Work Free

As we make our way down to SXSW 2012, we will be arriving a few days early to cover The 2012 Global Coworking Unconference Conference, in Austin, Texas on March 8-9. The conference will host Coworking leaders from all over the globe for a full day of in-depth discussion and high-level panels that will touch on important topics to the future of the Coworking movement. Work Free is a media sponsor and in preparation for the event, we will be featuring coworking spaces and discussing coworking concepts that will be discussed at the conference. This post is about my visit to Indy Hall in 2011 and was originally posted on Outright as part of a coworking series written by your author, Steven Fisher.

In Outright’s ongoing series about coworking, we not only talk about how great coworking is as an option for your small business, we take a look at some of the coworking spaces around the globe. North of my home town of Baltimore, MD at the birthplace of our nation in Philadelphia, you’ll find one of the first coworking spaces, IndyHall. (Appropriate, no?) IndyHall was started by Alex Hillman and Geoff Dimasi, pioneers in the coworking movement. They saw many of their fellow entrepreneurs and freelancers in need of a space to work and collaborate, so Independents or Indy Hall was born.

IndyHall is not about the space but about the people

IndyHall’s slogan is “Coworking is more than a space,” so I will endeavor to discuss the space but focus on Alex’s passion behind coworking – creating community. As I mentioned in my review of Beehive Baltimore, “the purpose of the community is to have a social work environment that provides the great amenities of an office space while still allowing all the members the freedom and creativity to work on what they want, when they want. One of the great byproducts of the community is the potential each member has to easily collaborate with one another.” IndyHall allows for all that, but – like any good coworking space – becomes something more than just the sum of it’s parts.

Supporting this ongoing mission they established some very powerful and straight forward core values that they present on their web site:

• Collaboration: One of the great benefits of working in a coworking space is that you will meet all sorts of people with all sorts of knowledge.
• Openness: We believe in transparency and openness. In a world where people are free, but ideas are not, only a few benefit. When ideas are free, everyone benefits. Therefore, we encourage open spaces and discussions. IndyHall is a Community of Trust.
• Community: We thrive on connections and mutual support here. It is important that everyone give into as well as benefit from the strong (international) community coworking has become.
• Accessibility: In order to be fully open, we must make the effort to be accessible to all. Diversity is core to our community’s success. This means that we endeavor to create both a financially and a physically accessible space. We are committed to this principle and welcome feedback on how we can make it even more accessible.
• Sustainability: Sustainability is a two-fold mission for us: not only is the sharing of resources generally a green practice for individuals and business, but our overall business principals are based on sustainable relationships and exchanges. Every decision is measured by its ability to be sustained by the community in the long term.

The IndyHall building is in the heart of the city near the 5th street metro. The neighborhood is extremely walkable and filled with shops, restaurants and an authentic urban hipness. Because of Alex’s passion and dedication to building the community around him and creating a space for innovation and thinking, they continue to expand. They recently moved to an even larger space of 4400 square feet are holding more educational events to include those who might not be daily users of the space.

Membership at IndyHall

As most coworking spaces go, IndyHall is very similar with its walk-in and membership model. They have three basic options – basic member, lite membership, and full membership. The Basic membership at $25 per month and you’ll get one free day per month, and a lower rate for additional day passes — $15/day. The Lite membership is for 3 days a week and is $175 month and the Full membership is $275 a month but that gets you a dedicated desk, 24/7 access and a card key. Here is a great video on how things work at IndyHall:

BONUS: Listening in on Alex and the Coworking movement

Recently, Alex started a podcast called “The Coworkers” which according to the site, they describe the show as “Alex and Tony talking about business, coworking and life” which knowing Alex’s penchant for stirring up a pot, is fun listening to the conversations. There is much more in their conversation but I will let you go on over and check it out for yourself. But for a teaser, in the most recent episode they talk about what should go into a good coworking article:

1. Focus on improved quality of life
2. Focus on building relationships between coworkers
3. Focus on member accomplishments
4. Articulation of benefits over amenities
5. Encourage more than just tech

I hope I do them right on this blog post.

Reserve a spot at IndyHall next time you are in Philadelphia

If you are traveling to Philadephia on a freelance project or looking for a place to meet with clients, stop on by IndyHall. You can check out their site at www.indyhall.comand they are located at 20 North 3rd St, Unit 201, Philadelphia, PA 19106.

If you want to know more about the conference, check out http://www.austingcuc.com/ and if you couldn’t attend this year, it was a huge success and you should plan on attending in 2013. We look forward to seeing you there!

As we made our way down to SXSW 2012, we arrived a few days early to cover The 2012 Global Coworking Unconference Conference, in Austin, Texas on March 8-9. The conference hosted Coworking leaders from all over the globe for a full day of in-depth discussion and high-level panels that touched on important topics to the future of the Coworking movement. Work Free is a media sponsor and in preparation for the event, we talked to owners of coworking spaces and covered coworking concepts that will be discussed at the conference. This post is about my first visit to Work Bar Boston and Bill Jacobson and was originally posted on Outright as part of a coworking series written by your author, Steven Fisher.

In Outright’s ongoing series about coworking, we continue on our journey looking at the most innovative coworking spaces around the globe. Last month we talked to Liz Elam about coworking in Austin at Link Coworking who showed us how the future of coworking spaces is evolving. This month we are back on the east coast in the city of Boston and we caught up with Bill Jacobson the Managing Director of Workbar. We discuss how they got their start, how they have evolved the Workbar space and what the future holds for the coworking space. Here is the transcript of our interview:

1.) When did you start to explore the idea of starting a coworking space?

A few years ago my partner Dave Ulrich and myself started investigating coworking space concepts in Boston.  At the time, Boston had limited options without much diversity and often included collaborators from the same industry who decided to share office space to save money.  Meanwhile, we noticed two significant trends that continued to change the way people view the workplace – first, telecommunications made it increasingly possible for people to work from virtually anywhere and second, more people where working for themselves or in small teams.

In the summer of 2009 we decided to open WorkBar in Boston in an existing office space we occupied near South Station.  The initial goal of this experiment was to see what type of people we would draw, how broad or narrow the range of industries among them varied and whether or not proximity to the office played a large role in membership demographics.  Over the first six months we happily found that people came from both all over the greater Boston area and from a very diverse set of industries.

