Coworking in the regions - open or let others open?
With a partner, we consider ourselves to be pioneers in the development of coworking in the regions. Our coworking appeared in Samara almost a year and a half ago. During this time we have already managed to fill a lot of cones, rejoice at some success, try different ways of development: in general, we had enough experience. That I would like to share.
The fact is that during the work of our center I received a lot of messages from neighboring regions with requests to tell how things are going, whether it is profitable, whether there is a demand for our offer. Many people want to repeat our feat (and by and large such projects in the regions are not differently named) in their cities, but they fear that the money will fly into the pipe. As a response to all those who want to open their coworking in the province, I decided to write this post.
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I would like to start with a positive. I believe that co-working in the regions has a future, and now it can be opened, perhaps even more reasonably, than a year ago. All trends are slowly reaching the regions. Here the main thing is to catch the moment in time. To open early is to sit without clients and earnings, to open late and the market is already so saturated that demand cannot keep up with the supply.
We opened early, and there were certain reasons for this. By and large, we built an office for ourselves. It was inconvenient to work at home, to rent an office for one person was stupid, and there were no coworkings in Samara, or at least I did not know about them. Having been in many coworkings in Moscow and Europe, I knew the value of such a place perfectly well and did not understand why this topic had not yet been promoted in a city with a population of over a million people and with a tangible freelance community. After consulting with my Moscow partner, we decided to invest in the opening of coworking in Samara and, apart from the idealistic plans for developing and promoting the very idea of ​​coworking in our region, to kill a whole crowd of other birds with one stone: to launch the first project in Russia (before that we worked only abroad) , launch the first project in real life (all our other projects remain online), get acquainted with the local IT-community, provide me with a comfortable workplace, and make some money.
We found a free room in a large office center on the last thirteenth floor with a beautiful view of the city and the Volga. In Samara, the view of the Volga is considered an indicator of prestige, and since we were guided by our own taste, I could not buy this extra advantage. The rental price was acceptable, but we completely did the repair at our own expense. The premises were bare walls without electricity or plumbing, so we had to spend a lot of money at the initial stage, but we could do the design completely to our liking, and equip the room as needed for our purposes, and not as it seems “right »Landlord. Initially, coworking was calculated for 15 people, but we prepared 10 jobs with the ability to add seats as needed. Looking ahead, I will say that we were able to attract even 10 people only 8 months after the opening, and so far the number of residents varies within this limit.
Hence the first advice for those who want to build a business on coworking, and not just open an office for themselves.
Study the demand in advance! Advertise the idea, make a website, pages on social networks, start Yandex.Direct and wait for calls and interest. This will help to understand whether it is worth opening up at all, or there is still not enough demand in your city.
Having arranged a good opening with a buffet table and gathered a sufficient audience for it, we opened beautifully, but for at least another month I worked alone in co-working! People came for an hourly rental, everyone liked everything, except for the void, but the first residents began to appear only after a month.
Second tip: make arrangements with someone to rent places in advance. The look of an empty coworki is very disappointing and scares off customers initially. When at least 4-5 people work, the right atmosphere is created.
To attract residents, we tried various types of advertising. Stacks of printed flyers and posters for sticking still lie in the back. My partner and I took part in conferences as speakers, attended young entrepreneurs and IT festivals to personally represent our coworking, organized free entertainment events in our territory with the expectation that people should only see our beautiful center and they immediately will want to become residents. Perhaps they wanted to, but wanted to pay for it to a much lesser extent. All our efforts to promote offline were wasted.
Residents found us themselves, they only needed to indicate their presence. We quickly went to the top in search engines, since we were the only co-working in Samara. Also, people willingly added to social networks. Most importantly, the Internet audience already understood what co-working is and what it is eaten with, and those who were interested in it came to us.
In fact, in Samara, the understanding by potential clients of the essence of coworking and its advantages turned out to be an unexpected problem that we did not take into account. Unlike me, many people found it more convenient to work at home and meet with clients and partners somewhere in a cafe, than to go to the office every day, and even pay money for it. Now it makes no sense to list all the advantages and opportunities when working in coworking, but one thing is clear: in the regions, the audience is less prepared for such spaces than, for example, in the capital . In connection with the above, I still have a couple of tips.
