

Another thing, we recently rolled out at GCUC Canada, was CheckYoMate Day on 21 December, which everybody in coworking across the globe to check on people as far as mental illness and dismantle the stigma around mental illness. You may feel that coworking spaces can start a global movement around that
I've always known in my heart, if you believe you can do it then you can. I believe that we as an industry can make some super impactful beautiful changes to the world. That is what my hope for GCUC.

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Website

Reference sites that mention on the show:

Link Coworking
Open Work Agency
LEXC
GCUC USA
GCUC Canada
GCUC South America
GCUC Australia
GCUC Singapore
GCUC China
GCUC Taiwan

I've been in coworking since pretty much the beginning of coworking. I started NextSpace in 2010. The company was great for quite a long time but we felt like there were ways that coworking could kind of level up and be even more valuable to people. We started to talk about that and it didn't really fit in with how NextSpace was formed or what next space was really focused on. It seemed like it should probably be a new company.

NextSpace did really inform a lot of the best practices, things to do things not to do. Covo has been able to really take a lot of those learning. When we started Covo it started off at a much higher level which has been really great and people just love it.

Beside coworking spaces, we also open a restaurant and cafe. It's ground-floor retail. It's open to the public so you can go in and buy a coffee or a glass of wine or a sandwich. Anybody can come in and be a part of what we're doing. If you want kind of a more ergonomic furniture or to charge your devices or phone rooms then we have an hourly drop-in and that's four dollars an hour in San Francisco, two dollars an hour in St. Louis which will be opening up. Our second location will be opening next month.

Both locations have an hourly drop-in and we created a piece of software that makes your checking in and checking out really easy. If you love it and you just want to be there all the time we have monthly membership as well so you can have your own office or a desk or just open seating membership.

We have food from a partnership in San Francisco with a company called proper food which is really high-quality hot meals, sandwiches, breakfasts really good like chilaquiles.

[04.55] The Idea Behind Covo

It was really interesting at Nextspace. The idea came from was we would pay a lot of money for really good coffee beans. We used Verve coffee beans. It was free for members but what we noticed is that every day people would leave and go to Starbucks. Buy coffee even though it wasn't as high quality and it wasn't free. We studied that for quite a while because we felt like something was happening with the psychology of coffee. There was a possibility this whole revenue stream that we were ignoring. We started to talk to people about when this is really good quality coffee and it's free why do you go to Starbucks.

There were a lot of answers but one was that people don't really value what's free. They didn't want to make it themselves cause people always felt like breakfast. They made more than their fair share of coffee. If you drink the last cup, you need to make a fresh pot. There is this whole kind of like psychology. Maybe you like really strong coffee and so you make a strong pot. I like really weak coffee and I make a weak pot. You don't know what's in there when you pour it out. There's also a like consistency of experience.

For all these reasons, we felt like okay even though this is free and it's high quality. People are still spending a lot of money on coffee anyway. That was kind of the original kernel of the idea. We started to think about well if people are buying coffee, they're also buying wine and beer at the end of the evening and lunch food. There are all of these things that people are spending money on that if we had them here it would connect people better because you would be able to have that experience in a comfortable environment.

[08.32] The Typical Demographic Member of Covo

Covo is focused on female and minority entrepreneurs. As a female and minority entrepreneur myself, I feel like it's just not fair that the playing field isn't even. I want to provide that extra support to women and minorities just to make it fairer in the world. We have a lot of guys as well, I feel like it's a better community when everyone is represented.

[09.41] The Partnership with Good Design

We meet Good Design before we opened. Bill Worthen and Kyle Pickett the two founders of Good Design. They felt like there was really a need in the coworking ecosystem for an AEC focused space. They're all of these architects and engineers that coworking almost works for but they need plotters, they need a materials library and so what if there was a coworking space for them. They had started this whole movement to develop a coworking space specifically for the AEC community. We said well where we have a space that's for everyone but we would be willing to partner with you or we would be happy to partner with you and provide those amenities so that there is a coworking space where AEC is comfortable and has what they need and that's been great about a third of our community falls into the AEC category.

We have a lot of really amazing events the US Green Building Council has a happy hour at Covo every month and ULI which is Urban Land Institute so there's been really great programming that Good Design has been instructive in as well and that benefits everyone.

[11.33] An Experience Working a Day in Covo

It feels great! It feels so good! When you come in there's somebody greeting you. We have great coffee and a wonderful genmaicha. The furniture is comfortable, you can either sit at a table or stand at a standing table. In the evening, we have a lot of great events and the wine bar and great beer. We do wine tastings and our sommelier teaches us all about the wines that we're drinking. People have been getting kind of a more education and sophisticated palate.

San Francisco is an expensive city. It's important that people work hard, you need to be able to make money to live here but it's not only about that. It's also about enjoying the time that you have on this planet and making the most of every day so connecting with people and enjoying the experience.

[13.36] The Strategy to Get More Members

We were really thinking about the design and ambiance in great part because it is harder to attract female entrepreneurs than male so we wanted to make sure that they felt really comfortable. It was very clean. We have a mother's room for pumping and breastfeeding. We started with the design so that once people saw the space they would feel really good and be encouraged to either use the drop in space if they don't want to commit or they're not around very often or upgrade to a monthly membership.

We do a lot of events that draw new people to this space and we have an active email update campaign. We let people know what's going on with Covo as well as featured events that are coming up to get people back into space once they've been in. We collect everybody's email through the Wi-Fi system. Those are some of the ways and we just try to give everyone a really positive experience so that they want to come back.

We have blockchain companies, we have AI, we have FinTech and we have a lot of app-focused companies. I love that they're mixed in with architects and engineers. We have an astrologist. We have a couple of photographers and videographers. You learn so much from people in other industries and there could be a solution for your biggest challenge in an industry that is very different than yours. I like people being able to connect with people that are different than themselves.

[16.27] The Funding

We are bootstrapping but we did raise through friends, family, and angels and we did that twice. We did that for the first location and we went back a lot of our investors returned a second time for the St. Louis location and we also have a bunch of new angels that have come on board.

[17.04] The Unique Selling Point of Covo

It's really inclusive but at an extremely high level. The caliber of people that you meet it's not like it's the cool club. It's not like really snobby and pretentious but it is just some of the smartest, most successful, most capable people I've ever met and they open up their minds and brains and arms to you. We've created this environment where people get so much out of being a part of the community that they want to pay it forward they want to bring new people into the fold.

[18.08] The Future Plan of Covo

I see a lot of Covo's. We have more locations. I think every primary city, secondary city and a lot of tertiary cities will be good homes for Covo. There are so many places that I think Covo can be will really flourish Las Vegas, San Diego, Chicago. We'll do a nationwide push in the next couple of years then globally.

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Website | AEC Amenities | Good Design

The song is by Sro The Wastes under CC license.

I am running a company and restaurant downstairs of the coworking space. I'm also having the kind of sports event. We have three enterprises, restaurant, coworking space and running event. I established my company ten years ago, the coworking space itself seven years old now.

Now in Japan, there are 800 coworking spaces. Before establishing my company, I was working for three companies, big company & 2 startup companies. My background, I traveled a lot for the last twenty years.

[02.20] The Idea Behind Pax Coworking

I travel a lot and meet so many people. I have so many friends all over the world. And I want to recommend to all my friends, of course, Japanese and other country people to travel more.

Ten years ago why I decided to create my company, I wanted to make a station like a guest house but I didn't make a guest house instead I create a restaurant. Usual people don't stay in the guest house but all the people eat everything. The restaurant is necessary and people like eating. We serve Coriander cuisine. We do not only serve food but communication usually happens to respect us on the guest. It's like a friend's family.

There are many customers every day and one customer and the other customer. I wanted to make people trying to make friends. We have no seats for two people but we have a table for more than four people. If you come to the restaurant with two people maybe you find another two people in your table. Of course, we don't force to talk. We have a unique food and warm atmosphere so people start talking.

One of the guests created the company when she comes to the restaurant and other guests suddenly say thank you to me. I didn't remember her. I said, excuse me, I don't remember you and she said that, it was a first time to talk to me.

We have the standing seat. I mean standing section and many people enjoy Tokyo. One day she came to my restaurant alone. She found a very noisy group just next door. She was listening to the story. For her working is just working, she doesn't think work is enjoyable. But the noisy group said working is very exciting and very fun, she was so confused.

For the first time, she thinks about her career. After three months, she decided to change a job to enjoy the working. At the first day of the new company, she came back to talk to us and I found me and talk about it. She changed her life. Creating a company and changing jobs it's a big deal. And I think it's very exciting if people start talking. I wanted to change the office station and I made a book working as partying.

[07.45] Working As Partying Book

The book is from my experience, I want to share why I enjoy working but I don't know the word coworking at that time.

After eight months or nine months, I saw a picture of coworking space in London. It was people is working but the people look very happy I asked my friends about photos and at the time I join Coworking Google mailing list. Then, I got the idea of coworking so I decided to create the first coworking space in Tokyo.

[09.15] Event in Pax Coworking

I don't have so many events. I have maybe once or twice a month. Actually, seven years ago, nobody knows the word coworking. At the time I host an event once a week. We called the Jelly, lightening talk, some seminars. Sometimes I invite accountants, finance, and meeting book event. Any event was okay at the time because if I don't do I'm alone.

I was using Facebook or Twitter to promote an event. Back then, nobody knew about coworking. It was very difficult to reach out. I have my restaurant downstairs so I talked to my customers.

[11.06] Coworking In Japan

There are more than 400 coworking spaces in Tokyo and 800 in all over Japan. Actually, there's phenomenon coworking become boring, maybe developers want to create a new and fantastic coworking space. But sadly, they don't have any communication. Without communication, there is no security, no friendship and maybe no business like any other shared office.

Nowadays many people start using the name of coworking space. I know the good things of coworking community. I wanted to share my experience with many people and I want to tell them how to enjoy coworking space.

[13.05] Typical Majority Demographic Member of Pax

Mostly freelancer or the CEO of small companies. And we have an accountant and IT people. Export and sales managers and food business.

[13.25] The Future Plan of Pax Coworking

Actually, I don't think I want to make this coworking spaces bigger. This is very comfortable station now. If you come to be Japan to any coworking space, 80% you will be bored because nobody talked to a stranger. Only the name is coworking but they don't cowork. They don't know about the good things of coworking and they shy but if they know a stranger is very interesting, they start talking. Like I the first time I travel, I was very shy and I thought it might be difficult to communicate. Now I know that people are friendly so no worries I even talk to other people when I am running.

Facebook | Twitter | Website | Working as Partying

The song is by Ketsa Start Something Beautiful under CC license.

Basically, I've been working remotely taking care of my businesses for quite some time now and that was before I opened the coliving space. My background, in general, comes from ad tax or education technology and I've got a couple of businesses in Russia related to education and travel. I always preferred living elsewhere, abroad and and that's why I was always searching for a better location where I wouldn't mind spending more time. Then I came up with an idea of launching a coliving space in the Canary Islands on the balance of probabilities proved to be a sweet spot. That's the idea behind ReStation.

ReStation is a coliving space, a community for like-minded business professionals. NomadTrain is a fairly new project as well. It was a year organizing because it's a lot of details but it was actually boring here in the Canary Islands. The idea brought came together when the three co-founders including myself met at ReStation at some point and we just started NomadTrain.

[03.28] Organizing the NomadTrain Program and Typical Day to Day

We structure the travel the way that people spend about 24hrs, 3-4 days in the city. So, everybody has time to have some more comforts, privacy and explore plus catch up with work. As much as we try and as much as we want to there are some places in the world are not connected internet at all. When you're across in Siberia, we can't guarantee speedy Wi-Fi with an unbreakable connection. We definitely don't say that there's internet at all times and being transparent about it but in cities there is.

We organized workspaces partnering with different coworking in our locations so whenever whichever city we arrive there is a coworking space where people from NomadTrain go to and use it for free. In addition, there is always internet at all of our accommodation venues. All of the hotels where we're staying will be Wireless everywhere. The number one criteria because working is important.

We were sponsored by a cell phone operator that provided Wi-Fi modems of mobile Internet and it works really well. We got very good feedback on the internet quality in cities so people managed to do conferences and webinars with the mobile internet. In terms of workspace, since everybody more mostly works with their laptop so, Wi-Fi is the major requirement of a workspace.

Day-to-day life it will be very different if a person is on the train and if the person is in the city. When we're on the train it's a great time to catch up on things. They could have been sitting on their to-do list forever, maybe write articles, read something or work on finances for your next project or your current project.

We also organized a lot of activities with the help of train participants. For instance, there was yoga on the train. We also have a workshop on trading. There was a hackathon during one day, classes of Russian and Mongolian languages. There's always time to talk with all NomadTrain member.

[07.26] The Typical Demographic People Who Participated in NomadTrain

I think ReStation and NomadTrain have very similar demographics and client portrait. I wouldn't really put one number in terms of age but maybe late twenties early thirties will be a correct description. There were slightly more guys on the train around their thirties and forties. In ReStation were very equal, there are lots of girls here even sometimes more than guys which is also very specific about us.

In terms of nationalities, there is really zero patterning because we had people from all over both at NomadTrain and a ReStation. The very interesting thing is that NomadTrain, we had five Indian participants which are not typical for example here in Europe coliving spaces, Asia, from Australia and New Zealand also the US include as many European countries as can think of.

[09.40] The Benefit and Challenge while Create NomadTrain than Coliving Space in One Location

I guess the benefit will be for both sides because both projects are for similar audiences. There are people who stay connected to each other. I mean for the guys who are living through the experience it's quite interesting they still meet the same people. It's quite good to be able reaching out same people with different projects and keep offering new things to people who want to experience new things. I guess it's a win-win.

[10.55] The Challenge if the Coworking in the city couldn't be used for Nomad Train Member

There are emergency situations that happen on the way but, to be honest, so far we've been lucky nothing really happened. We didn't have an emergency this time although there is a plan B in place in terms of workplaces. There's always more than one coworking space. I feel that the most coworking spaces are really collaborative and very good partners of us.

For instance, we had the situation in Yekaterinburg when we had too many people that actually wanted to use the workspace. They couldn't all fit in. We just avert them to the second one. We had more than one.

[12.00] The Funding

For this type of project, we didn't really need an investor. It's totally bootstrapped. We're three founders here and we're not looking at getting invested in the nearest future. Because we feel, we've got a good growth pattern yet maybe the situation will change in some time but not as of today.

[12.52] The Strategy To Get More Member

I would say the strategies will be a bit different. For NomadTrain, it's a word-of-mouth campaign. Our members are our biggest advocates. I mean our like traveler's people who went with us. It's also the type of projects that sell for itself. It's really a beautiful idea. We are in love with our own idea and many people understand it straight away. We don't need to explain it a lot. Of course, we use social media and we do a lot of collaborations with other projects similar to us by vibe. With other digital Nomad travel project. We're good friends with Nomad Cruise, NomadCity for example.

[14.28] The Unique Selling Point of NomadTrain

NomadTrain has a unique selling point in general. It's like travel the world on the train with fellow digital nomad. I think it's very straightforward and unique so far we don't know of any other train projects for nomads. It's your office on the train.

Why we choose Russia it's because we feel that Trans-Siberian is epic it's not because I'm from there or anything. It's on many people's bucket list. We can satisfy this need of removing this thing from the bucket list. We're also growing two different other countries but I think it was a good idea to start with Trans Siberian

[15.40] The Future Plan of NomadTrain and ReStation

We'll have more frequent departures. Actually, our big dream is to have a coworking train actually like a coworking in a car that will be connected. It would be a really epic experience. Of course, we need to grow a bit. We're pretty sure the routes will expand to several other routes, several Asian countries. We really like Tibet and India.

For ReStation, we want to grow in terms of different also working Asian camps. We want to grow the digital community that we have. It's not only locally but also online.

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The song is by Bayou Dream under CC license.

I'm Nate Pinsley, Managing Director of ADO. ADO is a creative space located in Brooklyn, New York City. My background actually combined by working with smaller startup new organization and big companies. I started out in my career journey in consulting. Working in innovation, social enterprise with big companies. Helping them think about how they can grab away the challenges that they would face in the future and give a sense what's gonna happen in the industry.

Then I started to move into a smaller organization, a bunch of different industry. And found those organization that typically are more successful at starting a new idea, new product, and services. It's been interesting for me to jump back and forth between the big company and small company and see how they relate differently to an idea about the future and the practice of design and their creation of a new solution.

Definitely, it's different cultural organization between those smaller and big companies. The lesson that I learn along the way really incorporated ADO. Small new startup organization, here in Brooklyn that create space for freelancer, startups, independent organization and individual are really pioneering the future. We also want to be relevant on a global stage with big company who are putting a lot of resources into understanding disruption into industry and what's going on in that field. Hearing between those two type of groups giving a lot of potentials to tackle some of the big challenges that we face in the world.

[03.36] The relationship between ADO, MINI and BMW

The idea of ADO started with MINI as space where we could talk about the future and innovation that valuable for people surround us. The conversation started with how do we as a company think of design is evolved not just be a traditional way like RnD, resources, research for the new idea. It's often as an internal issue.

We want to think very differently and open public discussion. Space where a lot of people outside of our company join the conversation and sit together working on design practice of our background. Some product design, some architecture, some graphic design, innovations, science all coming up under one roof to have the mutual exchange about what's gonna happen in the future.

It's much more interesting that human being in one place talking about an issue that they're passionate about and coming up with a solution to get rid of it. And that kind of atmosphere that we want to create in ADO.

Started with the gem of an idea being the research project and ended up being a public ecosystem for design and big ideas about the future.