As our membership grew we saw that people liked the WorkBar concept and vibe of our office, however, our space at the time was not ideal.  When our current space, which was even closer to South Station and had better building access became available, we moved our operations and with as little disruption as possible, opened our doors at our current 711 Atlantic Avenue location.  We have been growing the WorkBar community and space ever since.  In the beginning of 2011 we completed a physical expansion doubling the size of our workspace and improving the layout and opportunities for larger meetings and events.

2.) What process did you go through to arrive at your current space design and business model?

WorkBar has gone through three iterations in its space design – our initial experiment on South Street, our move to 711 Atlantic Ave, and most recently, our expansion of the 711 Atlantic location.  Along the way we’ve always had an open policy of communication with our members and have listened to their feedback carefully.  With each workspace iteration, we’ve made changes to reflect the shared demands of our diverse membership.

Our main goal when designing our work space has always been to create a place that has the energy of a raw start-up but the professionalism of a fully functioning and managed workspace.  Collaboration is a central theme of our workspace – which is conveyed through our open space layout furnished with a variety of single desks, shared high and low work surfaces, café tables and 2-3 person comfy armchairs.  Surrounding this open area are spaces for people to make private phone calls, a few private offices, multiple conference rooms and collaborative couch settings used as both work and meeting areas.

WorkBar operates on a membership-based model.  Similar to a gym, people sign-up for monthly WorkBar memberships ranging in access from 1-2 days a week to 24/7 access with a private office option topping our available memberships.  We strive to keep memberships affordable and allow our members to ‘dial in’ as much or as little office space access as they need.  Our membership rates range from $75/month for part time access to $1000/ month for private office space.  All of our memberships include free coffee, snacks, wifi (of course!) and an opportunity to collaborate and contribute at our networking and social events such as our monthly business or new member mixers.  As we grow, we continue to expand our services to provide members with shared versions of common company needs such as administrative services, bookkeeping services and IT support.

3.) How do you differentiate your coworking space from others in your local community?

WorkBar has a very diverse community of members ranging from tech to marketing to law and even fashion design, among many others.  Unlike many shared spaces which function more like silos for one specific industry, we find great value in the diversity of our membership which has led to new and referral business, barter arrangements, and of course, a wealth of resources for our member community which continues to grow organically through member interactions.

Our location is also crucial – we are located in a prime part of Boston which is easily accessible by public transportation by local and suburban members.  The space is professionally staffed and managed during business hours, which is a differentiating factor from many spaces around Boston and beyond.

4.) What kinds of businesses are currently utilizing your space? Are there any you would like to highlight?

Our member companies vary in size from 1-10 people per company and industries ranging from tech, web design, graphics, mobile, cinematography, law, fashion, marketing/pr, social media, etc.  Many of these companies are complimentary which perpetuates the creation of business from within!

5.) What is your view on the current coworking movement? How do you see it evolving over the next few years?

The two trends WorkBar was founded around continue to become more and more powerful: more people can work from anywhere and more people are choosing to work for themselves.  As these trends continue, the need for shared workplaces increases.  By the very nature of people and their need for social interaction, people that do work from home or for themselves benefit from collaboration, camaraderie and a professional environment outside of their home.  Coworking spaces such as WorkBar, that strive to meet these needs, will continue to grow in size, number and acceptance.

Pricing and Flexibility of Space

Workbar Boston has fairly straightforward pricing program. As Bill mentioned above in the interview, you can start with the daily option at $25 a day but they are focused on long term commitments and have a great started option for $75 a month that gets you part-time access to the space during the day. This is a big competitive advantage to other spaces that start at twice that for a few days a week. They also have dedicated desks and dedicated offices for businesses who are growing and might not want to leave the space and need more privacy.

To learn more about Workbar Boston check out their web site athttp://workbarboston.com/ and if you want to make a visit they are located at 711 Atlantic Ave, Lower Level Boston, MA 02111.

If you want to know more about the conference, check out http://www.austingcuc.com/ and if you couldn’t attend this year, it was a huge success and you should plan on attending in 2013. We look forward to seeing you there!

photo credit: luc legay

As we made our way down to SXSW 2012, we will be arrived a few days early to cover The 2012 Global Coworking Unconference Conference, in Austin, Texas on March 8-9. The conference hosted Coworking leaders from all over the globe for a full day of in-depth discussion and high-level panels that touched on important topics to the future of the Coworking movement. Work Free is a media sponsor and in preparation for the event, we will be featuring coworking spaces and discussing coworking concepts that will be discussed at the conference. This post is about creating a coworking space and was originally posted on Outright as part of a coworking series written by your author, Steven Fisher.

As I have continued to research the evolving landscape I looked out on the blogosphere to see why others have chosen coworking for their business. I came across three articles with lists of why you should consider coworking. Alex Hillman of IndyHall wrote a great article on his six reasons to start coworking, Sara Kessler identified five signs that coworking might be for you (my favorite is #1 – you forget to shower) and Inc Magazine put together a great slideshow on coworking.

So not one to be outdone, I thought I would come up with my own list from personal experiences to further strengthen the case as to why your small business might look at coworking as a viable option.

Coworking Reason #1 – You like people

Ahh yes, humans. Many of us escape our former work lives because we can’t stand people we had to deal with on a daily basis. It is true that some people just love working alone in their houses and treasure their bathrobe commute. However, there are many of us that wanted to start our business or do our own thing, sure, be still really require and thrive on human interaction. I like people and am a talker by design so I look for environments where I can at least have a few minutes of conversation about something to enrich my day. Coworking spaces allow us to do our own thing but be around people to share ideas or talk about last night’s game.

Coworking Reason #2 – You don’t like to network but you need to build one

Like I said in reason #1 there are many of us who are happy to work in our house alone, not emerging for weeks at a time. Still, in order to grow any kind of business you need to build a network for referrals or to outsource a portion of a project you are trying to win. The beauty of coworking spaces is that they are like having your LinkedIn network come to life. Most people you’ll meet in coworking spaces are either doing similar things to what you are doing or turn out to be a resource you might need for a future client. Online connections are great but nothing beats having a resource you are using for a project sitting five feet from you.

Coworking Reason #3 – You need balance in your life

For many years I used to have a home office and for a few years it was my only office. Most entrepreneurs or freelancers, especially in the beginning, are so wrapped up in their work that it is hard to separate things. This means late nights and a blurring of your work/life separation and a complete loss of balance. If you are going to be successful in the long term you need to have balance. For every entrepreneur that tells you that you must live, eat and breathe your business 24/7, I will bet good money that they have ignored their health, damaged their important relationships and, most off all, aren’t enjoy the life they chose for themselves. Life is not the destinations we strive to arrive at but the journeys we take along the way. Coworking gives you a physical separation between work time and home/family/relationship time. And while there are many times you will have to work on the couch to finish a proposal or client deliverable for the next day, it is not every day.