Be prepared that, quite possibly, you will have to create demand in your city, explain why all this is necessary at all.
And, of course, approach competently to promotion. You should not spend time and money on a mass audience, hit strictly on purpose.
With the advent of the first residents, we hired an administrator who took people in, kept the place clean and brewed coffee! We worked from 10 to 19, so that people could come and go without any traffic jams. I began to appear there already, too, more as a resident. With the advent of the administrator, the costs increased, and the profits remained negative. First, the work hours did not suit many. Freelancers are a people who respect flexibility. Secondly, as it turned out, many are willing to pay 100-150 rubles and sit down to work on a task for a couple of hours, not everyone is ready to pay 4000 per month, and give everything at once. There were cases when people paid for a month, and then they came for 2-3 days and that's it. Naturally, they did not extend the lease. Many simply came several times hourly during the month and, realizing that the monthly rent did not pay off, they simply did not become residents. So pay attention to the following points.
Think over pricing and uptime.
With the second, everything is extremely simple - stay open as long as possible. For example, we work from 7:00 to 23:00 without weekends and holidays, but still there are those who ask to stay overnight.
As for the price, the approach is individual. Offer subscriptions that provide the best turnover for your business model. If you are ready to support administrators 24 hours a day, often hold events, then the hourly model can be successful. We eventually focused on regular customers. They gave them keys and entry cards, canceled packages below weekly, and began to offer trial days only by prior arrangement. In addition to increasing the work time, this helped save on the salaries of administrators, and we finally got into operational plus.
It took us 10 months to go all the way to operational payback. As for the return of invested funds, according to my calculations, this will happen no earlier than 3 years after opening at the current pace. I suspect that such figures are relevant for most coworkers, both large and small. At least I have already heard about the payback period in 3 years from many creators of co-working spaces, including in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Therefore, do not count on quick profits.
So, the last tip for today. Coworking is a lot of money, and be ready for it. If you just want to get money, then better not get involved. There are many industries where it can be done faster and earn more. However, if your goal is deeper, if you want to create a creative space, a place for comfortable work, where you yourself would like to come, then dare! You must find like-minded people!
The fact is that during the work of our center I received a lot of messages from neighboring regions with requests to tell how things are going, whether it is profitable, whether there is a demand for our offer. Many people want to repeat our feat (and by and large such projects in the regions are not differently named) in their cities, but they fear that the money will fly into the pipe. As a response to all those who want to open their coworking in the province, I decided to write this post.
')
I would like to start with a positive. I believe that co-working in the regions has a future, and now it can be opened, perhaps even more reasonably, than a year ago. All trends are slowly reaching the regions. Here the main thing is to catch the moment in time. To open early is to sit without clients and earnings, to open late and the market is already so saturated that demand cannot keep up with the supply.
How it all began
We opened early, and there were certain reasons for this. By and large, we built an office for ourselves. It was inconvenient to work at home, to rent an office for one person was stupid, and there were no coworkings in Samara, or at least I did not know about them. Having been in many coworkings in Moscow and Europe, I knew the value of such a place perfectly well and did not understand why this topic had not yet been promoted in a city with a population of over a million people and with a tangible freelance community. After consulting with my Moscow partner, we decided to invest in the opening of coworking in Samara and, apart from the idealistic plans for developing and promoting the very idea of ​​coworking in our region, to kill a whole crowd of other birds with one stone: to launch the first project in Russia (before that we worked only abroad) , launch the first project in real life (all our other projects remain online), get acquainted with the local IT-community, provide me with a comfortable workplace, and make some money.
We found a free room in a large office center on the last thirteenth floor with a beautiful view of the city and the Volga. In Samara, the view of the Volga is considered an indicator of prestige, and since we were guided by our own taste, I could not buy this extra advantage. The rental price was acceptable, but we completely did the repair at our own expense. The premises were bare walls without electricity or plumbing, so we had to spend a lot of money at the initial stage, but we could do the design completely to our liking, and equip the room as needed for our purposes, and not as it seems “right »Landlord. Initially, coworking was calculated for 15 people, but we prepared 10 jobs with the ability to add seats as needed. Looking ahead, I will say that we were able to attract even 10 people only 8 months after the opening, and so far the number of residents varies within this limit.
