Indy Hall – By the Numbers
Filed under: FAQs, From the Business Side, Independents Hall, coworkers, coworking
Today, a longtime friend and observer of Indy Hall Imran Ali had a research piece published on GigaOm Pro about coworking spaces “by the numbers”. He featured Indy Hall as well as Fly the Coop, a Co-op coworking initiative in Manchester, UK.
This new article is behind a paywall, sadly. At the risk of being asked to take them down, I am going to quote a few select pieces of the article that Imran wrote that I thought were particularly salient. If you’re so inclined, a free 7 day trial of GigaOm Pro (credit card required). I don’t get any sort of kickbacks on subscriptions.
The foresight shown by the coworking movement’s founders — codified in values of collaboration, openness, community, accessibility — readily transposes onto crucial financial constructs, such as transparency, pricing and membership. You really have to live those values to make coworking viable in a fiscal sense.
Imran does a great job of identifying how we parlayed our community growth into business growth.
Both IndyHall and Fly The Coop were only able to build sustainable businesses because of the trust (and loans) that came from early-stage community building[...] It’s this very trust that separates coworking from the more prosaic serviced office.
And, perhaps most importantly, he puts the business viability into perspective for people who are simply in this for the money:
Just as individuals buy into a lifestyle, coworkers are buying into a workstyle; the financial stories of both IndyHall and Fly The Coop show that, though margins are tight, deep community bonds make all the difference, both financially and socially. It’s perhaps not a business for an investor looking to make a significant ROI, but eminently suitable for those who wish to participate as members who also modestly invest.
As promised, here are the RAW numbers that I gave to Imran to tell our story. We operate transparently, so any additional information we can provide about any piece of this data will only be based on the availability of more data points. It’s taken us a while to get good at measuring our growth, so there’s lots of data missing that we’d need to spend more time mining for.
Let me use some numbers to tell a story, from our founding fund-raising to our most recent move and financial stabilization
$0 – Pre-dedicated location costs for 9 months casual coworking/jelly, social gatherings, and other community-building exercises were done on a budget of time, not capital.
$4625 – our projected monthly revenue based on membership projections within 6 months.
———————————————————————————————
23 – our actual number of members on August 6, 2007 (lease signing day)
2 – our actual number of full time members on September 1st, 2007
4 - our actual number of lite members on September 1st, 2007
17 – our actual number of basic members on September 1st, 2007
———————————————————————————————
$1675 – monthly membership-only revenue committed on lease signing day.
———————————————————————————————
$2325 – additional member-driven startup capital, from members pre-paying for 2-6 months of their membership
———————————————————————————————
~$10,000 – money provided by founder for lease security deposit, furniture, supplies, and monthly rent cushion.
———————————————————————————————
$14,000 – total money raised from within membership/founders to sign a lease, furnish the space, and cushion rent until breakeven.
———————————————————————————————
1800 number of sq ft leased in Old City Philadelphia
———————————————————————————————
$2,450 – monthly budget for rent, utilities, and discretionary funds
———————————————————————————————
3 – Months to breakeven/cashflow positive
———————————————————————————————
39 – our actual number of members on June 1st, 2008 (10 months in)
9 – our actual number of full time members on June 1st, 2008
5 – our actual number of lite members on June 1st, 2008
25 – our actual number of basic members on June 1st, 2008
$3975 – Monthly Revenue from Memberships Only
———————————————————————————————
16 – months until partner loan payback ($10,000) completed
———————————————————————————————-
53 – our actual number of members on March 2009
14 – our actual number of full time members on March 2009
7 – our actual number of lite members on March 2009
32 – our actual number of basic members on March 2009
$5875 – Monthly Revenue from Memberships Only
———————————————————————————————–
$3,633.45 – actual monthly operating cost in March 2009
$2.02 – approximate monthly operating cost per square foot in March 2009
———————————————————————————————–
4400 number of sq ft rented in Old City Philadelphia for May 1st, 2009
———————————————————————————————–
67 – our actual number of members on May 1st, 2009
21 – our actual number of full time members on May 1st, 2009
7 – our actual number of lite members on May 1st, 2009
39 – our actual number of basic members on May 1st, 2009
$7975 – Monthly Revenue from Memberships Only
———————————————————————————————–
$8,700.53 – estimated monthly operating cost for May 2009
$1.98 – approximate monthly operating cost per square foot in March 2009
———————————————————————————————–
$30,000 – loan taken from one full-time member
———————————————————————————————–
~$14,000 – savings in May 2009
————————————————————————————————
$21,460 – budget for furniture, buildout materials.