Coworking Reason #4 – You meet with your clients in a coffeehouse or your kitchen

Pitching a six figure project to a client at your kitchen table or at a cafe with the espresso machine grinding 10 feet from your ear does not make for a professional environment. Put yourself in their shoes. Would you give someone you “kind of know” your mission critical web site project when they don’t even have an office or a permanent address where you can meet in private? I don’t think so. Sure, cafes are great for meeting colleagues or getting some work done on the weekends (I am writing this post from a coffeehouse right now), but from a client’s point of view, they’re notat the top of the heap when it comes to the workspace hierarchy.

Coworking Reason #5 – You want an office but don’t want to live in cubicle hell

Ok, so I just got done talking about kitchen tables and coffeehouses but the other end of the spectrum is the cubicle hell that you probably just escaped from and will never go back to again. Coworking is really cool because of its open workspace design. There are different levels of coworking tenants from daily nomads taking any empty seat to full timers with dedicated desks. This way you can still have your space but never go back to cubicle hell again.

Coworking Reason #6 – You would like to be part of a community

So we have had the talk about humans and building a network but one of the other things that coworking seems to have innately built into it is the concept of community. Coworking is more than people renting desks and banging out code or pretty web designs with their headphones on ignoring everyone. It is naturally a community of like-minded entrepreneurs, freelancers and home-based workers who want to be doing their own thing while becoming part of something bigger. Coworking engenders that so much that many coworking spaces have become community hubs for events that grow the community even further while also raising awareness for the coworking space itself.

Coworking Reason #7 – You are looking for resources to go after bigger projects

Usually most of us start our business alone or with a co-founder, and perhaps with a few clients we might have built up on the side or take with us from our former employer. In some cases our former employers are our first clients. However, in order to grow and – more importantly – diversify our revenue base we need to go after more clients and hopefully larger projects with higher profitability. Bigger projects usually mean more resources and that means people. (…Which might make you cringe at the thought of building a larger business with employees and payroll and health care packages and 401k’s and argghhh…..yes I hear you.) This is where your coworking space can be your saving grace. Like I have already mentioned ad nauseam, the people around you are part of your community, your network and most importantly, your resource pool. Having talented people who do things better than you and have skills you don’t, allows you to go after projects you might not have competed for in the past but can now. You can have them as contractors and trusted resources to help grow your business.

Signs that coworking might not be for you

Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel on this side of the coworking coin, I thought I would quote Sara Kessler from her coworking Mashable article:

Coworking is not for everybody. The first group of people who fit into this category, according to Work Bar: “Wood choppers.” Some more subtle signs that coworking might not be right for you include:

• You’re a company of 10 people or more. “When a company has that many people, it’s harder for them to integrate with the rest of the community because they are basically too busy communicating with each other,” Catalan says. “I would say it’s ideal for companies that have two to three people.”
• You need a lot of privacy. Coworking is generally not optimal if privacy is a big concern for your company. If you’re a lawyer who deals with a lot of confidential documents or doesn’t want to be overheard on the phone, coworking doesn’t work.
• You don’t like people. It’s hard to avoid at least minimal socializing in a coworking space, so if that’s not your cup of tea, go to a coffee shop

If you want to know more about the conference, check out http://www.austingcuc.com/. More recap coverage to come in the weeks ahead!

As we made our way down to SXSW 2012, we arrived a few days early to cover The 2012 Global Coworking Unconference Conference, in Austin, Texas on March 8-9. The conference hosted Coworking leaders from all over the globe for a full day of in-depth discussion and high-level panels that touched on important topics to the future of the Coworking movement. Work Free is a media sponsor and in preparation for the event, we talked to owners of coworking spaces and covered coworking concepts that will be discussed at the conference. This post is from my visit in 2011 to New Work City and was originally posted on Outright as part of a coworking series written by your author, Steven Fisher.

In Outright’s ongoing series about coworking, we not only talk about how great coworking is as an option for your small business, we take a look at some of the coworking spaces around the globe. As we make our way up the east coast we arrive in New York City which has a ton of co-working spaces available to entrepreneurs and freelancers in different parts of the city. One of the most notable is New Work City or NWC, which like Indy Hall in Philadelphia, plays off the city name to create a space both distinct and memorable.
NWC is the biggest and most well known of the coworking spaces in New York and has been covered in the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Entrepreneur Magazine, NY Times and Inc Magazine among many others.

New Work City is one part workspace, one part university and all parts community

When you review their website you are introduced to some interesting history on the evolution of New Work City:

“In the Summer of 2007, Sanford Dickert formed CooperBricolage, a coworking community based in Cafe Fuego in the East Village. Tony Bacigalupo helped get things started, and together they helped run events and grow the community.

In October 2007, CooperBricolage moved to Gramstand, where events and coworking would continue to run for the next year.

During this time, Tony and Sanford were actively working on figuring out how to establish a dedicated coworking space. In early 2008, those efforts became more focused, and on April 2, 2008, Tony launched nwcny.com and announced New Work City as the name of the future coworking space.”

Like many coworking spaces, the founding team needs to garner support and build momentum to get a base of members that will keep the doors open. In New Work City’s case they had many community meetups and over time were able to make it happen. On Saturday, November 1, 2008, New Work City opened its doors and according to their site had enough members in the first week to reach profitability.

Over the next two years they began to outgrow their space and started a search for a new location which they dubbed “NWC 2.0″. They engaged their members and greater community to find a new location and found a space on Broadway south of Canal Street. To raise funds for the new space, Tony Bacigalupo, founder and self-styled mayor of New Work City decided to put the community to the test and raise funding for the new space using Kickstarter. For those of you not familiar with Kickstarter, it is essentially crowdsourced funding for creative projects around the world. According to their web site “Every month, tens of thousands of amazing people pledge millions of dollars to projects from the worlds of music, film, art, technology, design, food, publishing and other creative fields.”

What were the results? Well, they raised over $17,000 from over 250 supporters and on September 1, 2010 they opened their new home on the second floor of 412 Broadway.

According to Tony “the new space has allowed us to expand our vision to include not only workspace, but dedicated event and collaboration space. This has allowed us to do even more to help people lead better independent lives.”