[06.00] The Typical Program and Demographic Member

ADO open in January of 2017. It's almost 8 months. It has always going to be an experiment. It's not typical coworking spaces. We have a programming calendar that full of events and lectures, parties, and restaurant. We also have fabrication studio, public installation. We continue to tweak and co-create this experience with the community.

Typical demographic of ADO is people who come to ADO as a member and public. Those of our community look like.

[08.00] The Design Academy Program

Design Academy is the name of our programming lecture, events and speaker from the local community in New York and globally. We want to make ADO more than coworking space. We want ADO to be an environment that inspires people.

Through the programming and the conversation that happen in ADO. It can come from a different format, people come into space, showing their solo project, opening up for critics, people in a local community who also work in the design industry. We also have big global 400 conferences speaker. It's not just about a workspace. It's about creating a new idea.

[10.05] Entrepreneur in Residence Program in ADO

We also have another program for entrepreneur. The project is called URBAN-X. It's a venture accelerator. That bring about 20 company per year into separated classes. All of them are working on hardware and technology solution to improve that city life.

[11.00] An Experience a day in ADO

Your typical day in ADO, grab a meal in our restaurant or enjoy happy hour. There's a lot opportunity to have a great social atmosphere. Throughout the week there's a lot of events panel conversation with different editor of design magazine or people visiting from design school, professor, student all talking about their work. Presenting to the group of 40-50 year. Thinking about design, playing with the idea behind design in a way quite professional but also lighthearted and open.

[12.30] The Strategy To Get More Member

We're very lucky, the interest is shown from the local community. We have a waitlist for people who want to have prominent space. But our focus is to make sure the experience of our member who already here could continue. The fact that ADO is an experiment, new kind of approach to working space. It's not just about providing the basic, physical aspect. About providing community and programming through an event that makes ADO is a unique space.

[13.44] Funding

ADO supported by a few of revenue stream. Because we're open to the public, there's ticket revenue from our event, food and drink on the restaurant. And we also have a partnership with company non-profit who used the space to bring the community as well. Of course, we have packing of our founder from MINI which provides that foundation that allows us to experiment and try using n not worry about the short term revenue generation process but more about how do we create a place that very unique and valuable for design community in the long term.

[14.55] The Unique Selling Point of ADO

ADO isn't just typical workspace. The unique of ADO is depend on the work that you do. For people who work in design, we've created a place that 100% tailored to bring input as a designer. Whether that amenities, fabrication equipment or support from your peer who also working design but also figure input stimulating provocative conversation. We want to create a place for collaborator and catalyst designer doing an amazing thing.

[16.29] The Future of ADO

ADO is more than physical space. We really emphasize on what we create, the experience locally but also we have investing a lot of energy so, people who might never visit ADO in Brooklyn can take part in this atmosphere of creative engagement and simulating idea in provocative question.

We have something called the Journal. The Journal is a study stream of the article by people who are visiting in this space and speaking in our event, showcases of the work that happens in ADO. We're devoted that for design community.

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Well, I have kind of an interesting background. I started out in technology. I was systems engineer and sales rep for IBM. I left IBM and went to a company called Wang Laboratories. They were another minicomputer company along '80. I've had a long career and I was living in Georgia at the time in Atlanta. Then, I moved to DC to open the first PC retail store of any major manufacturer.

This was when pcs were first out and they were large clunky things all floppy disk based. I was working for Wang laboratories in Atlanta. They said, "Does anybody want to open a retail store and sell pcs?" I said, "yeah, I do!" I moved up here to Washington DC. I did that for a number of years. Then I worked in large accountants. You may not be familiar with Wang laboratories but they were back in the many computers and mainframe computers.

HP and Dell and a lot of those other companies were just getting started. Wang, unfortunately, went out of business and after rounds of layoffs and things like that I ended up getting out of that business. I spent took that what I had learned by working with small businesses through selling them computers and computer applications.

I started working for small businesses helping them with their accounting and their bookkeeping and their human resources. I did that for many years. I loved working with small businesses because you could just learn so much and there was a lot of energy around small businesses. I felt like I could really help these small business owners so I did that for many years. I also helped start a charter school and a lot of different things. I guess it was in 2010 marketing communications company based in Maryland and I was their director finance and HR. I always felt like there was something else that I wanted to do before I retired but I just wasn't quite ready to say this is my last job.

I read an article online about Hera hub in San Diego and the founder Felena Hanson who's located there. I read about what she was building and I thought wow this seems really amazing to me. I just loved the fact that it was working with a lot of small businesses again which I really enjoyed and I felt like it was a time in my career that I could offer something back to the community because I had so much exposure and experienced all different kinds of businesses so I took the plunge in April 2014 I bought franchise. It was the first franchisee.

Felena already built it in three locations in San Diego California. I bought the rights to build a location here. It was very helpful. It was really great. I opened my doors two and a half years ago and I'm very excited about the community we have here, space and how it's working out and all the people I've connected with and being able to meet and work with and support. It's just been really incredibly amazing.

The Hera hub philosophy and mission, the values are really really great. We've just opened another Hera hub in Uppsala Sweden in August and we're going to have another one opening in Phoenix, hopefully by February. We hope we'll have more worldwide and domestic locations. We're all connected and support each branch. It's a broader community than just our local community.

[06.20] The Hera Hub Incubator

Hera Hub has an Incubator called Hera Labs in San Diego. I'm hoping to bring that here to DC at some point or something similar. They also have Hera Venture and Hera Angels which is an angel venture segment, where they do a lot of work helping to connect investors and founder that need a support and investment support. They're really leading the charge in a lot of ways out in San Diego and we'll be adding different services like that in DC.

[07.39] The Typical Demographic Hera Hub Member

Hera Hub DC have all different kinds of members with different types of businesses. We do have lawyers. We have people with marketing companies. We have climate change experts. We have a woman building power plants in Africa and video producers.

It's just a huge mixture and more female focus. We're not exclusively female, we do have some men members. They come and work here. We've had male interns. If a gentleman wanted to be part of our community is welcome but I think our model is to build a space where women feel comfortable.

[08.50] The Woman Entrepreneurship Landscape in the United States

The DC community area is really trying to support women entrepreneurs. I have a number of initiatives and things like that which I think are really great but there's still struggling. Sometimes when women try to do a lot of different things because they either have family or maybe young children or maybe they're caring for their parents or whatever so they're trying to work part-time. They're really serious about their profession. I think a lot of times people don't think that's the case. I think if somebody's trying to work part-time that they're not serious and I disagree completely. I think people who are trying to work part-time are much more serious about getting the work done when they need to get it done.

I think sometimes there's a feeling that women don't take their work as seriously. I think that cost some people to kind of discount what women can bring it to the table. The women that are part of my community in DC that I met and I support really have these amazing jobs and great background. DC is really trying to support women entrepreneurs.

I think that the climate is changing now because I think there's a lot more discussion now. Especially with some of the issues that have come up about sexual harassment and stuff in the tech world. I think it's great to have those conversations so we can figure out how to create a better environment for people men and women. Men sometimes don't even like being part of that.

Some men also see what happens to women and don't like that either. Some men are saying it isn't fair, the women are valuable and part of our community. I think as long as we're having that discussion and try to make some progress.

[12.00] The Hera Hub Licensing Model

A licensing model is the best of resources and experience of Felena had. She's put together fabulous programs. She's figured out all the branding stuff, what kind of furnishings work, what kind of marketing programs you should have. She's been doing this for a really long time not only with Hera Hub but she was in marketing. She had her own marketing company for years.

She did a lot of work with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship at a university in San Diego. What you really get when you buy into this model as you get the benefit of all of the hard work that she's done in the past. You don't have to repeat mistakes and start from scratch. I don't really think that I would have done this if I had to start from the very beginning because I just would have taken too long.

[13.25] Licensing Fee

There are a licensing fee and monthly fees associated with it. It's ongoing and flat fee instead of being a royalty based upon your gross sales. It's how they recoup and use that money to support. We had a whole website redesign last summer and there's a lot of benefit to being part of a broader community.

[14.12] Flexibility

We do have the flexibility in certain things. We can make some adjustments which are what makes it work for the city that we're in. A lot of the other types of things come from Hera Hub HQ, San Diego. We have a choice to do it or not do it certain things we have to do by using a certain member system but I'm glad I don't have to figure that out.

[15.06] The Architecture and the Interior

Hera Hub has branding color, it's the brown and the blue. You just have to keep a similar sort of vibe and feel. We need green plants because that's really important to have live plants. She doesn't really dictate too much but you have to stay within a certain aesthetic so that when people walk into Hera Hub in DC or they walk in the Hera hub in Sweden it's gonna feel very similar.

[16.00] Consulting about Landlord

The landlord and the lease is mine business, the negotiating. But the layout and other things I get guiding from Hera Hub HQ.

[16.38] What If the Franchise fail

There's no guarantee it will succeed. I get a lot of support from Hera Hub HQ but it's up to me to make it work here in Washington DC.

[17.54] The Unique Selling Point of Hera Hub DC

The biggest difference is the community and the connections that we make. A lot of the biggest piece that we do here is build a really strong community. I get to know what everybody's business is, what kind of needs they have, who's their customer how can I help. So, I know how to help them with their business whether it's connecting them to another Hera hub member that might be a strategic partner to help them. Or it might be somebody outside of my community that I've met that can help one of my members.

I really feel that that makes us really different than a lot of the of the other coworking spaces outside. Even Felena reaches out and always looking for opportunities for all the members to help them with their businesses. I think that that's the big difference of what we do. This community is very supportive for all members and really works hard to help them be successful. They also provide a place for them to work.

We're having a six weeks sessions with a woman who has a company called Angel Venture Forum in early September. We're doing all these educational series with her to educate men and women about angel funding, what does it mean, what does your business need to look like in order to make it attractive to an investor.

[20.33] The Future Plan of Hera Hub DC

It's interesting. The whole coworking model and shared workspace model are really evolving. We Work and Verizon which is a large phone company. It's now empty spaces there. Since the technology for phone systems is so changed. They have these huge office space that's empty. They're trying those things in the coworking spaces.

I think it's gonna be interesting to see how coworking shared workspace involves but I'd like to see more locations in the DC area because I think it's important for this type of model be successful. It's important to have kind of located where your members are. I'm in DC and a lot of people that live in Virginia find it hard to commute to DC. So, I get a lot of people in Virginia saying, "When are you gonna open space in Virginia?"

So, I would see few additional locations in the area and I think we always have to be cognizant of what's going on in in a bigger picture of the industry of shared workspace to make sure that we're keeping up with that and we're staying current and being innovative in the products and programs that we offer.

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Website | Hera Hub Collective | Felena Hanson

The song is by Ketsa Work under CC license.

I'm Warren Hersowitz. I'm the director of sales at WUN Systems. I've been with the company for about just under four years now. The idea came from both our CEO and our CTO about 10 years ago with a different company. They were using an executive suite and they were there for some other business and they were trying to get on the internet and they were trying to book a conference room. It was so tedious and difficult to do and it couldn't be done after hours and they'd need to have somebody manually open the conference room. it was such a nightmare to do anything at this space. They thought to themselves kind of a light bulb went off saying wow there's a good opportunity to get technology into these spaces that make it easier for the member. To use the space, the amenities, book things and no need to have someone else in a daily basis.

From there the company was born. It started with basic ability to manage the network. We internally call, manage the data Wi-Fi then it grew into allowing phones then have one integrated software platform. It does not only manage the technology but also manages the day-to-day operations of the space, booking conference rooms, managing the leads, doing your billing and also adds a member portal on a daily basis. The next steps have been integrating with other third parties for example door access. We now work with GC door access and a lot of other companies. So, that's kind of been the life cycle of WUN Systems and how we came into being and as we've come along the years.

[03.15] What is features of Kube

It increases your revenue, have more efficiency for your staff and grow a sense of community. We do that through integration and really automation of your systems. Kube helps you manage the lifecycle of a customer from them literally just first getting to know you as a lead. Fully being a customer and using all the services and everything is integrated.

For example, when somebody goes to your website, clicks on the contact us button, puts in their name and phone number, email and want you to reach out. It'll then automatically integrated for uploading into our platform. You can have it in one singular database from there you continue the lifecycle of that customer. Typically, most operators then call that person. If they're going to be renting an office, they come in, they take a tour then they sign a contract and all of that is done through our platform.

Once they're a member that the integration continues. The most important technology in these spaces, it's first and foremost Wi-Fi or Internet. Our system allows you to give information when the member moving in and allowing internet access- their own private wireless accounts or VLAN. The member also have possibility requested phones that follow to sort of reception answering all of that remains through our system. It's designed to be done through very simple wizards. It may seem there's a lot of things going on this platform but it doesn't have to be run by an IT person or a technical person.

Some of our bigger operators with multiple spaces like to have an IT person on staff because they have multiple locations and different things pop up but our system doesn't require an IT person. It's the simple wizard that literally anybody with limited IT experience can do it. It's very simple and immediately set up.

When the member has become a part of your Center they can continue to do things on their own, such as book conference rooms and continues the automation. If someone, for example, has a door access system integrated with us then booking a conference room, opening up the doors after hours that's all automated. You don't need to have somebody on site to manually do sort of things.

Most operators want their staff focus on hospitality, making sure their members are happy rather than having to focus on printing invoices. or you know I'm writing up contracts or opening conference from done that's not what they want their staff focused on. Our main features, it's all about integration and automation in an ease of use concept for both your staff and your members. Making sure their members are happy and have a great experience.

[07.20] Software error while connecting membership

Our system can manage on what the operator has elected to purchase from WUN in terms of our offering of services. One of the other features that we offer is its flexibility. If an operator comes in and is a newer operator it has a smaller space, they don't have to purchase the whole suite of services. We always say to our customer, let's start off with our platform called KUBE and from there you can grow into the other services as the demand arises.

For instance, typically not every operator starts off at the door access system and something they grow into. First thing is if somebody has a door access system, it would restrict non-members from coming in because they would need some sort of code referring to enter in the system. Bring a doorbell, they're gonna have to alert the center that they're there now.

For someone who doesn't have a door access system, the most popular way amongst operators is using the Wi-Fi to track your date. For your guest, every time somebody logs into that Wi-Fi you can have that information then go into our CRM database. You can know who's in there and obviously if you recognize a pattern that the same person is continually in your space using your Wi-Fi you have their information. You can go talk with them. The popular way to track the traffic of the space. It will be missed an opportunity if you can't gathering the information for future marketing.

[09.38] The Workflow when member using WUN in their coworking spaces.

Typically the members experience would look like put a contact us and flow into your lead database or directly sign up for a membership or use of a conference room. Our system allows you to go onto the website see the available calendar, sign up for the space register myself, pay for the space and essentially get a confirmation email with information about both the Wi-Fi access and if they have the door access information and all of us automated both from the members side and from the operator side.

Meanwhile, for someone being a member, they reach out, take a tour, sign a membership agreement and all of that can be processed through our system. Setting up their technology, giving Wi-Fi access, phone access and they can start working right away. The other thing the members need is their member portal login. Through member portal, they can book their own conference rooms and get to know the community of the space.

[13.09] The Impact of Coworking Movement With the Increasing Demand of WUN Systems.

Absolutely, as the industry is continuing to grow more and more people are opening spaces right that's that's the first thing you know more and more people are becoming aware of this industry. Different cities different localities some in the suburb some in the city so there's always a space of good to use that. We've definitely seen that more landlords are realizing this a great opportunity. To take some of my vacant space in my building and essentially fill it out with a coworking environment. Both things are kind of pushing together and increasing the demand for coworking space along with what is the need to manage that technology and that's where WUN Systems comes into play.

[15.00] The Benefit of WUN Systems for Landlord

There are two things going out with the landlord. One, the landlord doesn't want to be involved in the same way that a typical operator does in. The day-to-day management of the space. They just want to see the revenue. They need a system that built to run on its own and has automation.

The second, typical landlord who's new to the industry doesn't understand the kind of demand of the coworking industry. Our system lets you a manage the unique requirements of the coworking space and allows you to know automation. The landlord can basically manage an entire space with maybe one to two people without having to have a full staff. So, the landlord set up a coworking space without having to put a lot of costs.

[16.40] WUN System Connecting Coworking Space with The Landlord

We've seen both where that the landlord wants to become their own owner and own the space. In that case, the landlord is kind of hands-off. We've also seen where the landlord is looking to fill their space with a coworking spot but they don't want to be the owner themselves. They don't recognize enough about the industry.

So, We can connect them with some of our partners who either act as consultants to help them set it up or actually looking to run their own space and want to look for an opportunity. It could be either and in both cases, either through our connections or through ours. Obviously, through our technology, we can help them manage that.

[17.40] The Typical Demographic of WUN Systems

There are so many different coworking spaces. We have coworking spaces from A to Z, a big small new established, one location many locations. Typically what we see the highest demand for a state or as for our system comes from coworking spaces that are looking for an enterprise-grade solution. They recognize by using multiple different systems or maybe pen and paper is while it may work in the beginning as they continue to grow and expand maybe open new locations it's just not going to be scalable.

[20.10] The Difference Between White Label & Grey Label and The Reason Why WUN Systems Using White Label

White label means like co-branding. The coworking operators want the members to think that the branding of member dashboard is set up by coworking operators. The most important in the difference between you making sure that the members are looking at it's not a white label software at least a software that's able to be fully branded with the logos, the colors and just the way that space has been set up to continue to grow their brand and give their brand exposure to their members.

[22.00] The Unique Selling Point of WUN Systems

Our unique selling points are the flexibility, integration, automation and future proofing. The flexibility is that when space opens, it just depends on their budget. Typically if it's a new operator, they're a little unsure how well is it going to do, how much revenue am I gonna bring in.

