Independents Hall Philadelphia

Coworking 201: Where are all of the people?

Filed under: FAQs, Independents Hall, IndyHall 201, coworking

Every time I see someone who’s struggling to find members for their coworking space and finds themselves sitting alone in an empty room more often than not, I cry a little inside.

As you may have realized by now, there’s not a lot of incentive to leave your house for another room with nobody in it. In order for the value proposition of coworking to be complete, there needs to be *people* to cowork with!

So you’ve already made the mistake of opening the space without any community buy-in. What can you do?

We suggest rituals.

Consistency is critical for building up the mass, and humans are habitual creatures. If you can come up with a way (Tony had some great suggestions) to get people in the mindset of “today’s Tuesday, it’s coworking day!”, you win. Better yet, give them a reason to bring others, and tell others about their coworking day.

Have you also done research on your price point? If the value proposition isn’t well balanced (cost for the day >= the benefit of the day), you’re going to lose repeat visitors and ultimately, members who join.

Are you in an “ideal” location? Location is hard to change once you’ve already started a space, but our friends in Miami learned the hard way the problems with a poorly selected location.

You need to find out where people who might be interested in your space are already hanging out, and become a part of what they are doing. Don’t show up and try to be a pitch-master, you probably aren’t.

When I say “be a part” of what they’ve got going on, I mean pay attention to their culture, their community, and look for ways to give to them something that they are missing. If you can become a part of their day to day rituals, you’ll begin to feel the formation of the critical mass you’ve been looking for.

No events to be a part of? Start throwing some of your own to get the ball rolling. We started early on with The Junto, Cream Cheese Sessions (our variation of Jelly), and lots of happy hours.

No matter what, you’re not going to see change overnight. Keep at it. Remember, ritual = consistency.

Also, listen to what the people who ARE coming out are interested in, and modify your events for them and their interests. Learning how to process feedback early is going to help you a LOT in the long run.