Education and Community Hub with New Work City University

In one of their blog posts they say “New Work City is a community first and a business second, and now we are going to have a chance to prove it.” They have done just that by creating New Work City University or NWCU. Driven entirely by member participation, NWCU is a curated collection of classes, workshops, Meetup groups, and hackathons, all sharing one core common goal: help existing and aspiring independents build, learn, and share with one another, so more people can lead better, happier lives working for themselves.

Crowdsourcing funding for a new space

Membership at New Work City

There are three options for membership at New Work City – Day Pass, Day Tripper and Citizen. The Day Pass cost is $30 per day and there is no appointment necessary. The Day Tripper membership is for 4 days a month and is $100 month which is great if you are out and about and need a place to go occasionally. Once you are known to the community and trusted the Citizen membership is available at $300 a month. That gets you a dedicated desk and 24/7 access via card key plus a locker and the ability to use NWC as your business’s mailing address.

You can check out New Work City at this address:
412 Broadway, Floor 2
New York, NY 10013
Phone: (888) 823-3494
Fax: (801) 708-0806

Take the NQRW JMZ 6 ACE 1 to Canal Street and find out what New Work City is all about.

If you want to know more about the conference, check out http://www.austingcuc.com/ and if you couldn’t attend this year, it was a huge success and you should plan on attending in 2013. We look forward to seeing you there!

As we made our way down to SXSW 2012, we arrived a few days early to cover The 2012 Global Coworking Unconference Conference, in Austin, Texas on March 8-9. The conference hosted Coworking leaders from all over the globe for a full day of in-depth discussion and high-level panels that touched on important topics to the future of the Coworking movement. Work Free is a media sponsor and in preparation for the event, we talked to owners of coworking spaces and covered coworking concepts that will be discussed at the conference. This post is about cultivating your own coworking community and was originally posted on Outright as part of a coworking series written by your author, Steven Fisher.

photo credit: tonyhall

Many of you out there are freelancers, independent consultants or one-person small businesses. As a “solopreneur” the one thing I missed most from the office environment was the personal interaction or “water cooler” dynamic that was present. For many going to a coworking space, this is a core benefit to being in a space with fellow entrepreneurs. Most coworkers are independent professionals that can work anywhere as long as there’s an internet connection. But at its core, coworking is all about community and a coworking community can be a second home for its members. Still there are many places where a coworking space doesn’t exist yet. This might be an opportunity for you and a few others to start one. Here are some suggestions so can get a coworking community going:

Look for a Meetup group or Jelly or start a “Pop-Up” space (from Deskmag)

If you don’t like working in the library or coffee shop, take your search for fellow freelancers online. Meetup is an international site that helps like-minded people connect and network. A Jelly is a casual coworking event that happens in over 100 cities around the world. A quick search of both will help you find fellow freelancers who are looking for some company.

If you don’t want to do a Jelly session, organize a “pop-up” coworking space. You can gather with a few new people who might be interested in giving coworking a try, organize a time to meet in a fun, public location. Find a local bookstore, restaurant, or bar that offers wifi, and ask if they’d be willing to allow you to host a small event. Have some drinks, snacks, and be ready to introduce people to the concept of coworking.

Meet the Needs of Your Existing Community and Plan (from DeskMag)

 

Do you remember your psychology 101 class and the good old pyramid of human needs by Maslow? In a recent Deskmag article they redrew the Maslow pyramid. The concept is that the needs at the base of the pyramid must be satisfied before being able to satisfy higher ones. It turns out this can be effectively applied to coworking.

The image to the left shows the five key elements in evolving a coworking community. Each coworking space has to focus on providing some basic services before being able to deliver the true value of coworking. In other words, don’t start giving yoga lessons before being sure you’ve got a reliable WiFi connection and a highly functional space.

They key takeway from this advice is that if you can get the first two levels (basics and safety) going you can start working on formalizing your coworking group into a thriving community.

Admit You Need Help, Ask People What they Want and Goof Off (From Angel Kowalski of Cohere)

Angel of Cohere Coworking states that “most coworking communities are collections of pretty talented, organized, and all around amazing people. If you’re new to the group, you might be intimidated by all this excellence, and feel that you have to put on a capable face when inside you’re really losing it. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The wealth of knowledge your community contains is there for you to take advantage of. Be honest about your weaknesses, and make them available when other people are in need.”

She also suggests goofing off on a regular basis. She says “you can’t spell coworking without work, and it’s true, the most important reason that people are attracted to coworking communities is because they can be more productive there. But you don’t always have to be hunched over with your headphones, oblivious to the rest of the room. The next time someone’s piping up about a problem in their business, or a funny YouTube video that’s burning a hole in their inbox, take a second to crack a smile and indulge in some human-to-human conversation.”

There is a big world out there so connect online and get going. You will find your community. (from your humble author)

If you’ve done your best to connect with other freelancers in the area, but aren’t having any luck, remember that there’s a rich virtual community of coworkers from all over the world already online. One of my favorite places is the Coworking Google Group in addition to the coworking groups on LinkedIn or Facebook. Plus there are many great blogs about coworking. You might be surprised at how much you can learn and with a little work and patience, you can become an ambassador of the coworking community wherever you go.

Image: Deskmag

If you want to know more about the conference, check out http://www.austingcuc.com/ and if you couldn’t attend this year, it was a huge success and you should plan on attending in 2013. We look forward to seeing you there!

As we made our way down to SXSW 2012, we arrived a few days early to cover The 2012 Global Coworking Unconference Conference, in Austin, Texas on March 8-9. The conference hosted Coworking leaders from all over the globe for a full day of in-depth discussion and high-level panels that touched on important topics to the future of the Coworking movement. Work Free is a media sponsor and in preparation for the event, we talked to owners of coworking spaces and covered coworking concepts that will be discussed at the conference. This post is about my original coverage of Blankspaces in LA was originally posted on Outright as part of a coworking series written by your author, Steven Fisher.

In Outright’s ongoing series about coworking, we continue our journey previewing the most innovative coworking spaces around the globe. In previous posts we spoke around the country with coworking leaders such Alex Hillman of Indy Hall, Liz Elam in Austin at Link Coworking. Other recent trips include my new home town of Boston and a visit with Bill Jacobson the Managing Director of Workbar and before I relocated north we took a journey into the very hip area of Adams Morgan to see Affinity Lab and back out to the suburbs of Northern Virginia to visit WeSpace Reston.