The integration and automation that's the ability to have one platform that manages all of your services. Whether it's the doors conference rooms billing, lead management, data Wi-Fi management. It's all integrated into one platform.

The future proofing is the ability to know that not just the industry but technology itself is ever-changing. It becomes more popular and more people are using it, all different types of genres of people are now using it and technology is ever-changing. It means the equipment you're using is designed to be the latest version and can be changed out as new equipment.

[25.45] The Future Plan of WUN Systems

There will be a fully automated space. Meaning all can done by software. Walking into space, using the phone to open the doors. Log in into the Wi-Fi automatically. Definitely, there will be more space is using fully automated concept. Our space will allow more integration to continue to work with other third-party companies.

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The song is by Ketsa Calmly Slowly under CC license.

I've been in commercial estates for about 20 years in the different aspect. In terms of about what I've done, I had an experience in executive suites company that I started in 2001. I was partnering with somebody. We grew that into 10 locations and sold it to Regus. I've done various other things like developments brokerage. I did Salon Suites for several years. And I started wondering if this coworking concept could work for what other niches and decided to try it for medical. That's basically the background.

[02.15] Reason Why Choose to Medical Industry

I just didn't see that anyone was providing coworking timeshare concept for medical practitioners. I saw there was a lot of subleasing that would happen. Somebody would basically be forced to lease more space than they really needed. As small as medical space can reasonably be broken down on an individual basis. Typically thousand square feet might be the smallest that a building owner would be willing to break their space down and somebody like that would basically have to take on more space than they really needed for themselves.

They would have to sign a long multi-year lease, put a bunch of money into building to space out, furnishing it, equipping it and sub-lease it out. Then they'd have all this extra space and they would sublease it out to others who would take a room or two. It’s still predominantly what's out there and I thought the whole idea of coworking in the office sector and the salon sector is to have an intermediary come in take down the bigger chunks of space. Then offer it up in smaller pieces to those who really don't need big space. So, I decided to try that for medical.

[04.29] Business Model

It's very similar to any coworking business model. Basically, where you are taking down a larger chunk of space and you are subdividing it and offering it in smaller pieces to those who need it. I mean it’s just offering space. For now, we only had one location, in the Phoenix, Scottsdale. It's our first location. So far, I've had quite a bit of interest from people in other parts of the Phoenix area wanting me to open in other states in the United States. For now, we just focused in the Phoenix area.

[06.00] Typical Demographic Member of Viva MedSuites

Basically, it's some medical practitioners. There are physicians, surgeons, naturopathic physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and medical esthetics. These are all people that don't need big office space to see patients. They just need an exam room or a waiting room for patients. Maybe a place for an assistant. They typically don't need full-time space. Maybe one day a week, two days a week or it might be a satellite office. It’s really the niche that we're filling in for those who need a small amount of space and for less than full time.

I have ten exam rooms in my location and it still remains to be seen exactly what the averages will be but I'm thinking is probably going to end up being about three or four tenants per exam room. I've might have 40 tenants in my space but not all at the same time.

First of all, the exam rooms are furnished and equipped as you would need in a medical office. They all have sinks, cabinetry, desk and chairs for the doctor and the patients. They all have some form of an exam table or chair and then they're stocked with standard medical supplies. We also outside of the exam rooms have some shared equipment like an autoclave, a centrifuge, scale vital sign monitors. The typical things that doctors use on a regular basis.

[09.45] Strategy to get more member

Well, it's an evolving one. I'm trying to educate the market on a new product type that just doesn't exist yet. it's largely an education strategy. Letting people know that there is a new option now. it didn't exist before. Either had to sign a direct lease for typical space and longer term than you really want it to. Or you have to sublease from somebody who did that. There's a third option where you avoid both all of the downsides of those other two options.

I’m doing pretty much everything, I can think of to reach the medical community. The physicians, surgeons naturopathic doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants. I'm marketing heavily online through SEO and Google AdWords campaign. Remarketing in Craigslist and the various different commercial real estate related or office related listing sites. For instance, loop net, search office space, doctor's office space.com.

I'm doing direct mail to a mailing list. I've assembled my own email list over the last couple of years and I do email campaigns. It's just my own database that I've collected over time and from people that come to the website to submit forms. Through networking on LinkedIn. I’ve also done printed fliers and walked around to medical office buildings all around where I'm located and left flyers with all different doctors offices and done display advertising and association medical sites or email blasts to association members through these various medical associations.There’s a host of things and they all contribute a little bit.

[13.00] The Unique Selling Point of Viva MedSuites

it's the only one kind there, nothing such like in other location. They can have access to professional medical clinic space literally by the hour or by the half-day without signing long-term leases. Without having to put up a bunch of money to furnish and equip a place. Without having to lock themselves into a solution that won't really meet their needs in a year or two. it’s very flexible, granular and scalable. They can start very low-risk and small. Then they can add incrementally as their practice grows or as their needs change.

[14.00] The Future Plan of Viva MedSuites

I am not the one who is a big believer in the practice of one-year or three-year, five-year, ten-year plans. I mean there are too many variables in life. I've just learned. My plan is just to stick with it and see where I go. I’ve got interested in this particular industry. I think it'll grow but I don't have any huge ambitions that have to be nationwide or worldwide. I'm going to have fun regardless.

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The song is by Ketsa Interlude under CC license.

I'm Remi, coworking mate of Meriem Belazouz, founder of Salon Coworking. I joined her in this project because I found the idea was wonderful. Speaking about the background, I was coworker here. I was working in different coworking space. The idea began when Miriam and I found a lot of difficulties that young entrepreneurs to hardly find the office that not expensive. She decided to find some solution. The inexpensive offices and didn't take the contract for several years.

She was working in different business species with a business center. These business centers are not always adapt to young entrepreneurs because there is a fabrication as I said to have a contract for one, two, or three years. Besides the difficulties she also found there were communities who were sharing spaces to organize their offices and find a coworking ecosystem. She found it was genius idea because it could bring a solution for young entrepreneurs to have inexpensive offices.

[Lee] Is it already coworking space like having workspace somewhere?

The Salon Coworking is from the idea. It's not confirm coworking spaces. It was a way to share the spirit of people collaborate together. It's idea from Meriem who wanted to share the coworking spirit because it was a new way of thinking. A new way of working and a new way to collaborate between different people.

[04.28] The Majority Demographic industry in Salon Coworking

The salon coworking is like a big think tank event. It gives a connection between different people and different industry. For instance, a freelance who comes to this exhibition, there is big companies, small companies, a small business and coworking space who collaborate their spirit. It's more internationally event.

[Lee] Are you helping a young entrepreneur get funding and connect to the investor?

Different people come to the event who speak blockchain, holocracy, sharing energies and to improve the connection between them. There are exhibitors of a different domain, a coworking space, financial adviser, business coaches, lawyers or different people who can help young entrepreneurs and project leader to develop their own companies. We have a conference program with difference industry, coworking space, finance, blockchain and business development. After the event, people can find this speaker in the different industry to do a big networking between speakers and people who come to see and to discuss with them.

[07.30] The Unique Selling Point of Salon Coworking

I will say it's more an idea isn't selling because we want to share with everybody and the world because it's a new way of thinking economy. It can be a new solution for a small business. For instance, in different countries, you have the microfinance. It is born to two big possibilities for people to do a great project with microfinance. In this way with the coworking spirit, people can get a new connection, sharing ideas and collaborate so they could get the solution.

Sometimes in many cases, a lot of people are working alone and they don't have the good connection. If they find some people who have some ideas that are similar, people want to share project and find some associates who can give them the solution.

So, this small coworking space, some small incubators, and people are doing connection together, develop and grows together. It's stronger rather than they're working alone.

[10.00] The Future Plan of Salon Coworking

For the first edition, Miriam has organized in a large boat. It was an idea that emerges when she proposed to show the good connection in the event. There are local people also people who come from out of France and some from different countries. It's funny to see enthusiasm people even though the location is outside the large boat.

Meriem decides to organize the second edition in Stade de France to share a connection and do coworking. The mission is we want to develop this concept push the boundaries and do different salon coworking in other countries. Now we have some ambassadors who want to represent salon coworking in Africa, Canada, United Emirates Arab, and Malaysia. It's a good idea answer so I will get some people to want to share the spirit and some ambassadors. We are open to other people who want to represent as salon coworking ambassadors. You can contact us and do some kind of partnership and develop this concept globally.

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The song is by Ketsa Start of Something Beautiful under CC license.

I'm Henry Weaver. I am the city manager for Fishburner. My role is to look after for things. It's member acquisition, member onboarding and look after the sponsors that we have in terms of acquisition and the relationships of those sponsors.

Fishburners is actually Australia's first and largest coworking space. We started in 2011, actually six and a half years ago. Two guys founded it. Mike Casey of Greg connections who still sits on the ground floor and Peter Davison of where he was actually the first investor in PayPal. He also did a couple of investment Pinterest and a few other things. Stayed off together in our pub in Ultimo. It's an introvert meet an extrovert. We do not put these two people in the same place which is I'm very interesting and they officially hit it off.

Essentially, Mike wanted cheap office space for his startup and Pete genuinely just wanted to make friends. He was living with a dog in Canberra and was exited out of these two really successful startups in terms of the VC.

BP took the top floor is a guarantor and there was no team. It was very much started as a member-driven community and it's growing for men. So, that's the story of how it all started.

[02.54] Funding

Fishburners is nonprofit. Optus actually helped us expand into our level one facilities, back in April or back in 2011. Years and years through corporate sponsorship. We've taken that the whole building. Differs in terms of how they get involved it's subsidizing desk. It's actually getting involved with the startup. We've made a number of connections. NAB make a good connection with companies integral products a few years ago. and the third way they get involved is through certain discounts so Google Cloud credit and Dropbox.

We try and increase the interaction through event programs. It's good to be a non-profit. It means that we can focus on why we're here. Also to inspire more people to great startups and inspire more people to hire and not working for prudent and build out the next figures by there.

We're very multicultural and what we have in the building. It's a very good test market in Australia. We get a lot of people were looking Australia as a tech market but they always go global because of what we have in the building it's a very wide range. Everyone could work at Fishburners as long as working on a scalable tech product or platform. They'd be led into the community.

[05.15] Coworking Landscape in Australia

It's starting huge. Back six and a half years ago, we were the only one and now I think it's more than hundreds coworking spaces in New South Wales alone. It's a huge growth. I think how that affects to Fishburners, it's really a good thing. The objective is to inspire more great startups that means there are more coworking spaces.

I think Fishburners has been always a word-of-mouth. It puts a spotlight on entrepreneurship and innovation but I think it's it's only a good thing for Fishburners point of view. The more competition means more startups which means more spotlight on the space.

[06.28] Typical Demographic of Fishburners Member

We're industry agnostic and Telos technology agnostic. We focus on scalability is the requirement that we look at for Fishburners. They obtain a large market share in a short amount of time or can they grow through technology and automation.

We're got 7% fintech, 10% marketplaces. We also got a number of blockchain businesses coming through the building. We had a splurge of AI about a year and a half ago. We've got DayDream VR actually features as one of the top VR products.

[07.44] Marketing Strategy

Fishburners along six years is being known from word of mouth. It has been the biggest sort of referral in terms of people coming into space. Now, ironically, we've just hired our first director of marketing and communications which is the huge thing for Fishburners.

I think that's what we probably need as an organization. We need to think like some of the startups that we have in our building. I think hiring out those sort of key positions is critical for Fishburners succeed. We're looking into a lot more the marketing promotions of what we can actually achieve and we run a lot of events. We run five hundred ninety three events last year.

Fishburners manages a tech coworking space. We've got startups about three hundred and thirty members. The beauty of Fishburners is always found an identity and there's always someone six months ahead. It means when you walk into a building that natural inspiration and natural acceleration which happens with those sort of numbers.

We do a number of events that help startups through a journey. We have a lunch group on a Wednesday. We had an ampersand in contracting session and Ellis agencies retailers. Last week we had a finance and marketing.

We do a number of events based what are the challenges for an early-stage startup and essentially that's how we like to run things. Our output is very good but I think that sounds the fact that like you've got an a large number of people coming to a building that all invested, all got that common denominator that they're invested into startups. They want to work with the startup. I think that they're a large success of the building that people share. People help out other people and become a very close mate.

[10.54] The Unique Selling Point of Fishburners

The community. Fishburners is above all else a community is a place where people come to that instant accountability and instant feedback. It's something that is derived everything through everything that we do here. It's personas. You come into Fishburners to connect with like-minded individuals and I think that's the main reason why we get a lot of people coming back to the spaces or will come into this place.

It's either been working in their garage for the last six-twelve months not talking to anyone or they just come out of uni. They want to come into a community where they can just think and shout about it and get that instant accountability and feedback. I think the USP of Fishburners will always be there the strength of its community and the startups inside it.

[13.04] The Future Plan of Fishburners

We want to be a cornerstone of the Australian economy. It's an ecosystem that is thriving and growing and that's we should learn about.

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Hi, I'm Magdalena from Germany and I live in Morocco since six years ago. I'm running Sun Desk Coliving and coworking space, it's almost three years by now. I got the idea because I was studying online. I joined an online university. Did the online bachelor basically I could do it from Morocco. I really enjoyed it but I was facing too many problems like a quiet space to work and stable internet and I felt a bit lonely, like studying all the time from my house. So, that's why I decided to set up sun desk I was thinking of a coworking space and to solve my own problem and well then finally opened sun desk.

[01.56] Coworking Landscape in Morocco

In Morocco, it's a growing market. We do have coworking spaces but mainly in the north, in the industrial areas of Morocco. There's very lively startup scene as well they're very well connected and rent is extremely high so a coworking space is interesting for Moroccan as well. Sharing the office and the costs basically.

There is no real impact on SunDesk maybe because we are in the south and here very close to the desert so we don't really cater Moroccan coworkers because there is no startup scene here. The only industry in the south close to Argadir is a tourism or agriculture. We mainly target foreign coworkers. We do have coworkers but Moroccan coworkers not. They mainly come from the north and just want to stay like a week or two at the seaside and change a bit. We don't have daily Moroccan coworkers.

[03.28] The Typical Demographic of Member

The majority clients are 50% Germans, 30% British and Americans, and the Netherlands also all over the world. There are Asian, Russia, the Middle East from everywhere.

[04.32] Experience A Day in SunDesk

Usually, we always start the morning with the breakfast together from 9 am to 10 am. Sit for one hour or one hour half before they start work. Then we start to work until a lunch break but that's not mainly individually organized. We do have lunch twice a week but the other days the coworkers organize themselves and then around seven or eight people stop working well it depends on which country they work too. Then usually the coworkers meet and then they go out for dinner and have a nice evening.

The weekend still open 24hours and coliving as well but for coworker from outside open from 9 am to 6 pm seven days a week.

[06.08] Strategy To Get More Member

We don't really do advertisement. We use social media a lot as well word of mouth. I have to say that our guests usually send other guests or come back by themselves. It's very nice and it's a really small community. It's growing and very well-connected. It's mainly what we do with social media.

The goal here is not my personal goal. It's not really about making more money or becoming like super rich with it. It's more to have like to create myself a good great job and I really love what I'm doing. I love it mainly because I'm very connected to people and they usually stay long for a month or two so I really get to know them well. I get to know each other. This socializing and meeting interesting people and learning from their jobs and from them. That's my main personal goal. I don't really want to expand because it would be more about numbers and organizing things and then I lose the contact to the clients it's not what I want.

We do have three employees there are two cleaning ladies and cooking ladies. One host who's hosting the guests and taking care of that. Everything is organized then it's me and my husband as well. Doing mainly operational work and Taxation with me together.

[08.37] The Unique Selling Points of SunDesk

It's a very small and cozy community with international coworkers. I think it's mainly about the community spirit that people really get in touch here with each other. They really exchange work wise and as well become friends and because of the way debating and the way it's organized they work very close together. Where you can find a place which is a quiet then you can focus and not disturbed by other things.

[09.32] The Future Plan of SunDesk

For now, just focus on what's happening right now but maybe there's something in the future. Maybe to build another Skype room here on the terrace.

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The song is by Ketsa World Edge under CC license.

Uwe:
Matthias and I, we thought we do a coliving space in rural Austria. A friend of us suggested to have a look into Bulgaria then he came up with where can we establish a coworking space or a coliving space then Bansko somehow came in our mind.

Bansko it's a place where you can ski. It's between Sofia and the shore of Greece and it comes up with many benefits. We thought, we give it a try and this delegation of six people we came here almost a year ago and found out that Bansko is an amazing place. It has a magic and we fell immediately in love with it.

I'm from Austria and Matthias from Salzburg and we both came from Austria to Bansko. At right in the beginning we met Irina.

Irina:

I've been studying and working in the hospitality industry for many years in Sofia. Doing a lot of different stuff of startups a few failures everything. At one point I decided to move to Bansko where my roots are my grandparents are from here. It was fun but missing some international and fun community. It's a touristy place when people don't stay for a long time.

When Mattias announced that they are opening a coworking space, I want to be involved but I don't have contacts with them. And my friends said look they're opening a coworking space. I would say we just connected and it's like destiny.

Coworking space should offer friendly community within their members. Our slogans are fun and work. Fun is a big part. Bansko is a ski resort, you can combine these two very easy.

[06.12] Coworking Landscape in Bulgaria

Irina:

In Bulgaria have 12 coworking space by now. The trend is really growing. People are starting to understand what is coworking space. When we had the major opening of our coworking space, people say it's interesting. Locals want to know and getting involved.

When it comes to coworking development, there is a demand. People want to have coworking. It's also kind of new work. We want to provide something new. We want to elaborate and involve in the community. What we want to bring to Bulgaria is working from home or home office or so it's not so known in Bulgaria. As a coworking space we might be able to work in our space is open up a new world.