Hence the first advice for those who want to build a business on coworking, and not just open an office for themselves.
Study the demand in advance! Advertise the idea, make a website, pages on social networks, start Yandex.Direct and wait for calls and interest. This will help to understand whether it is worth opening up at all, or there is still not enough demand in your city.
Launch
Having arranged a good opening with a buffet table and gathered a sufficient audience for it, we opened beautifully, but for at least another month I worked alone in co-working! People came for an hourly rental, everyone liked everything, except for the void, but the first residents began to appear only after a month.
Second tip: make arrangements with someone to rent places in advance. The look of an empty coworki is very disappointing and scares off customers initially. When at least 4-5 people work, the right atmosphere is created.
To attract residents, we tried various types of advertising. Stacks of printed flyers and posters for sticking still lie in the back. My partner and I took part in conferences as speakers, attended young entrepreneurs and IT festivals to personally represent our coworking, organized free entertainment events in our territory with the expectation that people should only see our beautiful center and they immediately will want to become residents. Perhaps they wanted to, but wanted to pay for it to a much lesser extent. All our efforts to promote offline were wasted.
Residents found us themselves, they only needed to indicate their presence. We quickly went to the top in search engines, since we were the only co-working in Samara. Also, people willingly added to social networks. Most importantly, the Internet audience already understood what co-working is and what it is eaten with, and those who were interested in it came to us.
In fact, in Samara, the understanding by potential clients of the essence of coworking and its advantages turned out to be an unexpected problem that we did not take into account. Unlike me, many people found it more convenient to work at home and meet with clients and partners somewhere in a cafe, than to go to the office every day, and even pay money for it. Now it makes no sense to list all the advantages and opportunities when working in coworking, but one thing is clear: in the regions, the audience is less prepared for such spaces than, for example, in the capital . In connection with the above, I still have a couple of tips.
Be prepared that, quite possibly, you will have to create demand in your city, explain why all this is necessary at all.
And, of course, approach competently to promotion. You should not spend time and money on a mass audience, hit strictly on purpose.
Growing up
With the advent of the first residents, we hired an administrator who took people in, kept the place clean and brewed coffee! We worked from 10 to 19, so that people could come and go without any traffic jams. I began to appear there already, too, more as a resident. With the advent of the administrator, the costs increased, and the profits remained negative. First, the work hours did not suit many. Freelancers are a people who respect flexibility. Secondly, as it turned out, many are willing to pay 100-150 rubles and sit down to work on a task for a couple of hours, not everyone is ready to pay 4000 per month, and give everything at once. There were cases when people paid for a month, and then they came for 2-3 days and that's it. Naturally, they did not extend the lease. Many simply came several times hourly during the month and, realizing that the monthly rent did not pay off, they simply did not become residents. So pay attention to the following points.
Think over pricing and uptime.
With the second, everything is extremely simple - stay open as long as possible. For example, we work from 7:00 to 23:00 without weekends and holidays, but still there are those who ask to stay overnight.
As for the price, the approach is individual. Offer subscriptions that provide the best turnover for your business model. If you are ready to support administrators 24 hours a day, often hold events, then the hourly model can be successful. We eventually focused on regular customers. They gave them keys and entry cards, canceled packages below weekly, and began to offer trial days only by prior arrangement. In addition to increasing the work time, this helped save on the salaries of administrators, and we finally got into operational plus.
It took us 10 months to go all the way to operational payback. As for the return of invested funds, according to my calculations, this will happen no earlier than 3 years after opening at the current pace. I suspect that such figures are relevant for most coworkers, both large and small. At least I have already heard about the payback period in 3 years from many creators of co-working spaces, including in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Therefore, do not count on quick profits.
So, the last tip for today. Coworking is a lot of money, and be ready for it. If you just want to get money, then better not get involved. There are many industries where it can be done faster and earn more. However, if your goal is deeper, if you want to create a creative space, a place for comfortable work, where you yourself would like to come, then dare! You must find like-minded people!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/207588/
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