We are now taking some time to visit some great coworking spaces on the west coast. For those of you familiar with the coworking scene, you know that Silicon Valley is where many of the first coworking spaces began. However, two other big cities, Los Angeles and Seattle have just as strong a coworking scene these days. Los Angeles is a hotbed of activity with some great spaces all over the city, many of which house media startups and movie businesses. When I was out in Los Angeles in the fall of 2009  I had the opportunity to visit Blankspaces in the Miracle Mile area (and in a subsequently opened Santa Monica space). Blankspaces was supposed to be one of the premier coworking spaces in the country. I had high hopes that it would be a great space, and I was quite honestly blown away.

Right from the moment you walk in, you quickly realize this isn’t your run of the mill, grassroots coworking space. The first Blankspaces opened in 2008 in LA’s Miracle Mile area. Nestled between Beverly Hills and Hollywood — and located a stone’s throw from E! Entertainment, Style Network and Variety magazine — it unsurprisingly attracts a community of those in the fields of multimedia and entertainment. (A second, larger Santa Monica location opened in June.) Social media events feature prominently in Blankspaces’ agenda, with famous bloggers giving talks on starting successful blogs, acquiring advertising, generating revenue and hiring staff.

Their beautiful 4800 square foot space offers the top of the line office amenities for all their coworking members. From the Steelcase Think chairs at every desk to the glass enclosed private offices you can reserve this place is the only true 5 star coworking space. out there. It’s no surprise that the founder behind Blankspaces is an architect, Jerome Chang. The cohesiveness of design, attention to detail, and thoughtful layout of the space is indicative of a professional’s touch.

Back in 2007, when Jerome Chang left his position at Clive Wilksinson Architects he needed his own ideal workspace: an office that addressed rising location costs, digital information, worker mobility, and the surge of Generation Y into the workforce. Chang had worked on a team that pioneered modern work environments, such as the award-winning Google HW and TBWA Offices. When time came to create his own space, Chang brought a strong desire for community and evolution to the drawing board. The result was a new Los Angeles office that evolved into a broader business as a coworking space that really took off.

If you are looking for a premier coworking space in LA, Blankspaces is for you

Blankspaces has been open since 2008 and has a vibrant community you should look into being a part of right now. Blankspaces bill themselves as an office hotel where entrepreneurs and freelancers collaborate.  Office and meeting spaces are available by the hour, day, month, and year. About 400 members work there (but not all at once) in the Wilshire Blvd space alone. One thing you will notice on their membership page is that they have many different options. From the low end, you can pay $15 (for 5 off-peak work bar hours) to $150 (for 15 peak office hours), There are different hourly and daily packs for peak and off-peak if you were a member or non-member. Their full private offices can run from $900-1200 a month depending on your level of commitment.

To learn more about Blankspaces, check out their website. If you want to make a visit they are located at 35 West 14th Street, Third FloorNew York, NY 10011.

Not in Los Angeles? Check out our other Coworking Space Reviews. Or do you cowork? We want to know what makes your coworking space special! Contact the Bottom Line’s editor at jennifer@jennescalona.com or Tweet us at @Outright to learn how you can contribute!

If you want to know more about the conference, check out http://www.austingcuc.com/ and if you couldn’t attend this year, it was a huge success and you should plan on attending in 2013. We look forward to seeing you there!

As we made our way down to SXSW 2012, we arrived a few days early to cover The 2012 Global Coworking Unconference Conference, in Austin, Texas on March 8-9. The conference hosted Coworking leaders from all over the globe for a full day of in-depth discussion and high-level panels that touched on important topics to the future of the Coworking movement. Work Free is a media sponsor and in preparation for the event, we talked to owners of coworking spaces and covered coworking concepts that will be discussed at the conference. This post is about coworking at Affinity Lab in DC and was originally posted on Outright as part of a coworking series written by your author, Steven Fisher.

This month we are staying on the east coast in the metro area of Washington DC. In the very hip area of Adams Morgan is one of the earliest and dare I say first spaces in the coworking movement, Affinity Lab. It was a coworking space before coworking was a term. According to their web site, they describe their space as “an entrepreneurial launch platform serving a rich community of Washington DC businesses, non-profits and start-ups. The Lab manages the shared operational needs of its member organizations, allowing them to better focus on mission and execution. Think of it as ‘shared office space meets incubator meets entrepreneurial club-house.’”

They go on to state that “along with the managed business infrastructure, membership at Affinity Lab also means being a part of a community of coworkers, a culture of people, a circle of friends, who are also in the process of developing their entrepreneurial businesses and organizations. When members see connections, they often partner with one another, backstopping and expanding each other’s capabilities and skills or forming entirely new ventures.”

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We had a chance to interview the co-founders of Affinity Lab – Phillipe Chetrit, Berit Oskey and Charles Planck, about their space and the coworking movement. Here is the transcript of that interview:

When did you start to explore the idea of starting a coworking space?
Berit Oskey and Charles Planck founded a web development company with some friends in the late 90′s. We spent the first year dealing with all the challenges entrepreneurs typically face getting started – why do we have to sign a 7 year lease, who’s a copier guy we can trust, why do we have to fight the phone company so much to get things fixed, how did we not know starting a venture would be such a lonely process? The owner of the coffee shop we were working out of was opening up a diner down the street and he told us that the second floor was available as an office space. We loved it but didn’t need 700 square feet a person, so we decided to take the lead in getting all the operations infrastructure set up and invited some of the other startup rascals we knew in the neighborhood to come share the space. In short, we rolled up all the things we wish we could have just signed up for when we started our own company into a tiered, flexible, collaborative model that would clear the entrepreneur’s path of things that have nothing to do with why they started a new venture, while putting the essentials right in their path – a community of peers that could share experience, skills, connections and opportunities.

What process did you go through to arrive at your current space design and business model?
The business model is member oriented, in that it is highly flexible in terms of scaling up or down based on your needs, all on a month to month basis. Members who need more can get more, though our entry level membership offers pretty much everything the Lab has to offer by way of operational infrastructure. The real value of Affinity Lab, however, is not the part you pay for with money. It’s the part you contribute by who you are and how you connect with your fellow members, which sets the tone for how other members connect with you. This pay-forward / collaborative culture is not a complicated idea, but it’s one that only exists in the actual doing.

A big part of creating and developing this culture is baked into space design. When we first started, a lot of design was driven by an independent, anti-corporate ethos, largely because we, and a lot of our entrepreneur friends, had left restrictive cultures and organizations. It didn’t take long, though, for us to realize that creating our culture also meant designing our space for the generative, productive connections we were already seeing, and wanted to see more of. To this day this means having different types of spaces for different purposes, thinking about the balance between flow and nexus (connecting) spaces and ease of reconfiguration for whatever we or our members need. The relaxed but energetic vibe and all the delicious spontaneous interactions the happen at Affinity Lab belie the fact that we have used the hell out of our space and that we continue to find new ways to make it a valuable and flexible asset for our members and the community.

