How to open a coworking center: a detailed guide

Six months ago, a team of several enthusiasts opened a coworking center in St. Petersburg. Since then, a dozen centers have opened across the country. We decided to share our knowledge with all current and future workspace creators. According to our estimates, by the end of 2013, there will be more than 100 coworking centers in Russia.

Team

• The main roles that need to be distributed among the team members: administrator, space designer, technical issues, promotion, events, community, special projects.
• As a rule, the main team will have 4-8 people and another 5-20 volunteers or friends of the project.
• Salaries from day one. Several strong professionals at the start will significantly improve the result compared to a fully volunteer team.
• Coworking is the business of a thousand little things. You can't keep everything in your head, so you need to use wikis, google docks or Trello / Basecamp / Asana.

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A place

• Location: ideally, 1-2 minutes from the metro, city center, creative projects in the neighborhood.
• Atmosphere of space: high ceilings, windows, view, brick, history of the place.
• A good place is worth the money. Unsuccessful location does not pay off any work.
• The kitchen and round-the-clock access completely change the culture of the place.

Community

• The city is divided into hundreds of microcultures. Most likely, you can not make a place for all at once. Think about who you are targeting. Artists and designers gather in one place, programmers in another, salesmen in the third, young mothers - in the fourth. It is unlikely that it will be possible to make an optimal place for everyone at once.
• The place is determined by the brightest people who were involved in its activities. Think about who is the dream guest for your space.
• Try to bring maximum benefit to the people around you: promotional support, provision of space, communication, exchange of experience.

Promotion

• Content: photo reports, live broadcasts, video lectures, slides, reading lists.
• Coworking is an ideal partner for local media: a place for photo shoots, an interview, a communications center, a distribution point, a source of events for city posters.
• Promotional support from opinion leaders and other spaces. For its part, coworking provides space on favorable terms, places posters and handouts.

Developments

• You must immediately write a detailed site rider and rental conditions. To whom the space is rented for free or at a friendly price tag, to whom for the full price. Make an application form, to promote the possibility of holding events in coworking.
• Weekend markets and themed conferences bring the most money. Often it makes sense to agree on the division of revenue, and not on a fixed rental rate.

Education

• Competently organized educational programs can bring almost half of the revenue of the co-working center.
• Programs may consist of a selling (free or cheap) open program and paid courses.
• In the first season it is worth making a lot of pilot programs in different directions, then focus on the most requested ones.

Space design

• As much work and investment as possible should be done in the first month of work, at the maximum of enthusiasm and work in hand. Further improvements and new budgets are given much more difficulty.
• Design is a process. You should not rely on a brilliant master plan, in which everything will be immediately written. Furniture arrangement, zoning, rules change every day.
• It is best to work with partners on bartner conditions: video broadcasts, tea, gardening offices, bicycles, architects, graphic design, drawing schools, videos, sound hire, frameless furniture, board games, delivery of coffee, coffee breaks.
• We need attention to what the inhabitants do: where they talk on the phone, where they read, where they negotiate, where they talk. Notice the flaws and come up with improvements.
• A huge common table will hold the community together and be the center of all processes at the site.
• Each space has its own chip. Someone - the second floor and a punching bag, someone - the location in the park, someone - slackline, monocycle and juggling balls.
• Good artists copy, great ones steal. Learn the experience of creative spaces and offices around the world, find interesting ideas and adapt them for your project.

Order

• The main task of the rules is to regulate the use of shared resources. Main issues: silence, negotiation, kitchen, dishes, workplaces, removable shoes.
• It is necessary to make a list of the most frequently violated rules, hang them on the walls. Who broke, goes to take out the garbage.

Finance

• The incomes of the co-working center consist of coworking services, rent for events, own educational programs and corporate partnerships.
• To get a plus, you need to be more than just coworking. The options are: your own educational programs, a cafe or a minute-ruble model, a combination with a hostel, ownership space, a low rental rate in exchange for repairs, government support.
• The yield on the operational payback is quite real for 3-4 months of work. To recoup the investment at the start, you will have to work for a year or two. According to the website DeskMag, “any coworking that has lasted two years is a plus”.

Each coworking has its own way. Tips Coverage areas are based on six months of active work. During this time, 100 coworkers worked for us, 10,000 people were in our space at open events. Now we have reached the operational payback. Many lectures were broadcast live or videotaped, we recommend, for example, How to write an investment proposal , Development of b2b projects and Work with the media .

In conclusion, let us share the list of the most visible (in our opinion) co-working centers in Russia. If someone forgot - throw links in the comments, add)

• Moscow Flagon Coworking flacon.ru/space/coworking
• Moscow Workstation in Gorky Park coworkstation.ru
• Moscow Matrix Office www.matrixoffice.ru/services/work_place
• Moscow Club Nagatino rosintegro.ru/mc2 (in the process of launching)
• Moscow Express Office x-office.ru
• Moscow Coworking Bees coworkingbees.ru
• Moscow Digital October ToDo digitaloctober.ru/todo
• St. Petersburg Area of ​​action zonaspace.ru vk.com/zonaspace
• St. Petersburg MAKE IT mi-centre.com
• St. Petersburg Third place vk.com/3place
• St. Petersburg Miracle vk.com/miracleclub
• St. Petersburg Free time vk.com/anticafespb
• Ekaterinburg E-coworking e-coworking.ru
• Ekaterinburg Kavardak kawork.ru
• Novosibirsk NCC vk.com/nsk_coworking
• Kirov Sign 43 vk.com/vhod43
• Rostov-on-Don Dobrocowork dobrocowork.ru
• Cheboksary Hubspace hubspace.ru
• Volgograd IkraSpace vk.com/ikraspace
• Nizhny Novgorod Poligon-KC poligon-kc.tiu.ru vk.com/poligon52
• Omsk 55office www.55office.ru
• Tolyatti Altera www.alteradesk.ru vk.com/alteradesk
• Elektrostal London vk.com/london_time
• Perm Antikafe Alternative vk.com/anticafeperm
• Samara 13th floor vk.com/samaracoworking