Coworking - what is it? How to make a business plan and open a coworking center

In our time, the importance of remote work is growing ever stronger. Hundreds of thousands only in our country are engaged in programming, writing texts, making books, etc., while being at home, and for work only needing a computer and connecting to the Internet.

Many believe that sitting at home and "getting easy money" is extremely simple, but this is far from the case. And the point here is not only in the absence of hospital, vacations and other self-evident office "buns", but also in respect of domestic. Domesticates can subconsciously find it hard to realize that you are working. It is difficult for children to explain it at all, and not everyone has a personal study.

The best decision

Of course, that in such conditions, the productivity of your labor falls sharply. Coworking can help in solving this problem. What is it, by the way? It's simple. This is the name of a proposal from a company or an individual with an office space. That's what coworking is.

You can reserve a place in it for several hours, days, buy a monthly or annual subscription. The advantages are obvious: you get at your disposal a full-fledged workplace where you will not be hindered from working, and the number of distractions (like a TV and a refrigerator) will be reduced to a minimum.

Here such conditions and means coworking. What is it, if we talk about the possibility of opening your own business? If you live in a more or less large city, and the market is not yet saturated, then this is an excellent opportunity to make good money on people's desire to work quietly away from home distractions.

Decide on the contingent

It is known that any human society is divided into hundreds of small subcultures, each with its own views on life and their beliefs. Why do we all say this? Yes, you just have to immediately decide on whom you will be guided by, basing your own coworking. What does it mean?

Attend the city forums, figure out which category of "free-breeders" prevails directly in your case. Are they artists, designers, web optimizers or programmers? In any case, each of these categories needs their own conditions, and therefore one can forget about universality at once.

However, there are common features. So, it is better to take care of the presence of a good recreation room, equipped with refrigerators for cooling drinks, comfortable furniture, a plasma panel with a game console. So you will motivate people to stay with you longer, spending more money to pay for your services.

What do you need to open a coworking center?

First, you need to decide on the place. Ideally, the coworking center should be located as close as possible to the central part of the city, since not all will go to the other end of it to some dubious microdistrict. The fact is that for a decent salary a person can go to another city at all, but if he pays for a workplace, the situation is completely different ...

In addition, for creative and enthusiastic people it is undesirable to place the work area in some small and stuffy room. The most unfortunate step - to try to copy the offices of some large companies, separated by "zagonchikami" hundreds of jobs. You need a room with high ceilings, wide windows and enough space to accommodate sofas and comfortable office desks. Such a coworking zone will itself attract potential customers.

Forget about typical computer chairs for a couple of thousand! If you are planning to attract really solvent customers, get normal office furniture from good manufacturers.

For sure you will have to hire an intelligent administrator who can prevent any potentially conflict situations. So, immediately prohibit any noise and empty chatter: serious customers will scare it.

How to start the project promotion?

There are few more specific business projects than the one that is coworking. What does it mean? It's simple: you can, of course, cover all the neighboring posts with leaflets with your unique offer, but this will not be of much help.

"Hunt" for potential customers is in social networks, selecting groups related to the IT infrastructure. Among them there are always people who need a quiet workplace, where they could give all their strength to work. Do not forget to create your personal page on the network, you can also make a channel on YouTube, where you will live to show to all the suffering, what advantages your workstation provides. Coworking project will be more successful in this case.

Do not forget about selling links to your site, placed in thematic articles. Having completed all these actions, you can reasonably expect to attract the first visitors to your center.

Do not hide anything!

Immediately and in the most detailed manner, write down all the conditions for renting a workplace. The relevant information should be posted not only on its website, but also directly in the office. It is advisable to specify some favorable favorable conditions for customers to be interested in accumulating bonus points and so on. Be sure to make a beautiful and original application form - creative people like this.

With a large team (the developers of some prospective project), you can generally agree not on a certain rent, but on some percentage of the future profits. In this case, you take on all the difficulties with the organization of the working space and food, hoping to get a return in the future. A risky approach, but he can recoup himself.

What is the yield?

Your income will consist of paying directly rent office space for work needs, reserving rooms for some seminars and lectures. In the first months it is extremely important to provide additional services, otherwise you simply will not be able to survive in this market.

You can do your own master classes (if you have something to talk about), combine your project with a hostel or an entertainment cafe. In large cities, you can start to get tangible profits in about a year, but the project's return to self-sufficiency is quite real in three to four months after its launch. Foreign cowwormers write that almost every such project, which will survive for more than two years, will in any case begin to generate profits simply because of its own fame and the development of its own constant client base.

The price policy should be thought out in advance

First, we will immediately make a digression: for people to go and pay for you, you need to be open for as long as possible. Foreign coworking companies and at all sometimes work around the clock. So, even when you work from 7 to 23, you will still have customers who do not mind staying for the night. If you copy the passport data and their full responsibility, you can hire a separate administrator and make profit on some nightly fare.

In general, the approach to payment is strictly individual. You can focus on regular customers, but it's realistic to set hourly pay for everyone. For regular customers, you need to make special season tickets, you can allocate them especially good jobs. Do not rely on quick payback, because even in Moscow and St. Petersburg, some entrepreneurs came to it only in a couple of years (and even in general in three years).

As a rule, coworking in Moscow (a monthly subscription) and in other large cities can cost around 10-12 thousand rubles, but in regions even for four thousand it is far from always possible to find customers. Many prefer to pay a couple hundred for an hour or two of work to complete an important project than to purchase a permanent subscription, which they do not always need.

What are the costs?

First, from the cost of the lease itself. It's hard to say something for certain, but you yourself imagine that renting a room in the city center is a very expensive one. You can correct the situation by finding the owner of some not very presentable structure, then to make repairs on your own.

Despite the complexity, sometimes it is ten times more profitable than renting a ready-made office building. Initially, you need to focus on jobs for 10-15 people, but be prepared for the fact that such a large number of clients you will not dial right away. Coworking is a very individual matter, that's why people can be recruited for a long time. So do not be discouraged immediately, do not wait for an instant influx of customers!

Pay attention to electricity, water and other utilities. Naturally, the business plan of the coworking center must take into account the Internet payment, and you will sign the contract on behalf of the company, so the cost will be rather big (at least 30 thousand). In short, to open the center you will probably need at least a million rubles.

What documents are required?

There is nothing especially difficult here. First, register your IP. In addition, you will need a lease of premises, an agreement with electricity, water suppliers, and also with an Internet provider. You can get everything you need in a month.

Thus, coworking is a relatively risky business, but the possible profits are worth it!