People asking question, what is coworking. They get infused with this orange new idea. Dream bigger ventures together. Create some playground for business people, for entrepreneurs and it's not only like your encapsulated in this lurking sort of thing. It's meeting like-minded people. You have an amazing place. It's a healthy environment. You have so many possibilities to do fun things. If your adrenaline junkie or if you like the silence of the nature climb being hiking in all this you can get here at Coworking Bansko.

[11.34] Open Partnership and Collaboration

We establish at least one event per month in general where we invite all the people from everywhere. Of course, we have specific events for specific target groups. Let say for internal membership events like a barbecue even sport events for the members.

We are actually looking for partners and it can be anything. For instance, if it's a sponsor, we're open for sponsorships and if you want to contribute as a mentor or whatever, we are very open for partnerships in any direction.

Our events actually the public events, as well as the member events, are published on our website coworkingbansko.com and also be published at Facebook groups. We tried to spread the word on different channels but one of our biggest promotion is Facebook.

We try to involve our members to make some events that they will be interested in. Almost everyone has made a workshop from them to the others and it's a good skill sharing thing. For example, we have now dream building. Whoever wants to do a workshop if they feel that they have enough things to share with the community.

We are not a finished product. It's a test space like experimental. We want to be open for ideas. For instance, we have food for a brain like where we meet with all the members and asking feedback. They come up with ideas and we are very open for ideas and try something new. We want to be able to grow with our community together with of members.

[15.00] Expansion Plan

Definitely. We have a good space. Now, we have 20 members at the moment and could easily have forty members this is possible. I think with the upcoming events and more publicity, people started to consider to come to Bansko.

It's the ski season starts mid December and we will have the Nomad Soulmate events. It already attracts a lot of people. When ski season starts, we can ski again and it's a seasonal place here. Summer was amazing it is generally like a Mediterranean climate when you have many Sun hours. It doesn't rain. Meanwhile, Spring was a little bit rainy.

Summer was amazing. Warm temperatures almost no rain. You're in mountains, you have this amazing weather you can go motorbiking, hiking, downhill biking, mountain bike. We also have hot spring- second in the world. We even have a secret hot spring in the forest.

[17.30] The Unique Selling Points

Our unique selling point it's very personal attitude and at the same point pushing you towards your professional success.

Most of the coworking spaces are lacking professional work environment. Most of the places have good internet and stuff but we wanted to have a great chair and really comfortable working environment. The major thing we were looking at in the very beginning. We don't want to offer a cafe situation where you buy a coffee from us and then you sit on the wooden chair. Then you get pains in the back in the very first two hours.

We try to constantly improve the work environment and this community like-minded people so you get in. I think the experience you come to us. It's hard to put it on paper and it's hard to tell about it but if you come, you will find out. It's very a unique thing.

[19.20] The Future Plan of Coworking Bansko

We want to do more into that direction and we want to enable more people to participate. It's great, we have a lot of people coming internationally but also being able to contribute the local community. We like to invite them more to us and to participate also to interact more.

As coworking Bansko, we don't want to own the wings but we want our members and our visitors to own the wings. They shall come and find out. They shall succeed and own the wings. This is what we want to establish. We want to invite the local community more into this. It's our vision.

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The song is by Norton Still Stay On Transient Remix under CC license.

I'm Shlomo Silber. I'm the founder and CEO of Bond Collective. I've been in construction real estate in New York for about 15 years. My dad was a contractor and he always built houses so something that I was always interested in. I started off working for a developer and then after the crash, I ended up opening up my own construction company together with a partner of mine -the friend of mine actually that worked with me at the company there.

Once we started getting a little bit busier we decided that we're going to open up our own office. When we're going to open up our own office it just so happened to be at the same time the shared economy and shared workspace and coworking really started booming. I walked into a space that my friend happened to be working out of and I've never been to co-working space before. I walked out blown away by the concept. It was one of those like aha moments and I called my friend right after that was my partner and I said to him, "We got to open up one of these spaces."

Originally, what happened was, we were going to just open up an office for our construction company and real-estate company. Then, also have extra space as coworking space as well and just that like one space. We started like looking into it, we just realized this was much bigger and to do it right you really need to put everything into it and so we ended up selling off the other company and I'm just going into coworking space.

[02.51] The Reason Why Change The Name To Bond Collective

At the first time, we use coworkers as the name. The reason behind it was a lot of people especially here in the city that thinks we're a little bit bigger more mature of a company. They didn't necessarily want to be in a space. They wanted to be in a shared space but they didn't want to people think that they were just in a small coworking space. We felt that our name was pigeonholing us a little bit in that sense. We have coworking and we have large offices within the space. In order for them to elevate our brand to make it more of a global shared space rather than just a coworking space - where you have an open room and with open desks. That's why we rebranded and changed out.

[05.06] The impact of the growing coworking community into Bond Collective

I would say we're not looking at ourselves as much as a coworking space or not so much as a real estate space but much more as a hospitality space. If you haven't visited one of our spaces where we spend a lot of time on the design and you take a lot of pride in the way we manage to build out space and the furniture within the space and so it's very important for us to have that that hire touch hospitality brand.

There's a lot of smaller one-off spaces that have the owner is there. So, they're able to really manage that space and have a great community there. A lot of spaces also that are the opposite whereas owned by a real estate company or something along those lines or they're in really high growth mode. So, their services get diluted and the community is not as strong.

I think for us, no matter how many spaces there are around us, midtown Manhattan or downtown. We're surrounded by millions of square feet of coworking space but our members are really happy within our space. They really enjoy it there because the way we designed the space to begin with and the way we manage our spaces.

I think that hospitality touch is really what I like to say our secret sauces if you will. There's another good well-operated space awesome but we thankfully are doing well in the city.

[07.12] Coworking Franchise

Well, franchising would be hard because when you take such pride in your brand and it's a hospitality space. It's not like for instance you take a McDonald's franchise, you have a certain type of ingredients and the certain signs and the way it's supposed to be designed and that's it.

What we trying to do is design every single one of our space is a little bit different to fit the businesses and the people around that space. Every space would need to be designed a little bit different. We make sure that we have experienced passionate community managers that can really run the space. If you would franchise it would be very hard to do that.

I think for us we're not looking to franchise. We look to expand and open up into different markets. We would really want to control those markets because it's important for us to make sure that we have the correct brand representation. All of our spaces are designed a little bit different. Some might be similar but the idea is that a space in Brooklyn is very different from a space in Manhattan and could be very different from a space in Chicago.

We want to go ahead and understand those markets and understand what our demographic is, who are our members are then design the space around them.

[08.46] The Typical Demographic of Bond Collective Members

It really depends on the space. For instance, in Brooklyn, we see a lot of film and media small businesses that have been around. And in Manhattan, there's a lot more technology in FinTech and have a couple of attorneys and a couple of accountants also so it really varies. I think depending on the area that you're in. so it's not like every one of our space we only have these type of members it's every single space that we go into we try to figure out what type of members are there and how can we design a space around them to fit their needs

[09.39] The Day to day Operational

We're definitely still a startup and we're proud of that fact. Every day, there's something new that's happening so I could be one day in the morning I'll work on the expansion. In the afternoon, I'll have to clean up a coffee spill because the community manager is busy giving a tour. Then, in the night I'll have meetings with the community to make sure that everything's going well and talk about different things like different types of events. My days are always different.

Obviously, you know being the co-founder and the CEO, requires me to constantly be on top of everything but I would say, we have a great really passionate team. What's great about our team is that all of us are together, working towards the same goal and so everybody does a little bit of everything. Let say, your job maybe marketing but you'll also help out with the tour or throw an event or something along those lines. I would say primarily mine is I working on the day to day operations make sure that everything's running smoothly and these days working on expansion.

[11.08] Strategy to get new member

I think the best way to get new members is to treat your existing members really well and make sure that they're comfortable within the space. It will ensure they're going to go ahead and tell their friend. They work out a bond and say how great of the experience is. A lot of word-of-mouth. We obviously do a lot of SEO and marketing and reaching out the different companies and going to events.

Our strongest best members have always been the members that were referred by other members. It's something really important to us. It's twofold making sure our members are happy, you also helps with them staying in the space and being comfortable there as well as them referring other people to come to this place.

[12.06] The type of marketing strategy to promote Bond Collective

I spoke at GCUC conference and any event or anybody that ever reaches out to me or if I hear anybody's ever in town I'll constantly just you reach out drop a line. Say let's grab some coffee. I always love meeting new people and different things about the industry. I'm always down to meet new people to talk about the industry and potentially partner up with different people all different things and any opportunity that comes along. If it's something that I could attend or that makes sense I'd be into it.

[12.54] The uniques selling points of Bond Collective

It's not the space to a certain the extend cells itself but what's really important to us is member feels at home and feels comfortable within the space and feels a mature environment. We're not on the one end where you look at it WeWork. It's much more like graffiti art, ping-pong and beer pong and different types of events and those angles. You'll go all the way on the other end where there's Regus and nobody even says hello even in the hallway.

Our ideas just have a comfortable professional environment and really focusing on the hospitality angle of it. So, our members feel comfortable within their space. They like the fact that it looks beautiful and there and feel proud to have an investor VC or something that they're trying to sell their product. They come into the space and meet them in that space and as well as have those little perks of a good strong community and a good environment.

I feel that's a lot of our community managers are make sure that everybody feels inclusive within that space and that's what we're selling. We're not trying to push any exterior things like big parties or anything like that. It's really just about come here to get good work done in a comfortable.

[14.29] The Future Plan of Bond Collective

Expanding. We think it's important for us to have a big network within our community and that's something that we're exploring right now. You'll see bond collectives in an area near you in the near future.

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The song is by Transient - Damascus under CC license.

I'm Ramon Suarez. I am the founder of Betacowork which is the largest coworking space in Belgium and I'm also the author of the coworking handbook which is a manual that has people learn how to run and operate and open a coworking business.

I created Betacowork on November 2010 and I've been running it until May this year when I've sold it to three of my coworkers.

[01.37] The Reason He Sold Betacowork Coworking Brussels

My reason to sold Betacowork is because I was tired of running it. I wanted to do new some other things. I want to new challenges but I don't work in the company I'm a coworker like anybody else. Right now, we're speaking, I'm sitting on my desk at Betacowork. I'm staying but as a coworker.

My contribution on the Coworking in Belgium, I've been doing a lot of things to try to promote coworking in Belgium from the very beginning. I think the most notable ones was launching the coworking and conference here so we did a conference for coworking spaces so that people would learn from each other and then working on launching a National Association.

It's not correlated in a business sense. No formal relationship with juicy basically the spirit of the second day of GCUC. So, It's an unconference, what people propose the things they want to talk about and then other people participate if they want to and the idea is to share knowledge and try to help each other.

We try to run one with the European Coworking Assembly. We were trying to run monthly conferences. We among the members but it didn't work out so we stopped doing it. I'm still involved but from the perspective, I'm an external player. Now, I help people with my book I had people around that if there are companies that need my help they'll come and get it you know they'll work with me but I'm not running a coworking space anymore.

[04.20] The Coworking Development in Belgium

Well, it has not developed it. There are a lot more coworking spaces, people know a lot more about coworking there are more and more coworkers but there is a lot of spaces or have opened that had not really coworking spaces it's just business centers that use the name to try to be cool. They don't do anything that they have to do to turn it into a coworking space. They don't care about their clients or the community at all and that's a big difference.

The differences of coworking but not exactly do coworking, you focus on your members from helping your members, supporting in your members, interacting with your members, making their members create links among themselves. It's working on accelerating in this community and the serendipity that happens at coworking spaces. It's not just providing a chair a table.

[05.37] The Experience of The Coworking Handbook Writing

It's awesome, it's work much better than I ever expected it. It's sold close to 5000 copies in four different languages. It's available in English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch. I'm getting excellent feedback from people that are using it and they are very helpful and this is the best part of it you know is that it really helps people run their coworking spaces.

[06.22] How To Launch Coworking Spaces

The first thing is focusing in the community. You don't need a space to start working on finding who your client your clients and talking with people or you can organize events before you do. You open your own space. You start getting a base of prospective clients and you know more about the people that are going to be sitting with you in your coworking space.

Do some basic calculations, basic you don't have to do any complicated Excel magic. Try to calculate your expenses, the revenue you expect with the pricing do you have in mind and see if you can make if you can make a living. Also, include that in the expenses yourself. You should be making money with your own coworking space if not it's not gonna last. A lot of people don't include their salaries or their payments to themselves when they do this calculation and that's it. You should be able to know if you can run. Feel comfortable with taking the risk of running the business.

It's not like general questions asking people to join your coworking space. I'm opening a new coworking space sign up here, pay fifty euros to reserve your seat. Real proof so that people become clients, everybody that you know and even if you don't know them they're gonna try to be nice and say yeah I would do it to make you feel good. About the location, if you haven't got a target area you said I'm looking into this area.

[08.05] The Operating Day to Day

If you have to be at Coworking Spaces, make sure that every day you say hello to the members. Try to bring some value to everybody you talk with. Try to help people out every day when they ask for things and when you hear them talking about something and create an event. So, they can help themselves and they help each other out and then there's all these administrative and logistics stuff that is just have to take care of it.

[08.43] A Way to Grow your Coworking Spaces

Do exactly the same thing all the time, reach out, create events bring people to discover the space. create opportunities for people to test it out. Put the word out go to other events to talk about it. That there's a reason why the marketing chapter is the longest chapter in the book.

You have to understand your business and see what's happening to be able to work around it but you just don't think about problems, you think about solutions you have a problem, what can I do to solve it not spend your data is thinking I have a problem that's useless.

[10.10] The Best Coworking Spaces Concept

Shared office, Network office, Hackerspace office, they're not coworking spaces. Shared office is people sharing the expense. The Hackerspaces is spaces for hobbyists to get together and practice their hobby, a few hours a week maybe not even that many times you know maybe it's two times a month or three times a month.

A coworking space is a place where you go to work basically every day or you go at least once a week but you go there to work, not for a hobby. One of the things that you're looking for in when you go to coworking spaces to get some something out of the community of that space and also to add yourself something to the community.

A coworking space that joint venture with the accelerator or incubator doesn't have anything special. It's just put in a business inside a coworking space like many other businesses are around. If the accelerator takes insolated itself in in a single room and it's not mixed with people from the coworking space it's like if they had nothing to do with each other. If the people are mixed with the people from the coworking space they're sitting with the other guys and they're interacting with the people of the coworking space then there's extra value that they're going to get from each other.

A coworking space is about relationships it's about the community so if there is no relationship there's no community there's no coworking space.

[12.07] The Marketing Strategy to Grow A Coworking Spaces

Reach out digitally and try to bring people physically to your space. Create an event and you promote them through digital media and you make people come to your event. The event could be a free trial or open doors a day or an offers a week.

[12.35] The Future of Work

There's gonna be a lot of more coworking spaces and a lot more people working in coworking spaces. More people are working independently, less companies are hiring. More people are gonna have to end up working independently even if they don't want to. They're gonna have to find a place to work and a network to support them. Coworking for the win.

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The song is by Transient under CC license.

My name is Eduard Schaepman. I'm working already for more than 30 years. In the office, the industry is about 15 years. I worked for business center operator called Regus so I have been setting up the Benelux for them and grew that very fast. Then I went to the area of real estate owners and within two years I saw the big real estate portfolio or request of the owner. I thought, what should I do now and I was still very interested in the very nice industry called remote officers called coworking called business enter called meeting room because everybody is busy with getting real estates flexible in a kind of way. I thought that would be a better way than Regus. That's the idea behind setting up Tribes.

Tribes was based not only on flexibility in real estate but also based on some history and heritage. If you really look at the market of remote offices, we see a lot of digital nomads working in those places more than 1.8 billion in the world. There are a lot of people who are able to work on a remote base, you only need your laptop your smartphone and you can work everywhere.

[02.53] The trend of Nomadic Life

I went into history and I have found the doubt because of my own heritage. There were in the past a lot of before religion existed, a lot of different nomads, traditional nomads people who traveled from not only A to B but from A, B, C, D and Z. They went there where their businesses like my own family which is very old family. They were shepherds in the past and it presents. They didn't mind to travel because the mind needs to travel to be creative, what they did and in that search, I have found it out that there were also existing traditional nomads like the Kazakh, Changpa, Massai, Suri, Maori. And I found out that those people were still traveling and still very creative, very innovative, those group what we called the 35th Tribe.

[04.15] Finding The Needs of Digital Nomad

Digital nomads want to be inspired though people want to meet other people so they want to meet people also in a professional area where they can have a debate on their subjects etc. Then we're going to try to set up a company called tribes. We will put one building coworking, meeting rooms conventional-lease, restaurants, cafes, bars where people can meet. We started in doing so we wrote a plan together with my co-founder Jasper Bekkering, in 2014 when we still working on this big real estate firm. In 2015, we announced the first one to be opened in May. The first one we opened in May was in Eindhoven the Silicon Valley of Europe so-called near to the high-tech campus and was very successful. Now we are 2 years in a row and just announced 16 locations yesterday.

[05.36] Expanding and Building Branch of Tribes

Yesterday we are already in the city of Schiphol, Amsterdam, The Haque, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Utrecht, but also in Brussels with three yesterday we announced that we will enter a lounge in a new country Germany. From now on, every week there will be communication of tribes because we're growing very fast. A lot of people do not want to go anymore in just a remote office, in a flexible office but something which brings them more than only the desk. What we bring more, besides all the services is the community based on nomadic life and we have a lot of stories to tell about indeed those nomadic people and what can we learn from them.