How do you differentiate your coworking space from others in your local community?
We love seeing other coworking spaces pop up locally. We’ve been at this for 10 years but in the last 2 years it seems like the coworking bug has really caught on. There are about 4 other spaces in DC and at least 3 more on the way, which says a lot about DC. Everyone seems to have a focus on some differentiation. We really focus on our culture. I don’t think you’ll find another culture like this one. We’ve built it, with our members, to be an environment to thrive in, to be productive and to have a great time. The dials we use to tweak and balance our culture are the people we admit into our Lab, the programming we do, the communication tools we use and the space design. Our culture is designed to lead to great connectivity, which leads to collaboration, which leads to success.

What kinds of businesses are currently utilizing your space? Are there any you would like to highlight?
When taking in new members we never judge if they would be a good fit by looking at their business plan, their industry, their sector, or funding source. We are in the business of catering to creative, open-minded entrepreneurs who understand the value of working in a collaborative space. Because of that we have a great diversity in our member base, which I think is one of the greatest assets of the Lab. Typically half the Lab is service oriented businesses, a quarter of the Lab is non-profits and a quarter is startups. We host web development companies, marketers, PR firms, lawyers, tech product companies, tech energy companies, writers, social non-profits, artists, real estate agents, green food companies, universities, local government groups, political campaigns, musicians, video editors, teachers, photographers, and many many more. I wish I could highlight all of our members because I believe in all the them.

What is your view on the current coworking movement? How do you see it evolving over the next few years?
Coworking is still a nascent movement and as more and more people realize that its an option the movement will grow. What I think is more important is that as entrepreneurialism changes, and startup bubbles come and go, coworking will have to continuously adapt to its constituency. The spaces that have a great connection to its member base will always be faster to respond to trends and therefore will have longevity. One of the reasons we named Affinity Lab a “lab” is because we are constantly experimenting to see what works and what sticks.

Check out Affinity Lab the next time you are in Washington, DC
Affinity Lab DC has fairly straightforward pricing program. They offer three levels of monthly membership – virtual, shared and full with pricing at $325, $525 and $895, respectively. Virtual is for those that are not in the office much, don’t need permanent desk space. It’ covers two people and is a great entry point. Shared membership covers three people in the membership and 100 sq ft of desk space, shared with one other member. The full membership covers four people and 100 sq ft of dedicated work space. All get great office resources and 24/7/365 access.

To learn more about Affinity Lab check out their web site at http://affinitylab.com/and if you want to make a visit they are located at 920 U Street NW, Washington DC 20001.

If you want to know more about the conference, check out http://www.austingcuc.com/ and if you couldn’t attend this year, it was a huge success and you should plan on attending in 2013. We look forward to seeing you there!

Back in the mid to late 1990s, the concept of “working from home” was all the buzz. But people tried it, and found it depressing and isolating. From personal experience it was quite distracting with a TV and an Xbox ten feet away asking to be used. In the last decade we tried working in cafes, which was fine until the cafe owners got angry that people would sit there for hours and only buy one cup of coffee. Plus the din of the cappuccino ginder and cold drink blenders in addition to the people noise and distraction didn’t help either.

This is why coworking has come along just at the right time. People need a place to work and also be able to interact with other individuals. They don’t want to return to the traditional office or the coffee shop. Coworking sits somewhere between these options, in terms of aesthetics and concept. Coworking allows you to go into a great space with an instant online connection, join a great community, collaborate on projects, find jobs and share information.

As we made our way down to SXSW 2012, we arrived a few days early to cover The 2012 Global Coworking Unconference Conference, in Austin, Texas on March 8-9. The conference hosted Coworking leaders from all over the globe for a full day of in-depth discussion and high-level panels that touched on important topics to the future of the Coworking movement. Work Free is a media sponsor and in preparation for the event, we talked to owners of coworking spaces and covered coworking concepts that will be discussed at the conference. This post is about coworking directories and was originally posted on Outright as part of a coworking series written by your author, Steven Fisher.

But finding spaces can be difficult so over the last year the coworking movement has seen many directory services emerge on the scene so we thought we would take a look at a few of the services available.

Deskwanted – The Global Workspace Directory

Based in Berlin, this small self-funded team has been a real driving force in the coworking movement. At the end of 2010 they launched Deskmag, an online magazine dedicated to “the new type of work and their places, how they look, how they function, how they could be improved and how we work in them”. They have also helped launch the first and second global coworking surveys and are big sponsors of the European Coworking Conference.

Deskmag focused on coworking spaces and they launched Deskwanted at the same time to “create a highly functional search system for coworking spaces and shared offices”. They also state that on their website that “although there are several lists of coworking spaces, and several search engines for business centers and office rental, none of them seemed very user-friendly nor helpful. Most business center search systems won’t even give you a price.”

Deskwanted has about 15,000 coworking spaces, shared offices and conferences rooms available in their directory. They are global and their site translates into multiple languages. Their search engine is advanced and the user can refine based on features and pricing they are looking for in a space.

You can find them on the web at www.deskwanted.com and on Facebook and Twitter.

Desktimeapp – A New Directory with Regional Focus

Started by Sam Rosen who founded the Chicago Coworking space, Coop Chicago, this small self-funded website has an elegant interface and is focused on matching people with coworking spaces. Currently, Desktime has about 100 coworking spaces and conferences rooms available in their directory. They are in just three US cities – Austin, New York and Chicago with plans to expand in 2012.

You can find them on the web at www.desktimeapp.com and on Facebookand Twitter.

Loosecubes – The AirBnB for Workspaces

Founded in 2010, Loosecubes offers, at least superficially, a similar service to Airbnb.com. However, according to their site ”Loosecubes aims to bring the many online connections we cultivate on a daily basis into the real world, during business hours, by enabling wayfaring professionals to find awesome shared workspace”. What really differentiates Loosecubes is that is takes a more social, or person-to-person approach to finding shared office space.

Loosecubes taps into your social graph (via Facebook Connect) to recommend office space based on your friends, location, and line of work. It also enables “Hosts” so those with office space to rent and share can post office space for free and invite coworkers or friends to come share the office space. Hosts can specify which type of professionals they’d like to host, like entrepreneurs, developers, investors, etc., as well as including pictures of the office space, location, and so on. Loosecubes founder Campbell McKellar said in a recent interview, “it’s about so much more than finding a desk”, it’s about finding available office space offered by people with interests (and professions) that are similar to your own.

