The importance of your (co)working space
Why the right environment can make all the difference
Having worked at two different coworking spaces in the past year, I’ve been able to compare what is offered, what is needed, and what works for me. Everyone is different, and everyone works in their own way, so these are just my thoughts for my circumstance. Hopefully, they will help you frame what you want out of your co-working space.
When Paul and I first started our journey back in July 2017, we immediately went into a coworking space. We picked the closest place to where we lived (who needs to catch public transport into the city when you can have your office just 10 mins drive up the road?), and off we went. It was a small place, maybe 50 desks in total, and at the time there were about 10 different companies in varying stages of their life-cycle.
Friendships were quickly struck up, and as we were novices to the business ownership game, our coworkers were more than happy to give us their time and advice on small matters as we went.
The space itself was a little plain, being a converted floor of an office building. There were some ‘funky’ additions, specifically the wall-paper, which livened the place up a bit, so it felt inviting. It was enjoyable, but being our first coworking space, we didn’t expect anything else.
Six months later, and with the business crawling along three times slower than we expected, we pulled the pin as we could no longer justify the (personal) expense. Paul had previously worked from home for about six months before I joined him in the business full-time, but this was my first experience of ‘working from home’ full-time.
I never knew how much I cared about my house when I was working from home! All of a sudden, I was constantly getting up, looking around for things to do, and generally being distracted. Sure, it was great spending all that extra time with my dog (and my wife, of course😘) but in the end I felt like I was more focused on the house than the company. Some people are perfectly happy and capable of separating their work and life while working from home, but unfortunately that’s not me!
As we progressed towards getting some seed funding to allow us to build our MVP, I started to look to see if there were any new coworking places in the area. I stumbled across a new place, CoWork Me, and got in touch. Rob got back to me, and he invited us in for a test run.
CoWork Me is a brand new, purpose-designed, coworking building with over 450 desks spread over two levels and with a mix of open desks, small offices, and large offices. Not only that, but they are building a “community” by offering discounts when members use other members’ services. Furthermore, they have partner offers with some local (and not so local) businesses to really give their members value.
Being back in an office environment has been great for my mental state as I have been able to “shut out” my home life and concentrate on my work. It has also been really nice to connect with other (business) people again on a regular basis.
While it is early days (CoWork Me has been open for barely two months at the time of writing this), and there are not many more than 50 people in the building out of 450+ desks, we feel incredibly at home due to the warmth of the staff (thanks Rob, Elise, and Mick!), the fantastic decor (see above!), and the sense of community that they are growing. Also, there is something harmonious about an early stage company working out of an early stage coworking building, where we can both grow together.
For us, being based in a coworking space is more than just having the ease of a ‘plug-n-play’ place to be able to set up shop, it’s about working somewhere that you take pride in your surrounds, that you are inspired by those around you, and you can make meaningful relationships with those around you. We can’t wait to continue our journey
