How to start a coworking community incrementally

A few months ago, I decided that Beijing really needed a coworking location, and I would be the one to build it.  I immediately started to look at office leases here and quickly became discouraged because of the extremely high cost.  At the same time, however, I’d been reading  about lean startup techniques and customer development for my own startup.  Lean startups focus on ensuring product-market fit before investing a lot of resources, so I decided to apply some of these ideas to my coworking project.  I’m glad I did, because they forced me to slow down and saved me from making an expensive mistake.

If you’re also starting a coworking space and would like to know how I’m starting small and building up, here is the process I’ve used so far:

Beijing Coworking – Making Progress

Last time I posted about Beijing Coworking, I’d had 10 responses to the survey and was starting to evaluate locations in Beijing.  In the meantime, a lot has happened.

Beijing Startup Resources

I recently read a great blog post from Jon O’Shaughnessy that lists all the startup resources in Boston and a similar post by Rob Go provides a todo list for new entrepreneurs in the area.  I thought it was a great idea, so this is my attempt to do the same for Beijing.  Beijing’s startup scene isn’t quite as cohesive as Boston’s, which should make a list even more useful.  I’m going to keep adding to this as I learn more, so please add anything I miss in the comments.

Events and Groups

• Beijing Coworking – Beijing Coworking is a group of independent workers who like to work together better than being lonely working at home.  For the most part, we’re techie/startup people, so the biggest benefit is having other people to talk to about ideas and problems with our businesses.
• Beijing Web Wednesday – Startup and tech folks who meet once a month at Nearby The Tree.  Usually there’s a presentation and then some time afterward for networking.
• iWeekend Beijing – This is part business plan competition, part networking event.  The first one in November was a huge success, and they’re planning to have more later.
• StartupWeekend Beijing – Very similar to iWeekend, except that it focuses on slightly later stage ideas.  At the end of the weekend, there will probably be a few ideas that get funding.
• Beijing HackerLab – Hosted by Yuanfen~flow incubator, the plan is to have an open space every two weeks to give people space to work on random projects.  The first one will be December 11, 2010.
  
• Mobile Monday – I haven’t had a chance to go to this yet, especially since my startup isn’t mobile related, but I hear it’s also exciting

People

• Benjamin Joffe – Twitter Organizer of Mobile Monday and deep thinker about tech in Asia.  I really enjoyed his presentation at the Geeks on a Plane Beijing mixer
• Frank Yu – Twitter Edits the Beijing Startup Digest newsletter
• Lee Kai-Fu – Twitter Ex. Google head and founder of Innovation Works
• Me – Twitter – only partially joking here; I’m trying to learn as much as I can in Beijing as well, so if you’re doing cool stuff, I’d love to follow you.

Newsletters

• The Startup Digest Beijing – currently edited by Frank Yu.  Fairly new, so only about one event per week listed.  I’m sure it will get better and bigger.

Blogs

• Mobinode China 2.0 – This is a big blog that covers tech all around Asia, not just startups.  I linked to the China Web 2.0 category, which has more focused content, but there’s a lot on there.  To be totally honest, I’m not sure how good this will be, as I just added it to my RSS reader today.

Incubators

• Yuanfen~flow This is an art gallery/incubator based in 798.  They host Beijing’s Hacker Lab, and currently have a few projects that they’re incubating.

Angel Investors

• Intuitive Capital – I met a woman from this company at Web Wednesday in August.  She said they’re interested in funding startups that have some traction, but haven’t yet needed to raise any outside money.
• Chris Evdemon – Twitter I saw him on Angellist as an Angel in Beijing.  You can pitch him here.  I believe he also works at Innovation Works.

Venture Capital

• I don’t actually know who the VCs are that are active in Beijing yet…  Add them to the comments!

There are also occasional one-off events, like when Geeks on a Plane showed up, that are great but don’t repeat, so I haven’t included them here.

Thoughts on Tech Superpowers’ Digital Lounge

Today, I decided to work in the digital lounge on Newbury Street, operated by Tech Superpowers.  I found them through a search for ‘Boston coworking,’ and they mention that they’re a casual coworking location.  They have a very small office with wood floors and wood desks; ten people could work here, but it would be really crowded.

Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re really a coworking space – it’s more like an internet cafe.  All but two of the desks have their own computers on them, which you can use temporarily.  It seems that most of their money comes from their Apple repair service, and no one really appears to work here full time.  Therefore, unlike WorkBar, this is very quiet and there’s not a lot of idea exchange.

Overall, it’s a fine place to stop in if you need to get online on Newbury street or are visiting for a day and need to skype, but I don’t think there’s a lot that i want to emulate here when I open Beijing Coworking next month.

Ideas from WorkBar

I’m spending the day at WorkBar Boston today.  Since Judy and I are starting a coworking space in Beijing, I want to visit as many as I can in America to see what other people are doing and get some ideas.

Workbar is about 2500 square feet in the basement of a building near South Station.  This is a really great location because it literally takes less than 5 minutes to walk here from the subway.  The inside is extremely colorful and has a lot of art on the walls, which adds up to make it very comfortable. They’ve separated their space into three main working rooms, each of which has about 10-11 seats (two per table generally).  One of them is set up sort of like a cafe.  In addition, they have one conference room, a lounge area with a couch, and a few little nooks where people can talk on the phone.

Today, I learned three great ideas from them:

1. Occasionally have a ‘free day’, but not let everyone have a free day anytime.  This is different than most places I’ve seen, and I really like it.  Today, WorkBar is really crowded and people are meeting each other, etc.  This probably makes it seem more lively than it usually is and helps people make relationships with each other that they then associate with WorkBar.  I still like the idea of letting people try out coworking, but maybe we could combine monthly free days with a 2-hours-free first time bonus.  That way, you can’t just get a whole free day anytime, but you can always try it out.
2. Bring in outside services for coworkers to talk to.  WorkBar concentrates on the tech industry, so they’ve brought in an associate VC to talk to startups today for 15 minute increments.  It’s totally free and can be about anything you want.  I talked with him about how to find quality contractors and cofounders and he had a lot of good advice.
3. Charge for extra services to reduce the normal cost of coworking.  This might be a big idea for me because rent in Beijing is so expensive that we’re going to have to charge a lot comparatively for memberships.  WorkBar charges separately for conference room space ($20 USD/hour, which is pretty high), but also has low regular membership fees ($150/mo).  You can also get memberships that include conference space and dedicated desks for more, up to the top plan for $500/mo for large companies that have a few people based in Boston and frequently need to host events.

Beijing Coworking Status

A few minutes ago, I sent out an email update on Judy and my coworking idea that I talked about recently in A New Place To Work.  Then, I realized people who aren’t actually going to be able to participate in Beijing might be interested in our status as well, so I decided to post it on my blog, too.  Here you go:

A new place to work

On Tuesday, I went to a networking event with Geeks on a Plane, who were visiting Beijing at the time. One of them, Mike Prasad, and I were talking about the startup community in Beijing and I mentioned that it was actually really nice to have the Geeks in town, because I also ended meeting other local entrepreneurs. I mentioned that there aren’t quite as many places and events for startups as there are in places like Silicon Valley.

Mike mentioned that Los Angeles didn’t have much community either a few years ago, but that he and some like-minded people got together to really push it. After enough time, they reached a critical mass and now the community is pretty lively even without them organizing everything. He encouraged me to do the same thing here.