[06.31] The Reason Behind Five-star Coworking Concept and Many Services

We took five-star interior concept when designing coworking. The reason behind it, if you look at the business center world, if you look at the coworking world, media room world this 15years old. Likewise, when you look at the hotel world this world is thousands of years old.

People are going to qualify us with a one two three four five-star we are qualified as a five-star operator because besides a work office space, we also have terrific restaurants bars, fitness you also can make your own suit here, tailor-made. We have every service you can fix to have is in the building so what I always saying is computers will be still there but the office is not.

What happens where's the officers the officers will turn into an environment where there is more to do than only working because people want to be as efficient and people are not only working but people still want to contact and people still want to commute and still want to meet people what we are trying to build in those offices in areas where people really can meet each other see each other talk to each other and work together or just laugh together.

[07.55] The Uniqueness of Every Location Based on Tribe Culture

We have a different designer for every building, we have a different photographer because we use a lot of photos. From those traditional tribes today, I'm in tribes Amsterdam with the Suri which is a nomadic population from thousand years old originally from Africa. If I look around I can see a lot of pictures from those tribes and I see the colors used by those tribes. I know there is a workshop going on competitiveness which is typically something that the Suri tribes are pretty good in. Every different location has a different hero tribe with different colors, different designs and different workshops.

The reason why people really like to travel around. The only thing is, if we nowadays travel around and we go from Amsterdam to Shanghai to Singapore or to New York, we will always find the same Hilton Hotel, the same McDonald's so they are look alikes. With us, it's not a look-alike. Everything is different, every building is different therefore people are still going to travel around.

Instead of always looking into the future, we look more and more into the past and what can we learn from the past.

[10.00] The Booklet of Nomadic Tribes and Donation

We sell the booklet and goes directly to an organization called Survival international. Survival International is the green peace for people. They see through that those nomadic spirits still and live in an area. Those tribes do not know what property is. They do not know that the land they walk on it's from the government. They do not know that it works in that way. Survival International will help those people still to live in the way they want.

[10.59] The Untouchable Tribes

I have gone to four different tribes. We also have movies on that. One was the Kyrgyz and next week we will announce another one, those are the Berbers from Morocco. I went there on a visit and from 20 minutes which is broadcasted on TV where people can learn from it this nomadic tribe. I am also hosting that in an EDL program, in RTL on business. We do show every week, so we can learn from this tribe.

We have in our tribes locations examples of how those people live then designed in the different colors and the materials. You can buy that book by to come to a tribe's location there you can see it in tours it and then you can buy it.

[13.47] The Coworking Development in the Netherlands

The coworking and development in the Netherlands is not as fast as in the US or in the UK but it's coming. We are faster than in Belgium and in Germany but not as faster than in the Anglo section countries. We only are open for two years now and we already have six location is in amsterdam so that went very fast.

So, there is room for coworking absolutely. We do have other competitors in amsterdam, WeWork, Spaces etc but not as much as for example in london where you do 250 different concepts. In the US, you even have far more.

[15.00] The Strategy To Get New Member

We do have a very strong branding and we are a very well known brand in the Netherlands, Belgium and now in Germany. And that's the way people do know us. First we build a reputation then we make a relation then the trades come.

We have done a great effort in building our reputation and from that, the relation starts. We are visible on the web, we are visible on Instagram, we are visible on Facebook. We have the biggest Facebook group on coworking in the world not only in the Netherlands but in the world. If you go to Instagram it's the same if you go to Linkedin this the same. We build our reputation, from there reputation a relationship, we've built will become a client in the end.

We also plan to expand more and all this already written down in the newspapers what we're doing at the moment so by the end of the year, we want to have 18 locations. Next year, we will plan to add other 17 locations.

[16.25] The Typical of Demographic Members

Most of our clients are corporates from all over the world and 30 percents are local entrepreneurs what you see in our location especially in the combinations like Amsterdam and Brussels that we have a lot of people from London, the US from out of the East, and Asia.

[17.09] The Marketing Strategy

The marketing is quite simple. We get a lot of free publicity because we give something back to the society, to the tribes, to the survival international. Therefore on a weekly basis we are in a national newspaper like this week again, before coming week and next to that. We combine that with social media so that's our marketing strategy. Building a brand and from that strong brand, you will get customers who really like it, the way we are setting it up.

[18.22] The Unique Selling Point of Tribes

The biggest one is that we do everything for a client, when they work for us so they can focus on their core business so we do all the rest and they can focus on the core business besides that we learn them a lot and I will workshop on the different ways to work the life balance or what do we do and what do we learn from those different tribes and so for us we think that working is great but you also should communicate a lot with all the other members so you could learn from them and you get a more balanced life and therefore be more productive than a lot of others.

[19.58] The Future Plan of Tribes

In 10 years time, we are company have 2000 locations all over the world.

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The song is by Tab & Anitek under CC license.

I moved to San Francisco studied film making about 20 years ago, studied a lot of philosophy and chinese. I have an American father and a Chinese mother. So, I'm kind of the product of two cultures, east and west. I dropped out of film school and then started DJing. I opened a record store in Oakland and it was getting the community there. It was a record store, music studio in the basement, we hung artwork and we threw parties. Basically, the record store was the beginning of the community.

This building community where like people would come in and hang out at the record store buying music. Promoters would come and drop off flyers, the DJs would combine music, people would pick up flyers to find out what party to go to. So, it was just a community that built around the record store. Then the record store eventually led to the nightclub. It was the seed that grew into the nightclub and we moved into this big building inside in San Francisco.

From there, I continued to experiment with ways to use the space more effectively during the daytime. I visited some coworking spaces and being in San Francisco was really the birthplace of coworking. I was aware of them and decided to learn more about it and integrate it into the project. It was really the perfect fit for this daytime nighttime dichotomy that I was looking to solve.

[02.56] The Differences with Zen Compound

We have a pretty big team but I'm the creator of all of these facets. So, it's called the Zen Compound as the parent company. Then, we have the nightclub, Temple Nightclub which is the engine, we have ECO-SYSTM which is the coworking space, Mirus which is the art gallery and Hive is the cafe restaurant concept, so all of the businesses together are the Zen compound. It's all running in same building at the same time.

Most people whenever people come to the coworking space they know that we're part of this bigger project. Then they can get free entry to the nightclub if you work in the coworking space you can go to. One of the benefits.

[04.11] The Coworking Business Model

It's membership based. It's part of what I call the shared economy, where people pay for access instead of ownership. For instance, what uber is to the taxi industry or what Airbnb is to the hospitality industry, coworking is to the office and so our model is really giving people access to all these different functions and facilities.

They get printing copy, fax, Wi-Fi, coffee access to conference rooms for a membership fee so it's like a gym for entrepreneurs. What I like to say is like a Googleplex for everybody. We just try to create a really fun environment that's inspiring. We have an incredible art, from the art gallery spread out everywhere and really nice furniture and cutting-edge design that's inspiring.

One membership for all ECO-SYSTM facilities whether it's coworking, the Nightclub and Art gallery. There are three levels, there's the open seat level, there's a dedicated desk private desk and there's private suite. The three membership levels and each one is really how much space you get right there. We have a bunch of desks that are open for anybody that wants to work out of them but if you want to pay for your own private desk you can and also if you want your own office you can. That's an option that's available.

[05.56] The Typical Demographic Members

We have a really wide range of members and pretty much anybody that wants to sign up, you give them a tour and if people are attracted to it there's no barrier to entry. You just pay memberships and you come in. We have what we call solopreneurs - an entrepreneur one that is by themselves, we have teams, we have a couple companies that have come in 2 person grown into 30 people then moved out. We have different freelance people that work out of here as well. I've also created an incubator on the third floor. For companies that I make investments into that are in music and entertainment technology. I will trade office for a year make a cash investment into some companies that are in music and entertainment technology and whenever we can we will test out their technology on our customer base.

[06.54] Funding

There have been some friends and family around and pretty much I take revenue from the nightclub and use it to fund all the experiments. Essentially still bootstrapping but the nightclub is a great engine for change and experimentation. I call that the engine that drives all the other parts, so ecosystem was the the product of the nightclub.

[07.24] The Workflow When People Join

They sign up, get a membership. They come in for a tour then we give them a tour and sometimes we'll give them a free day to work out of the space see if they like the vibe if they like our community and our facilities. We always let people test it out first then if they like it they can pay for daily membership or monthly membership. Then they get an access key that allows them to come use it anytime. They can come and go and then they get an account on our community platform, our cloud-based community management platform and we have a calendar and they get the Wi-Fi code and depending on what level of membership. They pay for they get a desk or an office or you know the designated open seating areas

[08.22] Strategy To Get More Member

We do a lot of organic marketing. We have an Instagram account and Facebook. We do a lot of events, we try to host as many events in at least one or two per week that's a way of marketing to the community. Where we offer meetups that are involved in business and technology or sustainability creativity. Sometimes will bring in new members. We also run different promotions from time to time and form different partnerships with new brands so there are lots of different ways but a lot of it comes to word-of-mouth.

[09.03] Expanding Plan

We're actually expanding right now. We found a location in Denver, we're currently under construction building Denver right now the whole thing Denver's nightclub coworking art gallery and food cafe. We're looking for cities and we whenever the strategy for finding new cities is analyzing a bunch of different factors like how big is the population, are there lots of young professionals, need to have athletic departments, what the density of coworking, what the nightlife is like, the art scene, there's a bunch of different factors that will look at it. We identify 50 cities around the world that are perfect candidates for the Zen compound.

[10.00] The Unique Selling Point of Eco-Systm

We have a lot of unique selling point. We really have created one of the most dynamic and unique creative business communities out there. That's why I use the name ecosystem. I kept saying that we were going to create one of the most diverse entrepreneurial ecosystems out there. We have conversions of music art, technology and business are very unique. there are lots of synergies that happen when you bring all those components together.

[10.32] The Future Plan of Eco-Systm

The ecosystem is part of the Zen Compound and part of a whole and we've been experimenting here in San Francisco for the last ten years. Now, I like to say the word we're going through cell division. Our plan is to replicate this organism around the world that we're gonna take it and drop it into these unique environments and see how it grows and adapts and ultimately thrives.

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Mokrin House it's a rural coliving space where people from all around the world come and focus on their work. What I like to call we're an ideal place for deep work meaning that when you come here you're positively isolated and you can really focus on whatever your projects are. Whether you're alone, working on your projects with a small team. We have an international community of a location independent professionals.

[01.44] The Idea and inspiration of building Mokrin House

It was interesting. Actually packed because the house, the estate was the family owned estate and we used it mostly for our private purposes then we realized we're not spending enough time here, let's open it up a little bit for the local community. So, we can organize some cultural events and some education motivation cultural events.

Basically The Mokrin House as a project was founded in May of last year but before that there were things happening around in the sense that we had some workshops festivals, team buildings for remote for companies actually the story takes a turn the European Coworking Conference in Milan and I was a freelancer before that. In the European Coworking conference in Milan, I listened to a talk that the owner of Hubud coworking space in Bali did. I remember precisely sitting in in the audience and connecting the dots that they said we have a remote space and a large community. In that event I got the aha moment where I was like, we had space, we had the staff, we could definitely organize a coworking coliving retreat in Mokrin House.

In May the same year, we had our first coworkers and it was really interesting the whole path. Now we're in this in our second year and we have grown to a very grown out of proportion that we didn't expect so definitely there's an industry and there's the market for this type of service and product.

[03.51] The Development and The Expansion Plan

Definitely, we just compared last year's August, which is now we're like are at high season and we just compared the immense and the amount of people that we had this year and it is like literally seven I think several fold larger than it is right now.

Actually, we are at the moment considering ways, how we can do expansion since the capacities are not enough for us anymore so we are looking into models in which we can expand into the village even further at the people but our goal is that we make next year we may actually increase it up that we would be the first actual global village in the world and that is our definition.

The estate is owned by us. We are thinking of different models of how we're going to expand, it might be some sort of partnership agreements, some sort of leases. We'll definitely see how we'll do that but at the moment everything is privately owned.

[05.27] The Location of Mokrin House

There are three main airports that are relatively nearby Mokrin House, these are Timisoara which is one hour away, Belgrade which is two hours away and Budapest Airport which is two and a half hours away. To all of these airports, we organize transports transfers for our guests that kind of service. I think we're very well located because we are in rural surroundings however the connectivity to get to us it's not that difficult.

[06.20] Typical Demographic of Mokrin House Member

It's a very international crowd, normally there are young professionals like the medium ages 31 and 32, but we have 25 and 40 years like the span that it goes to normally. They are either couples or singles and we had a couple of families but not that much really normally they're they're individuals or couples and they either come in small teams or as completely individuals.

Dominantly, we have a lot of Americans coming in because the Americans are the ones who were the first move in this particular industry and they're very flexible. The American workforce is very agile in adapting to the new ways of how the future work is look like. Some predictions for example that Forbes made by 2025, 60% of the American workforce would be hired as freelancers. The proportion of that group and the number of people that are going to be digital nomads and location independent is definitely going to rise. Since they are the first movers in the whole industry I would say the dominant group of our visitors are Americans. So, it's a very diverse international crowd.

[07.57] Interaction with Local Community

There are two main pillars of what we do as a business. We want to create the first actual global village that means revitalizing the current village as it is and integrating that with what we think is the new way the village should be in the future.

A lot of events that we do are just for the members of our estate, other events that we do are just for the local community and then there are events that are like a symbiosis between the two. For example, every Wednesday during the summer months we have an open-air cinema which means that locals come in for free watch. Some of the award-winning films that we have the rights to show here and at that particular moment our coworkers and our members of our colony space are here as well. After every projection, there is a discussion and stuff for that so they can interact. We do a lot of these events there incorporate the locals and the members so that they can get to know each other.

Even at our own coliving space, several businesses were started together but I may say even several relationships like intimated relationships between some of them were locals and the people who were members.

[09.56] Market Demand of Mokrin House

It depends on what your goals are. Coworking industry in general if you want to make money in it, you're probably not in the like best industry for them. There are industries in which it makes much more sense to invest and you're gonna get a quicker return on investment. This is something that I think that all the people that I've met in this industry, they're extremely passionate about the community.

When you are in a rural surround, you get to know the people much quicker than you would in urban center. When you're in the city everybody has their own plans and everybody has their own group of friends and the coworking space is merely a spot you go to work. However, here we are coliving space meaning that we are interacting with each other on several different layers and levels. It's not only like as coworkers would in a company or in a coworking space. Here, we share lots wine, out some laughs, we watch movies together, we cook together sometimes we interact with each other on a human level that is I think exceeding the level of interaction that happens in urban coworking space.

In my opinion, because my mission personal and our company mission is to revitalize this particular area, it makes more sense for me to open up coworking coliving space in rural area. For somebody else, it might be different. I think it entirely depends on the mission of the person who's running the project.

[11.35] Marketing Strategy

Our entire marketing strategy is based on two main things, which is digital marketing and word of mouth. The best way we can communicate our message because most of our members are digital savvy and use digital well. They use some sort of technology to operate in their particular jobs.

So, our strategy is to reach out to them via digital channels where there is social whatever is does, any social platforms that allows us to get to know them. Then the word of mouth because people who have been our guests and become our ambassadors and they are traveling the world. Living like digital nomads in many cases we get emails saying, "I've heard from this is that about Mokrin House, I'd like to stay for a few weeks or days". So, I think those are the two main ways we market ourselves.

We don't have a seasonal pricing. We have three levels of accommodation and that is the only difference within our price range. All of our guests, get the same of amenities everything is the equal. It's just the level of pricing. We have three levels of room one is on the budget - dorm rooms, hostel type rooms - one our standard rooms and we have premium comfort rooms. That is the only difference. There are no different prices in the seasons because we offer basically package deals. All our prices include a coworking space, they include three meals a day and accommodation. Because we're all surrounded, we can't easy to get food. So, we provide for pretty much everything.

[14.00] The Unique Selling Point of Mokrin House

We're in the rural surrounding, we provide you a spot that you can do your deep work. We are different in that particular sense that we are a very modern space in a rural surrounding which is unique for the entire world. There are some coworking coliving spaces that are in rural settlements but none have this type of architecture facilities that we provide. The services that 5-star to include that and we think that we provide a like modern service in a very antique looking old rural surrounding

[14.50] The future plan of Mokrin House

The future plan is definitely the expansion. Reaching the level that the whole village meaning that we actually make an influence and a stamp on the village. The plans are expansion and we're hoping to reach them in five to seven years and we'll see exactly how that unfolds. We have some big plans thinking about trying to get this zone to become a technology unregulated zone. We'll see how that will unfold. The possibility depends on the laws of the countries. We're trying to figure out the way. So, our goals is to think whenever you want to think I want to go somewhere rural, eat really good organic food, really focused on my work is but not losing technology. We want everybody in the world who is in the Digital Nomad community to think of Mokrin House as a first stop solution.

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My name is Sabrina and I'm Lebanese and Canadian. I lived in the US for nine years before coming to Canada. When I was living in the US, I used to work out of a coworking space in Venice Beach. That was my first exposure to coworking spaces. I really liked the idea and I like that I didn't have to work from home alone anymore. I was part of a community but I noticed that a lot of people there were in tech and tech startups. I was the only one doing something a bit more creative. So, it surprised me. There wasn't a place in LA for creative people. LA is the entertainment capital of the world. I knew there were a lot of people in my industry like creative industries, film, design all that stuff and that also needed a space to work from. Then I ended up moving to Vancouver for a lot of personal reasons and I decided to make the idea happen there.

[02.06] Having a Team or Sole Owner

I built L'Atelier coworking all by myself but I did hire contractors, an interior designer and I hired a web designer. The contractors because I did renovations to the actual space but I'm the sole owner of the space. I did it all by myself. Now, it's one year later and I'm starting to add people to my team slowly and they're helping me expand into products.