————————————————————————————————
6 – Months to breakeven/cashflow positive
————————————————————————————————
83 – our actual number of members on October 2009 (breakeven)
26 – our actual number of full time members on October 2009
6 – our actual number of lite members on October 2009
51 – our actual number of basic members on October 2009
$9475 – Monthly Revenue from Memberships Only
————————————————————————————————-
9 – Months to begin payback of member loan (<24 month payback target)
————————————————————————————————–
The financials, as it were, are relatively uninteresting. You can see that we operate on relatively thin margins. It’s also worth pointing out that in 3 years, neither Geoff nor I have taken a draw from profit. Every penny made by Indy Hall is re-inves
ted in our members, our space, our events, etc.
The interesting numbers will take some more time to pull together…but they are the numbers that we believe are important. Things like
- Cities, states, and countries of origin of Indy Hall guests.
- Drop-in rates
- Drop-in conversions to memberships
- Events hosted and organized by Indy Hall and Indy Hall Members
- New teams/partnerships formed
- New businesses established
- New products (commercial and non-commercial) developed by Indy Hall Members
- Average revenue generated by an independent worker
And more. What numbers would YOU like to see?
Indy Hall Town Hall – Monday, July 12th, 5:30-7pm
Filed under: Announcements, Community Support, Events, From the Business Side, Independents Hall, coworking
It’s been many months since our last Town Hall meeting, nine of them in fact. That’s a problem!
For the newly initiated (or anyone who has started hanging around Indy Hall in the last year), Town Hall meetings are Indy Hall’s best way of updating community members on large issues that we expect will prompt discussion. As great as our online forums can be, offline events like this have been extremely valuable for important events in our history, including our decisions to grow into this new office last year that we’ve all come to call home.
As we CONTINUE to grow (which is still remarkable to all of us), it’s long overdue we initiate another one of these discussions. In it, we’ll be providing some transparency into Indy Hall’s growth (including membership statistics), as well as some of the new and interesting ideas we have to address some of the pains associated with growing.
We’ll be holding our next Town Hall meeting this upcoming Monday, July 12th, from 5:30 to 7pm right here at Indy Hall.
After a round of introductions from everyone in attendance, the presentation portion of the Town Hall will be led by Geoff and I, and last ~30 minutes at the most. After the discussion, we turn to members from each membership level for some feedback. And then the floor is open more generally for discussion.
Its important to note that these events are NOT for members only: the general public is welcome. In the past we’ve had city council members as well as members of the press present. We think this level of transparency lets us operate the way we know best.
Also, this serves as yet another opportunity to get to know your coworkers, and hopefully get to know Geoff and I a little better as well.
Since this event is open to the public, we’re going to ask people to RSVP so we can plan for seating and space usage: http://anyvite.com/a9urvwzxga
In the end, our goal is that you have some insight into how things are continually evolving at Indy Hall, and what that means for you. There are always opportunities to get involved in new ways, suggest and implement your own ideas with our support, and make this place even better. We wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want to be, and that means a lot to us.
Its up to you to attend and include your voice. We can’t wait to see everyone’s faces on the 12th!
From the Video Archives: Coworking Questions answered for Web Worker Daily in 2009
Filed under: FAQs, From the Business Side, Independents Hall, IndyHall 201, IndyHall U, Videos, coworking
Wow…a WHOLE YEAR AGO, I answered a bunch of questions for Web Worker Daily in video format. I completely forgot about them until Gerard Sychay from Cincy Coworks tweeted about them. They answer questions that we answer a lot, so I thought it’d be valuable to post here.
IndyHall History:
Bootstrapping:
Diversity
The Future of IndyHall (from last year)
Coworking Tips
Guest Post by Dave Troy of Beehive Baltimore Coworking
Filed under: Community Support, Education/Workshops, Events, coworking
On January 22nd, a delegation from Beehive Baltimore visited IndyHall — a trip we called “A Tale of Two Cities.” Baltimore and Philadelphia share many common characteristics: an amazing, eclectic workforce and arts community, a prominent position in the east coast corridor, and also many of the problems that plague many of our urban areas.