When it comes to pricing, Loosecubes members who are invited to cowork receive special deals on a space when they’re invited, in order to incentivize you office-space-hunters to join the Loosecubes network. Loosecubes lets users pay online for office space and charges a 10 percent transaction fee. Since its launch it has received $1.23 million lists Accel and Battery Ventures, has more than 2,300 spaces across almost 500 cities and 60 countries, and has 7,000 registered users.

You can find them on the web at www.loosecubes.com and on Facebook and Twitter.

LiquidSpace – The Workspace Mobile App

“The corporate office is becoming a ghost town,” LiquidSpace Co-Founder, Mark Gilbreath told a reporter in a recent Fast Company article. Liquidspace was designed from the beginning as a smartphone app for sniffing out nearby free or for-rent oases of connected space–even conference rooms and settings appropriate for VC pitches. Additionally, the app boasts a sophisticated scheduling system for office owners looking to rent out unused space or loan it out free to potential business partners. Launched earlier in the year at SXSW 2011, LiquidSpace users can search for nearby office space, just like one would for a restaurant on Google Maps.

In addition to the hours and location of nearby coffee shops and libraries, office owners can rent out space for workers looking for more capabilities. Pricing, reservations, and scheduling are all handled seamlessly through the app’s ecosystem (and LiquidSpace takes a cut of each transaction). It is currently only a mobile application and available for iPhone which limits its use for those looking for a web directory to search for a space. However, with $1.2 in seed funding last year from Greylock and a recent $3.6 million Series A round led by Shasta Ventures and FloodGate they have the cash to build out their ecosystem.

You can find them on the web at www.liquidspace.com and on Facebook and Twitter.

Have any great online coworking resources we should be aware of? We want to know! Contact the Bottom Line’s editor at jennifer@jennescalona.com or Tweet us at @Outright to learn how you can contribute!

If you want to know more about the conference, check out http://www.austingcuc.com/ and if you couldn’t attend this year, it was a huge success and you should plan on attending in 2013. We look forward to seeing you there!

Last year I attended the first Coworking Unconference in Austin right before SXSW Interactive started. My earlier review of the conference mentioned the wide and varied range of topics discussed by the coworking community (e.g. business models) but I also met some great entrepreneurs running coworking spaces. One entrepreneur in particular is Liz Elam, the founder of Link Coworking in Austin, TX. Do a quick LinkedIn search on Liz and you can see she has had an amazing career in corporate America; most recently as Global Account Manager for Dell. What is interesting is that in a recent interview she mentions that she worked out of her home for nine years and felt a bit isolated. Like many of us she tried to hold meetings at Starbucks and it was a challenge to talk over the din of the espresso griders and cold drink blenders. So she decided to build a place that she wanted to go to work every morning and the idea for Link Coworking was born.

As we made our way down to SXSW 2012, we arrived a few days early to cover The 2012 Global Coworking Unconference Conference, in Austin, Texas on March 8-9. The conference hosted Coworking leaders from all over the globe for a full day of in-depth discussion and high-level panels that touched on important topics to the future of the Coworking movement. Work Free is a media sponsor and in preparation for the event, we talked to owners of coworking spaces and covered coworking concepts that will be discussed at the conference. This post is from my first interview with Liz and was originally posted on Outright as part of a coworking series written by your author, Steven Fisher.

I recently had a chance to catch up with her and talk to her about her rapidly growing coworking space. I asked her about why she got started doing a coworking space. She responded that “I started to think about Coworking before Coworking was what this movement was called.  I worked out of my home for 9 years in Atlanta and dreamed of a W Hotel lobby meets office space.  I looked around for something like Coworking in 2002 and didn’t find anything.  At the time I was happily employed at Dell Inc. with no desire to make a change.”

Coworking for an untapped audience

To build a great product you need to do your research and that is just what she did. She said that she “researched Coworking for a year and wrote about 17 versions of the business model.”  She went on to note that “to date I have visited over 20 coworking spaces from NYC to LA.” I asked her about the market she wanted to serve and she said that “from the very beginning I had a vision of what I thought the space layout should look like.  After visiting a bunch of spaces I changed a few things but for the most part my visits just solidified my vision.”

She talked about her SXSW experience – “I was very fortunate to be asked to join Clay Spinuzzi (UT professor) on a panel at SXSW in 2010.  At that panel Lekan Bashu from Turnstone was in the audience.  Lekan was looking for Coworking business’ in Austin to partner with and contacted me about forming such a partnership.  I did form a partnership with Turnstone and they assisted me in the design of the space and gave me a killer discount on the furniture.   It was a dream come true to be able to furnish the space with high quality furniture that my members could camp at for hours on end.  I always knew furniture would be pivotal to the comfort of my guests.  The business model was typical of a Coworking space.”

We asked her about being one of the more sophisticated coworking spaces in the nation and she remarked that “lately I’ve been deemed the ‘grown-up’ Coworking space.  At first I didn’t like that because I’m not a fan of growing up.  I then reflected and thought…I am a grown up and so are my members.  I guess it’s something I should embrace.  At first I thought I would differentiate by being a more “professional” space but I didn’t like how that sounded.  Then I thought I would be the space with predominantly female membership.  I started out with an overwhelming amount of females but now I’m about 60% male 40% female and it changes all the time.  I think one of the key things that sets Link apart is that Link is my only focus.  I’m not running other business’, I don’t have another job, Link is what I do.”

Great people make a coworking space great

We then discussed what makes her space great and her quick response was of course, the people. She remarked that “people are always trying pigeonhole me into saying I’m after this type of business or that.  The truth is, I don’t care what you do as long as you need the space and are open to being part of a community.  All members are interviewed before joining and required to spend a day with us before they can qualify for membership.  If you want to put on a headset, turn your back and be left alone, Link isn’t the space for you.”  She listed a wide variety of people that use Link Coworking:

• Marketing research (casey@cbresearchservices.com)
• Consultants
• A pastor (Michael@northvillagechurch.com)
• A non-profit (Tierneyoda@gmail.com)
• An attorney
• Realators (Laurie@giverealtyaustin.com)

The future and evolution of coworking

We  I think that the current Coworking environment is fascinating.  You have a group like the HUB across 5 continents and planning for an additional 60 locations.  We’ve started to see a cookie cutter model coming to market as well.  However, the Coworking movement is predominantly comprised of independents who are furiously trying to protect what they view as the “pure” model of Coworking.  The problem with this model is that it doesn’t seem to allow for scale or profitability.    I believe that in the future you will see Coworking fracture into two distinct groups, those that embrace a sustainable for profit model and those that reject it.  We will see an association form with lots of grumbling and further dissemination between the groups.  I believe that Coworking will grow in record numbers as more and more companies adopt remote worker models and more small business examine Coworking in order to save costs and increase mindshare.  I believe there are many versions of Coworking to come:

• Corporate Coworking Centers (large companies opening up badged, secure Coworking centers in city centers)
• Coworking focused on Education verticals (grad students, college students)
• Coworking focused on specific business verticals (lobbyists, pharmaceutical reps,designers)
• Coworking in collaboration with city government
• Coworking in quiet spaces (writers, etc.)