Now, I rented a space so I'm paying. The margins are pretty low because rent here in Vancouver is very expensive. I don't make a ton of money but I'm doing okay for now. That's why I wanted to add products so I can bring in more revenue without raising the prices for members.

[03.49] Coworking development in Vancouver

It's booming right now a lot of spaces are opening up. I heard of spaces opening up every month. It's really good that so many spaces are opening up in the city because we really need it. People can't afford to rent their own offices anymore, the prices are really up, very high.

The competition is good in this case because there is a need. I don't see it as a bad thing. A lot of coworking space owners, we talk to each other, we have collective, so we actually talk to each other, give each other tips and we help each other out. I think it's important in an industry like coworking because we encourage people to work together and collaborate. We want to do the same for our own business. Different coworking spaces in Vancouver are open to collaborating and talking to each other and it's not a bad kind of competition. It's actually a good kind of competition.

[05.19] Typically demographic members

Most people who come to L'Atelier are in the fields of marketing and design. There's a lot of smaller you know marketing firms, design all kinds of design, graphic design and product design. There are also a lot of people as well in tech but not much. We're more heavy on a creative side. There are some people who are in e-commerce, some people in nutrition and the wellness industry. People who sell supplements for example for because wellness is a big thing in Vancouver. People are very health conscious. There's a lot of people focus on health as well.

[06.40] The workflow when member coming to coworking spaces

It's pretty easy to join. You can even book hot-desking, our meeting rooms online. If you want a dedicated desk you have to book a tour in which you can do online as well. Then based on an availability you can have your desk within one day. It's an easy process and I try to be inclusive to everyone who wants to join. As long as people feel could get the benefit from L'Atelier, it's a good vibe for them and a good fit for them. I don't usually discriminate on who can join and who can't. If you're higher levels of memberships then you can get 24hours access.

[08.05] Expanding Plan

Yes and no. I'm planning to expand right. Now into products first because it would be a bigger risk to just take on a new location. It's a lot of capital to start one especially at the level or standards that I have for L'Atelier. It's not just renting a random space and having good internet connection. I actually did a lot of renovations and invested a lot in good furniture, in the design of the space. So, I'm not looking to expand quickly. I'm more looking into expanding smartly. Starting slowly with building a good brand, having products and then seeing where this goes first.

[09.06] Funding

There is no investor. I started by myself with my own funding and get support from family and friends. Right now for expanding into products, we're doing a Kickstarter campaign. It's crowdfunding. I'm lucky that I was able to do that, not everyone can do that. It's really good thing if you can then you don't have to pay for interests. The Kickstarter is launching on Thursday. It could be 30days. It's a journal like productivity tool so it's kind of a planner. It's more focused on you achieving your goals. The goal is going to be CA$ 17,000 so it's actually less than US dollars. It's not that much but it will be enough for us to fund the project and get them into production.

[11.00] Promoting the Kickstarter program

We're promoting it through people we know, first friends, family, members of the space and anyone who comes to our website then we're also doing Facebook ads. If you backed a pack of three or four for example it's going to be cheaper than if you buy one at a time. It's not very expensive like the price of a nice lunch. Everyone can buy it and it's not a big investment. It's a very small amount of money for a pretty good product. That's going to help you. The design is minimalist design. It's gender-neutral. A lot of the planners and journals that you see today in the market they're very geared towards women, we wanted to make it gender neutral, very minimal so that both men and women can use it. About highest backer, we consider think to mix match with combine with membership but we want to separate the products and the services.

[13.46] Marketing program to promote L'Atelier

The biggest type of marketing, the most efficient one is to host events at the space. Sometimes if someone sees you know, digital ads five times they don't know, it doesn't make them really come to the space but if there's an event creates a reason for them to come and see the space in person. The experience you get in person is very different from photos. I have nice photos but when people come in person they always say wow I didn't realize it was so big. It looks very good in person so getting people to come in person through events. Even if it's free events or workshops it's a really good marketing strategy and it has worked. We use social media a lot. Instagram is our primary platform for social media. We almost have 4ooo followers. We posted really high-quality photos and the feed looks very visual and nice. It creates a conversation between us and people who are interested in joining. They can feel free to message us on Instagram then it makes us seem very accessible and easy.

[15.37] Unique Selling Point of L'Atelier

Our unique selling point is actually the space itself. Working from L'Atelier doesn't feel like working so this is the biggest selling point. You can talk about amenities all you want but at the end of the day competing on amenities is not gonna make a difference. We all offer good coffee, we all offer good chairs and all that stuff but for me the most important thing is that when someone walks into L'Atelier, they feel good and they feel like their work is important. They feel like they could connect with other people and it's just the environment is the biggest selling point for me. The space is bright space with nice furniture sometimes we play music. I'm very friendly when you come into the space. It's an environment for people to feel good and that's the most important thing because people spend most of their life working and if their whole life is spent working and they don't feel good about working then you know they're having a bad life.

[17.34] The Future plan of L'Atelier

Right now, the plan is to start making our own products that way we can expand the brand globally. That would be faster to us expand the brand globally through products than by opening different locations. Because it takes less time to make products. Then once the brand is recognizable globally, so people in Singapore start using our products like the journal that we're going to launch on Kickstarter. Then people will start liking our brand and they would want to come to L'Atelier. Then we would consider opening different locations. The journal is the first product and the plan is if the journal goes well is to make more products.

Pre-order on kickstarter | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Website

I am the initiator of the project called socialworkplaces.com.
Which actually is different coworking conferences we organized since 2010, around the topic of coworking.

The last years we worked a lot on connecting coworking spaces with content, insight, collect information, and data about the coworking model in general. Especially in Europe in the first place. We also get some initiative in Africa and in India. The model coworking surface like ten years ago, we figured out indeed that was becoming something bigger than just the coworking space that operated on their own.

Actually, it was influencing the whole notion of what workplace is all should be. That's why we came with the name Social Workplace. Within the scope of what coworking was actually addressing, to make sure about a new model or the function of the workplace in general. It's not just limited kind of services that are dramatically important and going further right now. It's not something that we see as an exception, we think will represent this kind of model covered.

The majority of the workplace suffering in the world within a few decades because it fits with the change in the way we work, the way the businesses operates. Indeed, we are more network and more working on the project based.

The values of the workers are changing and we are still having additional technological disruption every year that are influencing. Also opening up a field of new opportunities for workers businesses or our societal project, in general. Obviously, this big shift in this big move can't remain without having an impact on how your design a workplace.

[04.06] Coworking Movement

We started to cover the coworking topic by organizing first co-working Europe conference. It was seven years ago and the first one took place in Brussels so we are based in Belgium. Since then, we kept working bringing together coworking communities from all around Europe especially.

We were in touch with our colleagues or peers in the US or North America and South America and Africa or Asia. Due to that indeed there is a lot of connection between what we do here in Europe also what players like GCUC are doing in the US or in Australia, Canada, China now. We are cooperating a lot together we share a lot of insights so far we have our area of operation, they have theirs, and this is the part of the coworking conference.

Social Workplaces have an additional mission which is to bring the values and the knowledge about the operation of coworking spaces and influence or let it be known by all the workplace operators that are existing. They are operating coworking space or not. We think that the story of coworking is bigger than just coworking. It's actually the first step into a dramatic change, in the way we consider what workplace should be.

In the past, the workplace was a design of office, a workshop was there because your tools were there. Now, you'll choose your laptop or in your cloud. So what is the need for a workplace and what's coworking give as an answer. Indeed what was important is you need the basic facility of being in a quiet enough environment to be productive.

Most of all, it had to give you the opportunity to a social interaction. Which is good for your personal feeling but also good for your professional activities and duties. Having an open space or a place which is not necessarily open also the kind of connection you can have. The people working side by side have a very positive impact on your ability to expand your social capital. Connecting with people will feed you with new ideas and creativity and opportunities to partner up. They might become your providers or your customers or your partners, your associates or anything.

Working on the facility which helps to get personal interaction with the people is very powerful. The coworking model expanded definitely the natural move as the concept of a workplace. We need to follow that if don't the purpose of having a workspace will vanish. If you don't run a workspace or you don't rent a workspace, you don't own a workspace because you need to put your tools in it. Why would you do all this stuff renting, owning, running? That's the whole philosophy of Social Workplaces.

We mainly watch would a set of a range of events. We organized sponsor of the production, surveys and data, insights, stories and interviews of operators. It is been the main set of actions that we have been doing so far. Recently, we started to constituency a service called coworking doctors. Indeed, we are working on there another service and product lines.

This is one thing but also what we try to figure out how to share the knowledge of coworking. Helping people designing new workspaces. Integrating dynamic and magic that coworking has. Especially to focus on what are the people expectation needs and emotions that you can have in a workspace. Those elements and dimensions under considered and they've been over loop during decays by facility operators, companies, building or office owners and to us, that's what makes the difference. The facility just a tool to help people feel better and work better. It's not just a commodity that anybody knows has to have. It much brings a higher value-added to the tenants.

[11.13] Coworking development in Europe, America, Australia and Asia

A lot of similarities of course by being itself. Europe is very fragmented, have a lot of languages and a lot of countries.

The way coworking developed in Europe, we're smaller players which were more numerous as opposed in the US. Having dynamic vibrant as well but quite faster the implication of bigger players who started to open a bigger space. Also driven by the dynamic of the cities such as San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles.

In digital driven ecosystems, you saw a spike development of coworking space which was higher. It's no accident that the big brands that we see now are mainly from the US as opposed as to Europe where you had smaller players. As I said it's more fragmented but it started to change recently with the involvement of new brands.

They're opening up a network of spaces which are also bigger now but they start more to work on the country by country basis for the first place. Then expand to the big digital friendly ecosystem such as Amsterdam, London, Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid. Maybe with two years delay will expanding as opposed the US this kind of players are arriving in the market. In some locations such as London, the development of the coworking offering is so strong. Some people also witnessed the development of a price war between operators because the offerings start to be so big. Indeed the competition is getting fiercer and with a result, some coworking spaces have to lower the prices in order to bring more tenants. There is a different level of maturation not only by country but by cities. This is also very reflective of the way the economy is organizing itself nowadays.

A lot of emerging countries in Africa now. Africa is where Europe or the US was seven or eight years ago and in terms of coworking offering. It means that it's very much still driven by the startup movement and the startup ecosystem. As opposed to more mature markets such as Europe or the US where the market of startups which are still filling in those spaces. A lot of those bases likely make a living out of freelancers as well as a traditional worker or small traditional SME.

What we experience in India as well in Africa is that coworking was associated with the startup movement namely. People at some challenge making a difference between coworking and startup incubators so for them it was the same thing. Actually, it's not the same, startup incubators can be put in the coworking family but the coworking family is much bigger.

Coworking is about the workplace market in general so it means that it's a new way to be hosted in a working facility for any kind of players. Mostly from people who work in the digital or who built jobs which are digital friendly or digitally enabled, graphic design, community management, jobs like this.

It doesn't mean that the tenants or the person who pays the invoice from the coworking space are a startup. Actually, in coworking space startup maybe less than 10 percent of the actual tenants, most the biggest part of the tenants of the members are either in individual freelancers or employees of companies which are allowed to work remotely like small and medium businesses. The team comes from two to six to eight or eight people having in coworking space as a proper offering. Allows them to have the flexibility and expand scale up or scale down the way they need it. According to their businesses personality or their activity. So, coworking for them is the perfect work environment.

In Africa or in India, I think India is changing very rapidly and dramatically. We had the conference last year in New Delhi, Coworking India you start to see very big players also shaping up an offering which is closer to some of the kind of offering that happen in in Europe or in the US.

WeWork is the biggest one but it's not the only one. They inspired a lot of players now especially from China but a lot of interesting players in India as well locally based or foreign players you start to see interesting brands and offerings which are popping up as well in India and it's going very rapidly.

In Africa especially but I think also in India too, educating the market in understanding the story about the work space in general not only about startup. The more coworking space you have of course is beneficial for the development of your startup ecosystem because of thanks to the availability of those spaces. You can strengthen your local ecosystem. You can add the people know better with one another together around a relevant event in their Indian business and make a system more visible more searchable.

For instance, for this year, we have the coworking in Europe conference in Dublin in Ireland and they made a study making a very important correlation between the number of coworking space which is there and health of the startup ecosystems. Same thing with Amsterdam, when Amsterdam wants to put itself as a startup a city in Europe. What they promote is actually the liability of the coworking spaces which are available in the city. For them very important to have this landscape of operators and coworking spaces promote them. In order to lure a project and startup projects in the city and make Amsterdam a credit was the option for them.

[20.20] Strategy when price of renting more higher

I think this problem which can occur to any company which rent the space. After your lease contract is over, your landlord is allowed to resume the price of the lease. You need to think about it early enough in order not to be trapped in that kind of consideration. It's true when you launch a coworking space you don't have necessary in mind but this is something which should be taken into account from day one.

For instance, during the negotiation to agree with the landlord. If you want to extend your lease contract your list price will be capped to a certain amount otherwise if you have made a lot of investment also to make sure that your investment in the facility in the design layout is aligned with the duration of your lease contract. Otherwise, you will have a very big control trouble. Actually, it's a regular real estate and facility management issue. Any company which is operating from some places and which is a shopkeeper or a retail industry has the same kind of problem. Your location is important so make sure that indeed you are immune to that kind of problem.

Another problem would occur, it could be also positive to you. If you are in a situation, where the offering of the real estate is higher than demand you could have. Your lease contract decreased, the price could decrease. Actually, there was a lot of stories of successful coworking spaces who actually drew the interests of other players. The impact of the coworking space is a positive impact of the real-estate value of the whole block you are in or the whole neighborhood. It means that there's a negative impact on your success which means that you raise.

The attractiveness of the area you are located could lead to increasing the real-estate cost. Coworking space needs to take that problem seriously. When they closed the deal with the landlord. Figuring out a way to be incentivized about the increasing value of the real estate definitely something coworking spaces can claim they bring. Any landlord actually invites coworking space operator for free because it will increase the attractiveness of the location their own.

[24.25] The best coworking business model

The coworking is an industry like being hotel industry is. There is no magic stick. You need to have good services and to address the need of the people. Coworking is a hospitality service in the working industry. The most relevant to me with the situation is according to who you are targeting in terms of the market. Is it the business manual, or woman, is it the startups, is it the freelancers, is it people in the rural area or whatever.

You're offering will vary. The same way hotels are different, you have some change but you also have small and family like familiar rent hotels. It's true that the biggest now is owned by big multinationals most of the time. It doesn't mean that you don't have bed and breakfast. You have the specific hotels which look like your house to the extent that you have Airbnb and everything so all of them offers accommodation.

What is the difference between them is to whom the customer base they want to reach out to. The level of prices will vary according which customer base you are looking for. In the coworking space industry, the same thing is already happening. You have a different level of offerings will develop a different level of services. According to where you will be located or what kind of services you want to deliver. You will have certain a specific profile of customers as opposed to another.

[26.30] Step to build coworking spaces

If you a zero capital what you did it's like, you need to have some furniture. You will need maybe to find deals with furniture companies who agree to use you as their showroom in a location. You might still buy second-hand furniture but for sure you need a good location. We don't believe in too small spaces because the match does not work into small spaces unless you have a side job to run space and so your space is just it's more like a shared office than the networking space but good to have that as well.

You need to convince your landlord that it's relevant to him to agree on a shared revenue deal maybe how to ask him to lend you or to allow you to use part of its facility. You will be there to run the facility for him like a concierge. By the fact that you are there and you do coworking jump properly that you will draw the interest of other potential tenants who are going to run this facility. This community feeling that you help them it's also kind of win-win partnership you can you can strike with the landlord for instance. You still need some capital at least to invest in the proper Wi-Fi connection and the work environment still looks good or good enough according to the to the to the standard you have known in your city. So, those are different elements to burn to work on but it's a lot of sweat and works for sure.

[30.00] The recommended features of coworking software

Basic subscription management system is very important and connected with your accounting software or helping you to invoice automatically and to automate as much as possible your management process. It's important also not to rely on coworking subscription. Especially the renting of meeting rooms, maybe some private offices as well also to offer food services or event services in the management services. All different kind of services will you know help you to diversify your sources of revenues and not rely on the under on the subscription after coworkers. I think it's very important to have a sound and robust business model for your common space and where you look at it as a platform, not just boxes where people will work from. I think there's a software which allows you to run it from one place. I think it's one of the critical things to look at when you choose the software you are going to work with.

[31.40] Social Workplaces value proposition

We are company people and their projects. We have a network of experts impendence in this field. Most of all we address the market with the big picture, we don't just come and say this coworking space you running, it needs to be that size, to take into account the bigger picture, which is the change in and the shift were seeing insight in with and the economy. Coworking is just a result of something which fits very well with this changing the economy in the society, the way we use technology. Being aware what is happening outside is really important to understand what the core of coworking movement.

[33.20] The future plan of Social Workplace

We have closed relationship with GCUC. We work already together. We working side by side. Our aim is indeed to keep to be there and have our finger on the pulse of the coworking business and still be able to show what it's selling to and promote it. We think it's a human right to be able to work from coworking spaces. The mission is we working side by side with the other coworking organization.

There was a huge work to be done to promote it further and to achieve what we think coworking has to be to a standard for the workplace in general. There was still a lot of work to put that idea through all the players involved in that field to understand where that is, when I was going to and how to get the most out of the coworking model to be good in accommodating the workers of the future wherever they are India, Africa, Europe, the US.

