An oldey but goody from the Business Pundit blog.

Coworking vs. the Coffee Shop: Who Wins? | Business Pundit

Enjoy!

Web Worker Daily put up this post afew days ago, Justifying Coworking As an Investment. It flashed across the coworkingverse like wildfire and it has some great points.

We’re always looking for information about coworking that we can share. But I thought it might be good to make this one relevant to C⁴ Workspace. So here goes.

Point by Point

WWD laid the post out in three points.

Step 1: Identify What You Have to Gain from Coworking
We like to think of these in terms of our name:

• Collaboration
• Cooperation
• Community
• Connection

Put those together and you have what we could call “opportunity investment.”

Step 2: Assess the Risks and Costs Associated with Coworking
WWD didn’t really address the “risk” part of that so we will. The biggest risk of coworking is that you will run into someone who isn’t about the community so much as about themselves. They could steal an idea or a client. This is a case of what I call the 99-1 rule. Don’t spend all you time planning and worrying about the 1% of worst case scenarios. Plan for the 99% you’ll run into and deal with the 1% when they come along. You are more likely to have an idea or client stolen at a coffee shop by someone you don’t know eavesdropping on your conversation. (We take the “Co-” in community seriously. If you need a private conversation speak more softly or use a one of the phone rooms.)

Costs always have to be considered. It was one of the first things we thought of when we stated to think about opening a space: will people pay for professional workspace? We answered it in one of our initial presentation slides titled “Whadya Nuts?”. The answer is that as a small business or a freelance or solo you have no choice but to grow your business, especially in a down economy. To grow you will need to attract new clients and appear more professional than the next guy. That requires an investment in time and money.

You also have to consider what operating out of your home costs you now. You’re driving to meet clients. If you work (ethically) in a coffee shop you’re buying drinks and food. You’re paying for WiFi in some fashion. So, add up those hard costs for gas, drive time, WiFi, food and drink. You probably spend about $20 a day for little to no privacy, no connection to others, noisy meeting space and overpriced WiFi and beverages.

Coworking at C⁴ Workspace starts at $20 a day and goes down from there. Last I checked Starbucks didn’t give you volume discounts on lattes.

Step 3: Make an Informed Decision

Absolutely. The best way to do that is to “try before you buy”. Drop in on the Second Thursday for Jelly San Antonio all day free coworking. Better yet, just drop in and sit down. Talk to us about what you need and we can work something out. Remember, it’s all about the community. Essentially, everyone is a customer, a participant, a contributor. Even us.

No Hard Sell

Because it’s not necessary. Try coworking one day and you’ll be hooked. Yes, it costs money and money is dear right now. But if you are serious about your business and want to be a player in our economic ecosystem we think it’s an investment worth making.

There was a fair amount of planning that went into opening C⁴ Workspace. We thought a lot about pricing and benefits. We were influenced by examples from many spaces around the country. Our mission is to be a sustainable professional community and that means we need to have the right mix of service and prices. So we’re making a change in our grand experiment.

Our Part Time Desk Plan is No More. Gone. Obliterated. It is an ex-Desk Plan. But like a phoenix a new plan has risen from the proverbial primordial coworking soup. We call it…wait for it…

The Coworker Plan

Snappy, huh?

Instead of 10 days a month with the old Part Time plan the Coworker Plan gives you access to the space for as little or as much time as you’d need anytime during normal business hours: 8:30 am – 6 pm, Monday through Friday or 9 am – 1 pm on Saturday. Any of the shared desks are yours to use. The conference room and phone rooms are available. The kitchen, the fridge and microwave, the couch – yours to use. Yea, verily! The bathrooms, ye left side and ye right side are yours to use! All for the same price as that stinky old Part Time Desk Plan: $150 a month or $135 a month with a 12 month agreement. Such. A. Deal!

Give us a call, drop us a line, tweet us a tweet or heck! Drop on by for more information! Sign up for a desk while you’re here!

Memebrship Made More Simpler!

When we opened we had two kinds of membership: Coworker and Community. And there was some confusion about that. And now with a desk plan called “Coworker” and a membership called “Coworker”, well, you can see where the confusion might deepen, so… PRESTO! We are all just Members! When membership comes up for renewal everyone will renew as a C⁴ Workspace Member. It just that simple!

What more can we say? FREE is FREE!

Come join us as we open the first coworking space in San Antonio.

JOIN NOW!

(Did we mention it was FREE?)

Free Membership Period Extended

Since we moved our opening date to  June 1 we’re extending the Free Coworker and Community Membership offer through May 31. And we’ve simplified the Join Us form so it doesn’t require credit card information. So Join Us at C⁴ Workspace and let’s embark on our San Antonio coworking adventure together!

New members!

We have had a little flurry of new members since our last report, both Coworker and Community.

Coworker

• Debbie Curtis (Our C⁴ Workspace Operations Manager)
• Debi Pfitzenmaier, Pfitz PR
• Gylon Jackson, Blog Training Academy
• Dan Hong, emembaVET
• Stephen Vanderver

Community

• Pleas McNeel, Public Studio

Welcome to C⁴ Workspace!

Membership is Free through May 31!

Join Today!

C⁴ Workspace has a membership system to help defray some of the administrative costs of running the space. (Might cover a mixer or ice cream social too.)

Membership is an annual thing; you pay once a year. (See more on the Join Us page.)

We’ll have two kinds of membership: Coworking and Community.

• The Coworking membership at $50.00 a year is for people working in the space.
• The Community membership at $25.00 a year is for people who want to support the idea of a sustainable professional community in San Antonio.

We’d like to recognize the early adopters and true believers among us. So, from now through May 16 both memberships are free.

So if you want to be part of the first coworking location in San Antonio or just think the whole thing is really neat now is the time!

Go to the Join Us page to get a membership. Or if you’re a REALLY early adopter go to the Work Here page to join and sign up for a desk plan or to buy a daily pass package.

Questions? Comments? That’s why they invented the “Comment” box! We’d love to hear from you.