The idea for the trip came after I visited with Alex back in October and I wished I could “bottle” the energy and ideas behind IndyHall to share with my peers in Baltimore. Of course, I had already done this in one way; in 2008 my chance meeting of Alex Hillman at a wedding of a mutual friend is what led directly to the creation of Beehive Baltimore, our coworking community in Baltimore.
But I wanted to do more: to connect the members of our coworking community directly with like-minds in Philadelphia, to inoculate them with the knowledge that our two communities are linked by common values and also to raise the idea that coworking is a very powerful seed for urban renewal and economic growth. The founders of Beehive share something very important in common with Geoff and Alex: we want to change our cities for the better, and not just a little bit.
At first the trip was going to be a small carpool affair with 8-10 people. Pretty soon it turned into a bus trip with over 30 people registered. When we showed up on the doorstep at IndyHall, Alex and Geoff were a little surprised at the size of the crowd. But here’s the thing: show people a better way, a path forward that has room for hope in it, and people will rush to understand and be a part of it.
Our delegation was eager to learn what made the IndyHall community tick, and to compare notes from experiences in Baltimore. Some were our regular members, others were members of our community that want to drive change here. While we arguably gained a lot from a generous Q&A with Geoff and Alex, the real fun came in the Show & Tell and the extended lunch at National Mechanics. Many good new connections were made between the Baltimore and Philadelphia communities.
But, perhaps most importantly, the trip did one thing: show that we’re here for one another. Philadelphia and Baltimore both face staggering challenges in the years ahead. I, for one, am comforted by the knowledge that there are likeminded souls in a nearby city who will be working to understand these challenges alongside us, and I hope you feel the same way. We invite you to make a similar trip here to Baltimore sometime soon. Thanks for sharing with us. We all truly appreciate it and will be looking for ways to keep our communities growing together.
IndyHall 201: How IndyHall Communicates with it’s Community
Filed under: FAQs, From the Business Side, Independents Hall, IndyHall 201, coworking
This week, I got an e-mail from Julie Z. Rosenberg of the Brooklyn Creative League in Park Slope, asking about our newsletter. First off, I always appreciate when people reach out to others for a hand as well as Julie did, as she a great job by asking specific questions and keeping her message brief.
I decided that it could be valuable to share what I shared with her on the blog for others, for future reference and posterity.
Specifically, Julie was asking about format, frequency, content, and distribution.
The rest of this post contains a modified version of my response to her.
—
When IndyHall began as a community, and didn’t have a space yet, we operated almost entirely out of a public google group (now defunct), and on Twitter. Once we had a space though (beginning in mid-late 2007), there became a need for public, and semi-private correspondence to happen on different channels. It didn’t make sense to bother everyone with office goings-on, but we also didn’t want people left out!
Right now, our communication stack looks like this, but we’re still experimenting and things change all the time.
Internal:
- We use Basecamp as a message board for all members. Everyone who’s on the roster can post messages to everyone else who is a member.
- We use Campfire as a real-time chat that’s mostly populated by members, but is also open to the public (http://campfire.indyhall.org)
- We still use Twitter a lot
External:
- Our blog (this thing you’re reading) has always been our first line of defense, along with Twitter.
- We’ve used Facebook and AnyVite for event RSVPs, and link them from blog posts and twitter. AnyVite rocks because it doesn’t require a login to RSVP, which Facebook does.
- At some point, we realized that not everyone is following Twitter (or their RSS reader) as religiously as they do e-mail, so a traditional e-mail redux would be valuable.
At this point, we’ve had to work ourselves into a bit of a production schedule to get one e-mail out every other week. One of our full time members, Stephen Winkler, has taken the reigns of the project and is in charge of organizing stories for the newsletter, rallying/drafting content. Dana, our office manager, supplies a couple of specific segments. Other community members have taken ownership of specific segments of the newsletter.
It’s finally gotten into a groove (I think we’re 4 editions in with an actual production timeline), and we’ve only missed the ship date once 
.