In Estonia, we're biggest coworking space. Under one roof we are gathering startup events, seed finance free scale startups, also we are having some organizations like Espen which is Estonian business engine Network. We are having all kinds of entrepreneurs, we're having teams on also individuals like freelancers and so on so forth. It's a biggest coworking space gathering different kind of entrepreneurial people. We're open in the end basically in the end of November last.

We had a core team of two but also two investors who were there all the time helping us to brainstorm the ideas and validate ideas. Helping with the financing and everything but basically most of all two people who make that happen. Of course, they're the partners from the construction part and and and those people but the organizing parts were mostly two.

When we started we had CEO, myself and office manager, basically a half year ago. Now we are structuring a little bit differently. We're having like office, event manager, sales, and marketing separately.

It's 24-hour coworking and also open in the weekend. If the new member comes, they can jump in and they will have their own key and they're free to go whenever they want. It depends like some people, of course, they manage to write us before. Some people are jumping in as well and there's always one of our team member who always at the hub. The person who is there at the moment during the day time usually from Monday to Friday, help with onboarding. If you are already onboard and you have your own key and everything then you can also come on the weekends or late night.

[03.51] The Demographic Member of Spring Hub Estonia

We have girls and boys in their 25 until 45. The average age of 28 and 30 probably. Usually, people have been traveling a lot and entrepreneur mindset. Mostly more social than not social.

[04.42] Support for Member of Spring Hub Estonia

Some partners have been volunteered. Some companies we have been asking to join and want 1-on-1 consultation as a thing, to give something back to the younger entrepreneurs and the community. Usually, we are just letting our people know that it's taking place again and opening the registration really simple to do and then they can pick a time and consultant will be there at the right time. And they will meet in the meeting room. Everything super simple. Actually, we have never paid for it. If they are doing the consultation just coming.

[06.16] Virtual Office Benefit

If anyone has questions about the e resident, we will direct them to the right direction but as of today I mean we don't facilitate to become an e-resident. We do offer only a virtual office meaning that they can have their addresses like paper mail then the e mail or package will come to our hub and so we will notice them. But the e residents program, I will just drag them to the right place. That's because by the government it's another service that we can only drag them but we can't actually deal with that. Some companies need the legal address for visa purposes, they can also register their address in our place.

[07.36] The Strategy To Get More Member

As we're a local business we don't go really wide in social media. It's different channels different mediums. The one that we used a lot actually Facebook. Estonia super small so if you open up something it goes really fast. If somebody come and get really good experienced and they will say some good words for their friends.

And another thing is we are doing a lot of events so people are coming in. They're seeing a nice environment and they will become a member. We have a Facebook group for members. We're also on tv and radio. When we opened up, we made a PR campaign like Countrywide PR campaign. After that, it went quite smoothly a bit social media and the recommendations of the people who have already been there and events.

We're a local business, so the conferences that we coming are inside in Estonia or the next country Latvia, Finland. Where the countries cooperate more on a daily basis. Let's see the context dates usually have a taste some conferences together and overlapping audiences so we attend those. But we don't travel around the Europe or Asia to participate in the conferences. Because our audience doesn't really come from there or our members rarely come from there.

[10.51] The Unique Selling Point of Spring Hub

We're having working station, seven meeting rooms, video conferencing solutions, eleven sound-proof phone booths 24 different access different zones, cafe-lounge area, sauna and parking lots so those many most of the places don't have.

It depends on the need. We are also making some discounts depends on how big the groups. Usually the parking is good as an extra but otherwise, you can use the sauna and that kind of things for free. If you are into sports or something and we're doing like members evenings as well different kind of things. Some of the extras are included some of them are free. The biggest selling point I would say is professional people working in there. You can take advantage of the people, a whole community of smart people there.

We're different type of bigger coworking space like WeWork. Actually, we are Tallinn based coworking space not like an office service mostly like a community. We are having people doing their own things. After they get the key then they are in or out whenever they want. Since the community is smaller, they could be friends and know each other.

[14.05] The Future Plan of Spring Hub Estonia

Our future plans are we expanding. We are doubling space. Right now we're planning another floor and it will be done hopefully by the end of the year if everything goes smoothly.

Our investors are owning the building. We are working together with companies with the people connected. It's like private investors who also some real estate but also from another side they're investing in startups so we are basically one of their portfolio startups they invested in and who are based on their real estate.

Our expansion plan kind of would create more opportunities for the teams to get more creative and have a tighter coworking area.

Usually, the startup looking for the investor but in our cases is different. The investor had an idea to do it then they will find the startup.

Facebook: SpringhubTallin
Instagram: Spring.hub
Website: www.springhub.org

I'm Julianne I was I'm American so I was born in the US and grew up in the Midwest. I've lived in a lot of places now, so I grew up in the Midwest lived in California, studied in San Francisco and made films there. Then I moved to Vietnam actually for four and a half years, I made a documentary film and worked with the communications department of the WWF in Vietnam then I moved to Berlin. I had been working in Vietnam and had a pretty decent career going but when I moved to Germany, I had to start from the bottom again because I didn't speak German.

In the end, I ended got a job at a startup that had to do with coworking so we researched and wrote a lot about coworking. That's how I discovered the whole coworking world. That was in 2011, though a startup doesn't exist anymore, in the time that I was there I got to visit many spaces around the world.

I have a friend of mine had this idea. He is a film editor and he told if I need to work 18hours, I'd rather be in the countryside so I can just focus but at least enjoy the summer. He and I were at the time developing an idea trying to come up with a business idea with my partner, my boyfriend partner. We were like oh that's a really good idea. Then we did some research, then realize would take like millions to set up with the technical stuff. We thought, actually everybody could do this then I started thinking about coworking and helping how people are flexible with their work.

We expanded the idea to include anyone who can be flexible with their work. Be able to come to Coconat. Basically, a place for people from the city to go to the countryside, to focus and we would take care of all of the rest. It expanded quite a lot. We started to think about the environment that people are working in and how they get different types of inspiration. The environment also about the effects of nature on the brain and productivity. We even thought further after some time we visited Bali and went to space there. It was a few years ago before Roam. We've been working on this idea for four years.

The name Coconat means the community and concentrated work in nature. We thought of the name in Europe and we thought oh it's nice because it makes you think of coconut that we plant. Then we went to Asia, where there are lots of coconuts and the name was kind of funny in a different way.

In Bali we got to know more about digital nomads, we think about people from the city going to the countryside. We think about people from the world coming here and having a place where they meet like-minded people. We also think about the people who live here, who grew up in this in the countryside. To do some community outreach.

In Germany in this area, there's many it has a very high unemployment rate. We want to expand more than we had now.

[L] Is it mean you want to open up job recruitment?

Not exactly. We would like there to have some interaction between the people who are using computers and digitally literate. Have some workshops and other things with people who don't use computers. Have never been trained. Because there's a bit of fear if people did not learn to use technology. We want to make that border go away. Many people from here, they do hand work and there's less and less hand work.

[L] You mean by sewing or wood working?

I mean like building, or farming. There's industry wise, there are not so much industry jobs. There are not many factories opening now in this area so there's not much hand work job. People tend to think, if you use a computer it means that you've gone to university and you have a degree. They get a little bit self-conscious about it so if we can make them not feel so self-conscious then they're not afraid.

[L] Where exactly located? near Berlin.

We're one hour outside of Berlin. You can take the regional train.

[07.51] The Unique Side of Rural Coworking

Well for us, I mean the idea started for people from the city to get away from the city for a while. Most people who come are 75% from Berlin, Germany like other big cities. They come here to get away and get a new inspiration.

On the other side, there's coliving that isn't the cities. Recently I had a big talk with some other people who have projects in coliving. We identified two groups of spaces, one you have spaces that are in the cities and urban centers. They help people who either are just moving to the city or who want to be flexible. We'll spend some time like a short term shared flat. People usually stay for at least three months.

In the second kind of type of Coliving is like a destination based. Meaning, people travel because of the coliving place not because of the city. They go there for another reason. The other thing that I learned with coworking is that people like being around with other people. They are more productive and enjoy being around people who are living a similar lifestyle.

The people who come especially digital nomads that come I mean it's nice to be here because they don't have to explain why they're on their computer all day because they're not on vacation. Actually, this is their life. They work and they travel but they have to do the work also. You don't want to be if you're in a hostel when everybody around you thinks that you're a strange person. Who always on the computer and not going out and enjoying the city or the view. You don't have to explain so much and you can also have a more productive exchange or more valuable exchange with the people here. A place where everyone living the same lifestyle or here for the same reason.

[11.24] The Demographic of Coconat Member

Between 25 - 45 years old, with most being in their thirties. Actually, we've got a pretty big range of people. We have students it would be more like we have people who are finishing upper-level university papers, researchers, Ph.D., Ph.D. candidates people finishing their master's degrees. We have writers, people writing books. We also have startups, small groups of people who are working on their new business. Digital nomads so they're independent workers usually. so far we haven't had a an employed digital nomad but they but they exist I've met I've met many of them along the road. We even recently had the the managing directors of of a pretty good big internet company so a pretty big international company the CEO and CFO which we had imagined what happened in the future and that we just opened in May. We were pretty surprised that this already happened but it happened and it was nice it worked.

[13.34] The Unique Selling Point of Coconat

I mean in general like the concept is pretty new. There's not many places that exist that are like us. There's a few in the world that are the sort of destination coliving place. What we offer is a place that's relaxing and nice to be in. We have a beautiful location. Normally the internet works really well, it's just in the last few days it's very frustrating. But we work we're working on it. It's a clear this is like a priority.

In Germany and the countryside internet is not always available. It's very rural but it shouldn't be so difficult. It's a priority for us that the internet works well. We also offer which is also difficult here in the countryside. We offer food so we make sure that people eat. We prepare the meal. Most people don't stay too long. The longest we've had someone stays for one month. One of the things that we like to do is to make sure that people meet each other and so we eat, lunch and dinner together and we prepare the meals and breakfast.

[L] The price could be one single price including the hospitality and events or workshop?

We haven't hosted very many workshops. We have been externally organized workshops. We take care of the food in the workspace and we usually would have a external person who prepares workshops for their community. They bring them here so they put an extra. They put it their price for their workshop and we have our price. We work together with the organizers to make everything in one package. They take the money for their workshop and we take the money for the place.

[L] How much it cost for one month or one week stay?

Well it depends on how you sleep so I mean if you stay here for one month and including food that could 1800 euro every day for the workspace and the sleeping. You have a private room so you're also able to have a double room and share with a friend or we also have shared rooms so that it's more like a dorm. You can cook for yourself. That's kind of the top price.

We are from a bootstrap company so we also think about other people being bootstrappers. The other coliving that you see popping up now especially in cities and like Roam that you just mentioned actually are coming from a completely different background of real estate management and real estate development where there's a lot of money. It's a different kind of business and they focus on the different market.

Our focus is to have a diverse community of people here. We have different pricing categories. we want everyone to come. We don't want if it's if it's too much money for you we want to find a way that you can still come. We're open all the time.

[21.09] The Strategy to get the member

I've been working on this project for four years so I've done a lot of different things. I work closely with Coworking in Europe. Often I would organize the bar camps for coworking Europe so I've been very visible there. I also partner with about ten co-working spaces in Berlin so my fliers are there and they tell people about us. We have a special arrangement and I think the most significant thing that we've done is that when we've been building and getting ready to open the place, volunteers come to help us in exchange for vouchers that they can use later.

We did a pilot 2years ago, 70 ppl come there and we did a renovation this spring we had 80 ppl come. I think this is the biggest push for us. When we're still getting ready come and they get to know the place really well then they feel a part of it. They also tell your friends about it.

[23.19] The Future Plan of Coconat

Here in Klein Glien in the village, we have more buildings to develop. We will build some kind of studio space maybe artist studios or Fab Lab. We're still developing the ideas and more sleeping possibilities as well.

On the bigger scale, we're working on strengthening the network of spaces like ours. Places that are located in rural areas that can add value to the region that they're in. I am working to connect these projects and find a way to help everyone promote each other and share best practices.

Maybe if there is a hotel or another type of business that would like to change their market that's interested in doing something new, we can share best practices with them and bring them into the network. That's a big project that I'm working on in just the beginning. We've been working on the project for four years. Nothing new or I would just say invite anybody to come here and get to know us in the community. We're having a really good time. It's been really fun and we have a lot of people coming. You always meet interesting people when you're here.

Website: coconat-space.com
Twitter: @workationRe
Instagram: coconat.workation.retreat

Absolutely, so I was originally born in England and came across the US with my entrepreneurial dreams, I guess. And I launched a ping-pong business called Uber Pong in Austin, Texas on 2012. That did very well and I was very fortunate and managed to exit from that company, sell that earlier this year.

The idea for Qwerky has been in my mind, for quite a few years. I was in London for about 10 years and still fell extremely disconnected. It just sort of not engaged with people in in the city and I just find it very difficult to connect people, went through long periods of depression. I thought to myself where can I go to live with people like me, who could relate to me and empathize.

There was almost like a built-in support system and that ultimately was co-living. But back then in London, in the inner northeast, we called it between 2008-2010 coliving wasn't around and even coworking hadn't come about. So the inspiration was there.

But fast forward to probably last year and I noticed that coliving was kind of coming into New York, Europe, and Asia. and I thought this is time to launch Qwerky and give birth to another brand and so here we are.

L: About ping pong actually, it would be interesting if you include ping pong online with coworking dashboard. I think it would be very interesting.

You know, what maybe you have just given us a great idea and we're going to do it. I think I've seen it a lot ping pong in coworking spaces. I used to work in inner space in London. it was a boardroom, the boardroom table was a ping-pong table.

[07.42] The Idea Behind Qwerky Coliving

Well, as I mentioned the the idea came about because of a kind of personal frustration, personal pain point. I haven't got any place where I could go and be around with other entrepreneurs. A place to exchange ideas. At that time, it was either the office, the traditional office or you would go to a coffee shop. Hopefully, strike up a conversation with someone.

A lot of the time, people just thought, you were just kind of weird. Or they thought, why should I talk to this guy here, I don't know him because I'm a stranger. But I like to talk to people because I'm a traveler. I've been enough travel to 31 countries. I'd like starting conversations and being curious I guess with my fellow humans. That's how some great relationships are being formed

L: Weird, you mean same with Qwerky?

Well, firstly, our coliving community will be different. All of coliving spaces and houses, they're all doing the same thing. It's how coworking started. They're all doing the same thing.

So we looked at very carefully and we thought you know one of my favorite quotes, "observe the masses and do the opposite". We kinda thought about it and we need to stand out. We need to do things differently.

The core of this idea was the word Qwerky. And then we said, why don't we spell it differently. Qwe,rky instead of qu, ir, ky. The name alone is Qwerky like the spelling is quirky. That was the kind of stem for the brand. It's the core of our business.

It's the core of everything. You know we're using #stayqwerky and because we like quirky people. It's like stay quirky, be yourself. Be yourself and be different.

L: Do you want people that join Qwerky? Like weirdo or something.

Well not weirdo, Qwerky it's kind of, for example, if you've got charisma, or you've got a great business idea, or you're digital nomads and you have an amazing vlog or blog. Maybe you have a certain style that you possess and maybe you're in fashion. Qwerky style, it's more about people with passion, people with ambition, and people who want to change the world. Those people are Qwerky people. We want to talk to them and obviously welcoming them to our community. As we grow and we obviously go the cities in other countries. We again will be attracting those type of people in those countries and cities.

[11.25] The Demographic of Qwerky Coliving member

For example, with Airbnb, anybody can go to Airbnb. Because of this very little screening, there are profiles but really anyone can go stay anywhere. We want to be able to add value to Qwerky, when they come stay. The kind of threshold or bar if you like has to be set not pretty high. When you're there and you talk to people it's like you're talking to the right people. It's not just a bartenders who hates the job, or somebody who's in the corporate world and you have nothing in common and they hate their lives, their job. They're actually doing something maybe they've launched their own financial company because they love finance so much. Their entrepreneurial in what they're doing.

We definitely have an application process. Our new website will be launching pretty soon. It will have a very simple form. The idea is you'll just come through, tell us a little bit about what you're working on, what you hope to get out from Qwerky. Also what value that you can bring to that community.

You've probably heard of the expression, "You are the sum total of the of your five closest friends." we believe that you're the sum total of people who surround yourself with. It's our job to make sure that the people you're surrounding yourself with a good people, the quality people.

L: So they're influenced you to be good too.

Exactly, it means that things will happen faster. What's happening in the coliving space right now, A lot of people are saying, it's a coliving space when it's really just the condo. They just want your rent. They don't really care about you digits on your money. Then other people are throwing people in an Airbnb house and saying that's coliving community without much purpose.

L: how about WeLive?

They're in there in the space. I've been to one of those spaces and seen it. Obviously anybody in the Coliving space you know automatically friends of ours. It's a model that we want to imitate. I think there's a lot of room for improvement.

L: how about hackerspace or founder house?

It's a little bit like Silicon Valley TV show. Like the house, hackers and tech people. You don't need a lot of space, you just need a laptop. From our research, we've found that people who are said technologists they don't necessarily want to just be around technologists. In fact, I mean a lot of people said, I don't want to be around techies, I want to talk to more people.

Our target demographics are digital nomads, entrepreneurs, and creators. We believe that when you put those three kind of communities together magic happens. We did in our pilot house then magic happens. it's exchange of ideas and it's almost like a melting pot. They're all related in the sense that they're passionate about their kind of fields. But they can't because there's a lot of crossovers.

For example, a technologist might not know how to be creative, the creative will kind of show them the way. Similarly, the creative doesn't know anything about computer science, ones, and zeros. They'll be able to learn from them. If somebody in tech want to learn and If there's a marketing or PR want to learn too. They could potentially collaborate with them on a project.