If you want to cowork in Austin there is a desk waiting for you

Liz Elam’s model is one that is unique and breaking the mold of coworking. If you are in Austin you can be a member for $200 a month with a one year contract or $250 a month for a month-to-month membership. You can buy a 10-vist pack for $300 which is good for a two-month period. They also rent out small and large conference rooms for half and full days which is great if you are hosting client meetings. According to their site your membership provides these amenities:

• New sassy, ergonomic office furniture (from our partnership with Turnstone)
• Meeting rooms and conference room at reduced rates
• Fast, wireless internet connection
• Excellent coffee and snacks
• Phone booth for step in step out privacy
• Covered outdoor seating in a green courtyard
• Outlets at every seat
• Clean, bright, beautiful space designed specifically for coworking

To learn more about Link Coworking check them out at http://www.linkcoworking.com/or make a visit to 2700 West Anderson Lane, Ste 205, Austin, TX.

If you want to know more about the conference, check out http://www.austingcuc.com/ and if you couldn’t attend this year, it was a huge success and you should plan on attending in 2013. We look forward to seeing you there!

As we make our way down to SXSW 2012, we will be arriving a few days early to cover The 2012 Global Coworking Unconference Conference, in Austin, Texas on March 8-9. The conference will host Coworking leaders from all over the globe for a full day of in-depth discussion and high-level panels that will touch on important topics to the future of the Coworking movement. Work Free is a media sponsor and in preparation for the event, we will be featuring coworking spaces and discussing coworking concepts that will be discussed at the conference. This post is about creating a coworking space and was originally posted on Outright as part of a coworking series written by your author, Steven Fisher.

In Outright’s ongoing series about coworking, we continue our journey previewing the most innovative coworking spaces around the globe. Our last stop was Hive at 55located in lower Manhattan in New York City. For those of you familiar with the coworking scene, you know that New York is a hotbed of activity with some great spaces all over the city. Paragraph is a little different in that it is designed specifically for writers seeking a peaceful location to do their work. We had the opportunity to chat with cofounders, Lila Cecil and Joy Parisi, about their growth since opening in 2005. Here’s what they had to say:

1.) When did you both begin to explore the idea of starting a coworking space?

We started to explore the idea when Joy and I met in our MFA program at the New School in 2004. We were both excited by being immersed in a community of writers, and we didn’t want to lose that community after we graduated. We also saw a need for writers to have a quiet space to work that wasn’t a cafe or Starbucks or the library, somewhere with convenient hours and an atmosphere conducive to the creative process. We also found that our skill sets in terms of starting the business were very complimentary.

2.) What process did you both go through to arrive at your current space design and business model?

We saw a lot of different spaces over the course of a year, and slowly formed an idea of what we wanted our space to look like, and what we wanted Paragraph to represent, and to feel like. While we searched for the right space, we also began writing a business plan and brainstorming exactly how we imagined a writing space should be. Our business model was derived partly from The Brooklyn Writers Space and from The Writers Room and partly from our own needs as writers and what we thought writers would need. Our personal aesthetics also played a role in terms of the selection and design of the space.

3.) How do you differentiate your coworking space from others in your local community?

Aesthetically our space is unique, with wide-plank floors, vaulted ceilings and skylights. We also gear the space to address writers needs apart from just a lamp, a desk, a chair. We host regular agent roundtables and a monthly member reading series at KGB Bar, and send out regular newsletters in which writers can announce their own publications or events. We have a monthly happy hour for members; regular roundtables that address different aspects of the writing life; and we used to play softball against different publications in the city — Harper’s, NY Magazine, NY Times, The New Yorker, etc. (our team is on hiatus this year). We try to host events that help our members in their writing lives, but also events that are just fun, and about taking a break from writing altogether.

4.) What kinds of businesses are currently utilizing your space? Are there any you would like to highlight?

Our space is for writers only. They range from poets, screenwriters, play writers, fiction writers and non-fiction writers.

5.) What is your view on the current coworking movement? How do you see it evolving over the next few years?

Coworking is a great idea because it gives freelancers and writers, and anyone who works from home a dedicated space where they can feed off of the motivation of others working around them. A dedicated space is important because it helps you take your work more seriously, and helps others take your work more seriously, rather than just assume you’re home and reachable all the time, available for lunch or a chat and not really working. It’s nice to have a chance to get out of your home and be surrounded by like-minded people, to have an environment that is conducive to creativity or business, and to have a network to draw from, and a support system when the work gets tough. We think coworking will continue to evolve, especially as the trend seems to support a growth in freelancers and people working outside of the office (skyrocketing costs of health insurance, company downsizing, etc.) and our hope is that it will spread throughout the arts to include painting, photography, music etc…

If you are a writer, apply to get a space at Paragraph in New York City

Paragraph has been open since 2005 and has a constant waiting list. About 250 members work there (but not all at once) and it us a 2500 sq ft loft space that is divided into a writing area and a kitchen/lounge area. One thing you will notice on their membership page is that they have two plans – part-time ($90-110/month) and full-time ($132-172/month) where pricing depends on your length of commitment. For more detail on the amenities and what each plan specifically provides, check out theirmembership page.

To learn more about Paragraph, check out their web site athttp://www.paragraphny.com/. If you want to make a visit they are located at 35 West 14th Street, Third FloorNew York, NY 10011.

Not in New York City? Check out our other Coworking Space Reviews. Or do you cowork? We want to know what makes your coworking space special! Contact the Bottom Line’s editor at jennifer@jennescalona.com or Tweet us at @Outright to learn how you can contribute!

 

If you want to know more about the conference, check out http://www.austingcuc.com/ and if you can attend use the code (CODE) to get 25% off your ticket. We look forward to seeing you there!