Bottom line is that we’ve found that no single channel is effective enough. We’re always morphing along with our community and trying to find the balance, and expect that the balance will always be changing!
—–
By the way, are you subscribed to our bi-weekly newsletter yet? It’s easy, just head to IndyHall.org if you’re not already on the site, and the sign up is on the left hand side of every page!
BREAKOUT! Festival comes to Philadelphia
Filed under: Community Support, Events, In The News, Independents Hall, coworking
When some of our friends from Manhattan’s New Work City told me about The Breakout! Festival, I was instantly on board. A group of people who wanted to take advantage of public places to create new, interesting, and stimulating work environments sounded like such a cool mission. Given the availability of power and internet, and the mobility of our workforce and their needs, this project is a beautiful expression of work no longer being about where, but HOW people do their jobs!
BREAKOUT! is a month long event where groups of people congregate in different places to work for a period of time, or discuss alternatives to work places. In many cases, it’s a “break out” session, encouraging usual cube-inhabitants to get out and meet some new people. Sound familiar?
Tomorrow (Monday, October 12th) the BREAKOUT! NYC group is going to “break out” of Manhattan and join us for a few hours in Philadelphia! They’ll be taking the Bolt Bus, an awesome wifi-enabled transport option between NYC and Philly, working for the two hour commute, then joining us at IndyHall for a bit. We’ll welcome their group and discuss mobile work alternatives, and weather permitting, head out to Washington Square Park for an outdoor brainstorming session.
The group, organized by Anthony Townsend (a researcher dedicated to working on the role of telecommunication in urban design and development), is providing an excellent opportunity not just to make for an interesting Monday morning, but a valuable opportunity to tie neighboring cities together. Philadelphia and New York are SO close, and the transportation is SO accessible, if you haven’t taken a day to work from each others’ coworking spaces you are missing out.
One of the biggest values of coworking is adjusting perspective for the sake of improving your own productivity. I hope you join us around 11:30-12 tomorrow, Monday the 12th, at IndyHall to welcome our friends from NYC and take part in BREAKOUT! NYC comes to Philadelphia.
Oh, and Anthony is bringing a BBC reporter, so as he suggested to me, “make sure you have your coworking sound-bites ready!”
The IndyHall Internship
Filed under: Announcements, From the Business Side, Independents Hall, coworking
Lachlan wants YOU to come work with IndyHall!
- Being a morning person: you’ll be in charge of opening the space every morning, starting the first pot of coffee, and making sure everything is ready for members to arrive.
- Being a people person: you’ll be a go-to person for people with questions throughout the day. You won’t need to know *everything*, but you’ll know who to go to to find out. You’ll also be giving new visitors and members tours around the space, and getting them acquainted and acclimated.
- Being an organized person: you’ll be keeping tabs on our reservation system, and our daily attendance records.
- Being a self-starter: the status quo will get you by, but we’re looking for someone who’s going to look for problems, and fix them.
- A free desk at IndyHall. Since you’re there full time, you get a full time membership to IndyHall (worth $275/month) to work on your own projects between things you’re doing with IndyHall.
- An incredible network of mentors. This position is perfect for someone who’s interested in being a freelancer, small business owner, or entrepreneur but doesn’t know where to start. The IndyHall community is known for being an incredibly valuable support network for anyone who wants to work independently. You’ll have the collective mindshare and experience of nearly 100 members at your fingertips, as well as any organizational or personal contacts IndyHall has in this city, and others.
- The most fun you’ll ever have at work. IndyHall is a productivity powerhouse, but it’s also a blast. Fun people, great music over the sound-system, bright spaces, bean-bag chairs…seriously. Show and Tell. Saturday Morning Cartoons. You get to call this your job.
- An opportunity to be a part of something big...and potentially make some money doing it. This internship is unpaid to begin, but that doesn’t mean forever. We believe in rewarding performance, and if you’re doing a great job, IndyHall will be growing and we’ll be able to allocate money for this position. The amount of time this takes is 100% in your hands.
- A chance to take Dana’s Job, and make it your own. Dana has completely taken ownership of creating the perfect job for herself, and this is your chance to do the same. The entire point of this position is twofold: to garden yet another successful independent contributor to the community of Philadelphia, and to have someone to fill Dana’s shoes when she’s ready to expand the business she’s grown while being our office manager. We’re looking to complete the cycle, and start it all over again. With you.