L: Maybe your events or a workshop could be similar to startup weekend?

We've probably tried that in the pilot house. It was a big hit. We had eight entrepreneurs in the house. 100% people were there will be moving into our first community because they loved it so much. They loved the idea.

L: So they leasing for one year?

Here's the thing, when you go to the regular condo, in fact, a lot of coliving in communities it's unremarkable and traditional experience. You go to the leasing agent and they'll say, here are all these forms you've got to fill in and banked financial statements give us a months of month deposit, in a months upfront, in a minimum of one year. I hate it doing it. We want to just take that packet of pain and annoyance away and say that we're looking at probably going as short as a week, as long as a year, as long as a lifetime.

L: Is it included with the events with hospitality?

We're trying to give you a sort of example of what we're looking at. The average rent in San Diego for a month, I believe 1700 USD that one bed. We're looking to be offering a essentially a like a pod or bedroom at Qwerky for about 1000 USD. and then we'll have co-working there which would be just a little bit extra.

You're getting something that's way less than you would normally pay but you're also getting access to a community. We believe will accelerate your success by years.

I spent ten years trying to build a network and work out the startup ecosystem in London. A lot of that time is wasted because I just didn't know I was going. We're going to save people that time, will literally save you years, years of your life. And accelerate you by facilitating the connections. We'll have technology as well that allows us to see when there's a match in a community. Then we will make that introduction or responsible for introductions. We will always encourage qwerkies to go, put themselves out there but we also feel obligated to be going like creating what we call it deep community.

A lot of coliving spaces, in marketing what they're doing and saying we're a community, they're not a community they just want to take your money and run. what we want to do is we want to connect you to people then say why we've connected you. Then if there's not somebody within our community that we think can help you, we've got our extended network too. We can connect you to all investors like industry leaders in the city.

We're launching in San Diego so we'd be able to cater some industry leaders. Then we'll be getting those leaders to come in and do Qwerky talks. Their talks don't make you fall asleep. You go to a lot of events then there's a guy and he's getting to a girl they're going to be talking about ten top marketing tips.

We're gonna do Qwerky talks where we're going to demand that any speaker comes in, firstly, entertains our community. They spin it a different way, again it's the Qwerky. The Core of Qwerky, take something that's traditional and make it Qwerky.

We did the pilot house and we got a marketing person to come and do a talk. Normally that would be like a PowerPoint. She came in and her talk was called, What I learned from watching Breaking Bad. I'd say what I learned for watching Breaking Bad and how I learned to start a business and pivot. It was all around the TV show Breaking Bad. He connected like starting a business and pivoting to Breaking Bad. So everybody in the room was just glued to the screen because they're like the show. Even if he didn't she explained it but the point was relating it to a contemporary show and as sort of things that people can relate to. In a much better way than just saying you know lingo.

L: Like a storyteller.

TED talks are good and inspiring but there's still one up from PowerPoint. Qwerky talks are going to be like ten up from PowerPoint. We're going to be like almost like Qwerky and a little bit more exciting than TED Talks.

[23.48] The unique selling point of Qwerky Coliving

The unique selling point is that we're trying very hard to listen to our community. Then obviously build that but also throw in our own ideas and be innovative. We're trying to create a coliving community never been done before. And always be innovating. We've got about ten business ideas, we want to launch within Qwerky. That's tip of the iceberg will have many more but we've got lots of different ideas that will be launching.

If the entrepreneurs, digital nomads and creatives who have experienced coliving, we hope when you come to Qwerky and you come to the door, from the second comes. It's an experience that you'll never forget, You will just love and you'll never want to leave. Ultimately, we're trying to design an experience, to turn a community fit that makes you surprised.

Speaking about the category business in our DNA is happiness. We want you to come to Qwerky and become a happier person.

Back to your question the unique selling point, when you come to Qwerky you will become a happier person and when you leave you'll be happier than when you came. That's the idea. There's a lot of very isolated people especially if you're Digital Nomad. A lot of digital nomads, remote worker isolated them on their own solopreneurs and in the entrepreneurial world. I mean I've been through it extremely isolating. It can be very lonely. There's a lot of people who are afraid to admit it. They're struggling or they've got these issues.

By having a support system in place, where people can be open and there's like a safe place to share the way you think and what you're doing. I think that's going to be good not just for people staying at quirky but the society and mankind. I think we're trying to create, it's going to help society.

27.24: Did you already look up for a founding member?

In my previous business, I didn't have a co-founder and looked very hard, I just couldn't find the right co-founder.

L: then how you managed to get the founding member?

It was actually a lot easier than that ever expected. We just talked, met. He moved from Detroit and I just moved here from San Diego. We connected on LinkedIn and we got chatting. He came over with his wife and a new baby. I was with my wife and new baby. So, we had a little bit in common there. We just got talking, became friends then immediately clicked. We started working on Qwerky and talking about being co-founders. And really going for it. He's going to be eventually making our communities with technology.

It's something that's you know you might see just a little bit in coliving community. We're going to bring it in a lot more and then we're going to have online and mobile presence that you can connect very easily with Qwerky community.

Almost like smart communities, people talk about smart homes. It's using technology to enhance and streamline your living experience. We'll be bringing that in and almost using Qwerky a kind of place to experiment with tech. So there'll be some exciting things coming soon.

Smart communities that's that's what expression that we looking for.

30.20: Are you bootstrapper? I mean bootstrapping Qwerky or are you asking for investment?

Right now, we're bootstrapping. Where we're putting in the the most valuable capital lives which is sweat equity. At the same time we're already talking to investors who are very keen to invest. But we're thinking how far can we go without having to take investment. Because I think a lot of companies just take it lose. A lot of the company maybe lose control too early then they start to scale there's no leverage.

We're not looking for money as such but we're looking for smart money. When people invest they don't just give you capital they give you resources, network and they help. Basically open their black book to you and introduce you to people who can help grow a business. Like intelligent to attach to money

[31.45] The future plan of Qwerky

the future plan is you'll just have to wait and see...

There's going to be some amazing technology that will be implemented in our communities. We're trying to enhance the living experience and we're looking at kind of modular units. That modular unit that you can kind of sleep in. We're looking at sleep optimization down the line.

When you work very hard and drink a lot of coffee. It's very difficult to sleep. Broken sleep means you don't focus also not good for your health. That leads to effective sleep and minimalism to reduce stress and wellness. You treating a good nutrition wellness and we'll be introducing programs and community events around these ideas. And lots of exciting things to come within our communities, technology that will connect people as we grow. It doesn't matter where you are in the world you are able to connect with people in the community. We're also looking a way for digital nomads to be able to come from anywhere in the world to our first community in San Diego. Eventually they'll be able to come to our community and get work, get paid to do freelance gigs.

L: Actually that remote concept, if someone maybe like needs a job from San Diego and someone who needs gig from Australia that will connect them in your community.

That's the idea, We have very close connections with employers in the cities where in. We can put a job board on Qwerky effectively. Even you have job alerts so if you're interested. I'll give you an Australian you wanna come to San Diego and and you're looking for a specific role it will ping you will give you a notification when something like that comes up but we will have the close relationships with those people so that instead like if you go through a job site you're just a number you just you know you get put on the resume pile like there's the salary thousands and thousands of resumes with what we're doing is we'll take will will connect that one person and we'll take them directly to the test papers and we know we said you got to you got to look at this guy we'll put you like we'll put you in front of that person we'll make we'll put you on the top of the pile and and that's what all the other job sites don't do because they have all the time everything's automated it's all just on a website there's no real you know deep relationships will change that oh by the way

L: Do you promote Qwerky with GCUC event or maybe coworking events in San Diego or US in general?

At the moment, we're a very small team there's myself, my founder we've got a communications director that's working with us. She's from Venezuela and bilinguals which are awesome. We're a very small team and we obviously need help.

If there's anybody listening, if Qwerky sounds fun and it could help you in your kind of say career or life or travels. Please go to Qwerky.co Which is q-wer-ky and add your email. We'll reach out and let you know when we're opening applications. And if you are a traveler, digital nomad, you vlog, you blog and you want to come and cover us. Or you're a journalist and you want to interview us then reach out to me on email hi@qwerkycoliving.com or @davidjlowe on Twitter. If people have ideas or they want us to be in other countries and they know how to connect with me now. If they want to follow us on social media we're at QwerkyColiving across into Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as well, search for Qwerky Coliving. we've just started a channel, we love to create video content and we love to have your feedback.

yeah I I think in general most government officials are interested in two things. One, it depends on where you live. You know some people live in really corrupt societies, some people within I mean I think every society is some level of corruption. But it's all about usually most people are in those positions. Because they want influence or power or something like that. So I'd say that typically you have to find out how it's in that person's personal interest to work with you and to allow this because that's the only reason that they really care. I mean in a lot of a lot of countries or cities it's about finding a way for the government to make money from it right so whether that's paying a fee or something like that or coming up with some sort of application that they have to fill out I think a lot of governments also prevent this because either they have agreement with agreements with other governments to prevent things like tax evasion or money laundering and so it definitely makes sense think.

There are some really practical reasons why governments should be very should to closely watch the use of virtual addresses and in registering business addresses in other countries. But it also can be a little difficult, I understand it makes the business a little bit hard.

I think it depends on what the use cases like what are people wanting to use virtual addresses for and I think most of the time it is for like it is for like tax evasion stuff though. I'm not the huge fan of virtual addresses I think it's the whole kind of concept is a little bit Shady.

In general I'd say with government officials you just have to find what's in their personal urges. Then work your way from there so you know why is it in there why do they want to keep this regulation in place is it to keep the boss happy is it because they can only change things into bringing their department more taxes or is it just a problem that they don't care about thinking about if they've got bigger problems to think about and and you're never going to get them to pay attention to it. The government stopped up at that point so yeah you'll have to let me know what you figure it out.

Opening up a European bank account isn't terribly difficult but I haven't done it yet because it requires some stuff that showing your bills, giving some deposit.

L: But I found another way to solve that problem.

[03.32] A way to build online community

yeah so I think,this is a really great question and I actually wrote a really long article about it a couple weeks ago on co-working insights. So everybody should check that out. I think that the title is weak-ass co-working managers we come up with these really clever ideas for things we want to do like implementing online community management tools or an online community.

But the question that we have to keep coming back to when social media isn't really working the way that we anticipated. Do our members actually want this and the truth in most cases with all social media is that most co-working communities don't want a community. They just don't care. So spending time and energy to try to make them care is a waste of time.

The best example of an online community is probably Alex Hillman's community at Indy Hall. That was created because the community at Indy Hall was so great. When people moved away they still wanted to stay connected to those people. Because those were their friends right they had a personal connection with those people right?

They had their personal connection. You can't just put an off create an online community and tell people who don't know or care about each other to connect with each other because in life we didn't even do that. I had a Facebook but I'm not reaching out to people in like Sweden and saying hey let's do friends it just doesn't work like that that's just not how people work right.

The biggest and the first mistake is that many spaces don't have a good community already, in person and don't implement don't add more tools to something that's not working there's a saying that's like adding processes to inefficient operation amplify the inefficiencies. We're staying with your community if your community isn't working, don't add more tools to it or processes because you need to work on the basics which are building that community.

The other thing, I think many members don't want another thing to log into so use something they're already had. Facebook groups work really well for that. I think slack is pretty good because lots of people use slack these days. It used to be that way but I think that the only time that implementing a dedicated online community tool really make sense. if you have a bunch of members, who are communicating online they just need more tools to plan things like an events or meetups with each other and stuff like that and there are some cool tools out there and high-lows pretty cool business pretty cool.

Online community doesn't host the online space the same way they host their in-person space. You need to be as active as you are in your physical space. I'm against expect people need guidance there and then the last thing is I think that all my communities need a value right, the only reason I'm going somewheres for value so if there's not anybody interesting on there or there are not interesting conversations happening then I don't think people will be interested in logging in and engaging.

[07.02] Advise for people who starting out in coworking business

I know this the typical advice is that you should build your community before you build your space I tend to agree with that. I think it is less risky but if you're in a place where coworking is just exploding, I really I don't think that you should not start thinking about your space or start thinking about design or real estate at all. I think you should definitely be thinking about that, in tandem with building your community. I do think that people should always start marketing and partnerships earlier don't start the day open start.

You know while you're building the space but the same time you can still plan to build us the regions I'd say that partnerships and strategic partnerships are probably the biggest things and the way that people go about them so if I was starting a new space.

L: You mean by the strategic partnership, Is it partnership with the real estate?
Mostly I think what I'm talking about is like members. If your goal is to have a full vibrant community in your space. Then involve people who are already community leaders in the creation of that community. So chances are, a lot of co-working founders aren't community leaders yet. This is often their first time ever kind of being in a community leadership role.

There are people in your community, in your city who already lead communities. So what you do is you go to them and say hey I want you to be like on our advisory board. Obviously, you can use the space for free for all whatever you want to do Let's figure out a way to do this together and I think the problem is that we often look at those potential strategic partners, those community partners as potential customers. wWhen the truth is we should look at them as business partner.

[08.58] The coworking business model used for many industry

I think that we're already seeing that I think that I think they every traditional space, commercial space and we're seeing living spaces and office spaces, industrial spaces. I think they'll all be transformed by the idea coworking presence which is that space can be more flexibly managed and that we can maximize the value of every square inch of space that we have.

With that thought in mind, it's it's not that coworking that's eating the world. It's the ideas that are contained inside coworking. Then something gets back to like why coworking is kind of just it's a word. Hopefully, we stopped using someday because not everything is coworking. Even two coworking spaces that most people would go yeah that's coworking are very different than each other. Because one might host lots of events, one might have more offices, one might rent next meeting rooms to external parties and one might just not have any meeting rooms.

It's really dangerous I think to homogenized spaces based on the term coworking but yes I think that it is already transforming every industry because we're realizing that with technology and marketing, frankly marketing we can regulate the flow of people in and out of spaces and capture value.

so traditionally offices really do marketing like they did on old-school marketing. Look at the marketing practices that a WeWork employee is engaged in versus an office manager back on 2005.

L: Do you think Regus it's traditional office?

I think it's just one of those things where it's like what is coworking and I think it's similar they are are taking a large space and some entity it's too beautiful. For flex, we'll use I'd say it's a shared workspace.
I think that if we were going to define what coworking is.

I think people who don't work together working alongside each other often forming relationships. That can happen in a traditional office, that can happen in a cafe it doesn't require a space but so yes or Regus could be a coworking space. If an activity is happening so I think that's where the danger. As a co-working isn't a thing it's an activity.

Deciding whether space is a coworking space or not, I guess you could say is a measure of how of to what degree that activity is happening.

Then in most cases, Regus does not have a lot of that activity going on. Usually, you have people working in silos working in their offices not really engaging with each other.

I've also been to some what people would call serviced offices or executive suites where there is a community and the people do interact even though they don't work in the same company and so in that example like I would say they're not coworking.

[12.47] The valuable feature of Habu for coworking operator

I mean the biggest thing, I think with other is that it's very user-friendly, simple. We've taken the approach of you know trying to do all of the things that most coworking spaces want to do without. You know as far as software goes without doing everything so we get crazy feature requests. Sometimes we'll say maybe next year or something like that when in truth it's like we may never implement it. Because it's a new feature that most people wouldn't use.

Our goal is to make simple intuitive and really fast. I I think our booking calendar is really nice if you ask one of our best features. Mostly does it does everything that you'd want a tool to do recurring billing, prorating billing you know automatic payments and invoicing.

We have a web app for members to book spaces. Actually in the process of redesigning, kind of overhauling it. Making a new a new kind of web application for users and members to purchase, day passes and make bookings and manage their accounts. We're building a new one right now which I think will be finished to make the next week.

[14.30] The Future Plan of Coworking Insight

Right now, we are extending our contributing authors. We're getting people to contribute articles from all parts of the industry. Mostly usually people who work in spaces. Especially I want to have more people who I think founders are interesting.

We have an interesting perspective but I think it's more interesting to hear more from people who are on the front lines managing coworking spaces. Community managers, front desk people, event manager. Because they're usually the ones who deal with a lot of the work.

It could be a little more idealistic and not as connected to the day-to-day work. They can also have interesting perspectives as well so expanding our authorship. I'd like to experiment with some other content mediums like a podcast. Which I tried to do last year but I didn't stick with it and like to do some stuff with coworking employment and coworking jobs.

L: You mean like remote jobs?

It's like coworking space in Singapore has a job opening for a CEO or an event manager. And someone living in I don't know like Australia wants to you take that experience. How do you connect those Job because usually pretty regional but I think that really interesting opportunity, for people to hire other people with experience in coworking from all over the world and create some cool cultural exchange.

As well as keep developing people because I think that a lot of people fall out who get into coworking don't stay in coworking. Because they can't find a lot of job growth. But I think if we can open up the market to be global for the coworking and employment then people will stay in.

[16.46] The factor that could failed coworking

There's a lot of factors, I think the biggest one that I see all the time is that rent goes up.

That's part of goes back to the planning process. if you are starting a space and you don't think about your financial management out for ten, twenty-five years, you signed up leased in five years maybe your market goes up. If you're not making any money or you not having a rent increase ever and that's just totally unrealistic.

The last one that I think causes them to fail is usually the people in charge stop caring. They stop caring then they stop finding creative solutions to problems which that's like a coworking is just this long exercise. Finding creative solutions become a problem. Because it's such a complex business.

If the people the top, stop caring, the people in the middle won't care. Then it will just fall apart. The rent that is usually the biggest one.

It’s absolutely fantastic to have Ryan in this show. Follow him on twitter @rchatterton and checkout coworkinginsight.com. See you next week.