IndyHall Turns Two Guys On Beer, Megaparty on September 1st
Filed under: Announcements, Community Support, Independents Hall, coworking
Mix
- Two Year birthday of our beloved Philadelphia coworking space
- The release of the 100 episode of the duo of beer guys that share their knowledge and tasting notes with you 5 days a week.
Stir in
- Our awesome community
- Free beer
- Great music
Thats right, it’s been TWO YEARS since we moved into the 32 Strawberry Street location, the first home, the first clubhouse, for IndyHall. Since then, we’ve accomplished so much together, not the least of which is growing to a size that demanded a new office almost 3 times the size of 32 Strawberry. We’re nearly 100 members strong, and that’s just the people who pay monthly memberships. Dozens more use desks, many while traveling to Philadelphia from all around the world. Our community is much larger, and we’re so proud of that. Our goal of putting Philly on the map for tech, creative, and independent workers is certainly being achieved every day.
It’s also been nearly a year and a half since the first episode of Two Guys on Beer went live on the internet. I wont link to it, because Johnny and Dave will kill me. Lets just say that they’ve become a LOT more comfortable behind the camera, and the show has matured substantially.
The show, not Johnny and Dave.
But I digress. The Two Guys on Beer show has matured and grown enough to gain recognition through the region, from the invited participation in Philly Beer Week, notable appearances at popular beer events, tastings, and tappings around the city, to the most recent announcement of the placement on Philly.com’s beer page! Every day, Two Guys becomes more of a fixture in the Philly beer scene, which is awesome because this is one RAD city to drink beer in!
These two milestones are so exciting, we couldn’t contain ourselves and decided to jam them together and celebrate all at once!
This is where it all begins. Join us at National Mechanics on Tuesday, September 1st. Festivities begin at 7pm.
RSVP now for updates and reminders.
What’s in store? Well, you can be sure of two things: there will be geeks, and there will be beer.
What else do you REALLY need?
We’ve got some more really fun stuff in the works that we’ll be announcing over the next couple of weeks leading up to the event, but now’s the time to RSVP.
And as always, on behalf of IndyHall and Two Guys on Beer, a HUGE thank you to our hosts National Mechanics. No other bar would let us get away with what you do, and we don’t think you’d have us any other way.
Sponsorship Opportunities
Our friends to the south, the Flying Dog Brewery, have agreed to help us out and are helping us get a selection of their beer for the night. We’re working out the details, but we’re still looking for some financial contributions to help make this party awesome.
Contact me (alex@indyhall.org) if you’re interested in sponsorship of this event, which includes the Two Guys on Beer show and it’s thousands of monthly viewers!
They Like Us! They Really Like Us!
Filed under: Community Support, Independents Hall, Kudos, coworking
I’m going to do my best to make this NOT become one of those posts where we pat ourselves on the back. Instead, I wanted to THANK the amazing people that have been leaving reviews in our reservation system.
We get a lot of folks coming through our doors, and we don’t always get a chance to ask them how their day was. More often than not, they come back…which we take as a good sign. But these reviews…wow. You’re all making me blush over here. My #1 favorite part about IndyHall has been hearing what it means to all of you over the last 2 years.
Some choice excerpts:
What sets IndyHall apart is that it combines both the comfort and efficiency together. I am definitely returning to this place. - Arturo Osorio, Lite Member
Most of the members introduced themselves to me. There wasn’t a “don’t look at me” feel that you get when you see people working in a coffee shop. There’s a mixed vibe of getting work done and having fun. - Steve Gruberman, NJcoworking.com
When I was there, it was cupcake day (Thursday) and there was a happy hour of sorts at 4 pm. -Julia, a visiting member of Carrboro Creative Coworking
Got a good chunk of work done, was able to book the conference room for a mid-day project kickoff phone meeting, and enjoyed several cups of darn good coffee complete with half & half and raw sugar. -Kris Gale, Basic Member
IndyHall provides an opportunity to work beside other living/breathing humans and increase my productivity because I’m not sitting around feeling so isolated. - Carolyn Redmond, Drop-in
I had a great day despite the brief power outage. In fact, I think that made it better. -Carl Leiby, Basic Member
Energy nor mass have anything on Indy Hall. It is a wellspring of creative flow. The nucleus around which the crackling excitement of ideas and inspiration revolve. Serendipity incarnate. -Some unnamed poet
However, for those of us who do not dream in SQL, IndyHall is still welcoming. Desks, internet and a place to work that isn’t a coffee shop or a library- who could ask for more!? -Carrie Jurney, wife of one of the geekiest members we’ve ever had.
Indy Hall is a great environment filled with a hard working core of people that sometimes collaborate and share ideas, and other times just leave each other alone to get things done. You can usually find a lunch partner or an answer to some cryptic technical riddle. -Lou Fuiano, Basic Member
When I started at Indyhall over a year ago, I was amazed how fast I became friends with Alex and everyone there. -Jon Bettcher, Basic Member who has since left us for San Francisco, much to our chagrin. We miss you Jon.
Of course, there are others that I didn’t include here because you can read the whole shebang yourself. I sincerely thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for your support and continuing participation in IndyHall. Just wait until this fall. It’s going to get even better!
IndyHall gets a Weekly E-Mail Newsletter
Filed under: Announcements, Events, From the Business Side, Independents Hall, coworking
After nearly 2 years of being open, IndyHall finally has a regular e-mail newsletter.
We haven’t really actively communicated in public via e-mail since the earliest days of IndyHall’s community building, when we had a rather active google group. Over time, that e-mail list fell into the typical form of most of the regional e-mail lists, being primarily job-postings.
Multi-way communication improved within the community despite the loss of the Google group, mostly thanks to Twitter. We no longer had the need to clutter up each others’ inboxes. We extended that with the relaunch of the IndyHall website, including an aggregate Twitter feed of IndyHall members on the home page.
Internally, the IndyHall community continues to use e-mail as an extension to BaseCamp, which we use for community discussions, to-d0s, sharing, ideas, announcements, etc. The problem with Basecamp is that it’s private, only available to IndyHall members.
And so, we move back to e-mail for announcements of weekly activity in the local tech, creative, independent, and entrepreneurial community. We’re using Newsberry, an email newsletter application built by Wildbit, who are active members of the IndyHall community. Our mailings will be weekly (well, that’s the idea anyway) and will include things like:
- Weekly Events. Events coming up soon, both IndyHall and throughout the Philly creative, tech, and entrepreneurial landscape. We can’t link to everything, that’s why we have a calendar (and anything we miss, Technically Phillyand Philly New Media Hub catch). Consider this your weekly “here’s what you’ll find IndyHall folks doing” redux.
- Event Tips. Events you should “save the date” for. Maybe not coming up this week, but coming up soon. Watch this spot if you like to be in the know BEFORE Technically Philly.
- New Member Welcomes! We’ve got new folks coming by every week, and sometimes it can be a few times to IndyHall before you catch someone’s name. We’re gonna try to put the kibosh on that problem by welcoming new community members every week in our newsletter.
- Event Recaps. Missed an event? Feeling guilty? Went to an event, think it was awesome? We’re going to start taking community submissions of short event recaps of local events so you can feel, or at least act, like you are in the know.
- In the News. Any mentions of IndyHall activities, or mentions of our community members, in press. Local or national. You’re getting ink, and we wanna spread the word.
The newsletter itself is meant to be collaborative from the perspective of content, meaning we are welcoming community contributions, tips, articles, ideas….really anything. We’re not pumping out newsletters for the sake of pumping out newsletters, we want to continue being a conduit for useful information for the community, and e-mail lets us reach a whole group of people who aren’t active participants in the social networks we usually use to share.
We’ll be posting a link on the blog to each weekly newsletter as well, for those of you who are more into RSS than you are into e-mail.
Check out this week’s inaugural newsletter!
So any thoughts, tips, article ideas, or even just kudos and high fives…drop us a line.
Oh, interested in subscribing? It couldn’t be easier. Toss your name and email into the form on the left column of any page of this site, or just visit the simple sign up form.
Hat tip to our friends at Caroline Collective in Houston, Texas for the inspiration on the execution of the newsletter.
