From co-working to community
Image courtesy of Daniel Auer for Impact Hub
How in a post-COVID world the desk rental model needs to change and why it is an opportunity for rural communities to thrive.
Commercial real-estate is going through turmoil and while there certainly is some continued logic to co-working spaces in a post-COVID world, the reality is that yield per square meter is going to decline.
Let’s be honest, most urban co-working spaces are just a real-estate play. Some try to promote themselves as standing for something more, but in most cases that’s just a marketing gimmick. In a few it is part of a broader sense of purpose such as with Impact HUB. In all cases, core revenue comes from renting space so it is time to re-invent.
Some inspiration can be found in premium online communities such as Agency Collective or ICE - communities set up to help defined groups of people collaborate and succeed. These in my opinion are the co-working spaces of the future. Let’s face it, if you’re looking to collaborate, you don’t have to co-locate… and fewer people will.
In fact, if you run a co-working space, accelerator or hub in a post-COVID world, selling desk space should be secondary. You should move your thinking from co-working to community, to creating a network of valuable connections, providing a targeted range of high value remote and real world programs and services to your members and yes, offering space as an additional benefit… but not the primary one and not a requirement.
Groups that already stand for more than space have a decent chance to pivot, and it opens up a real opportunity for rural hubs to finally find their place.
By thinking beyond the confines of their four walls and building larger communities with a common purpose online-first, teams running these often state-funded spaces have the opportunity to deliver far greater impact, impact they can monetise at scale - virtually and in byte sized chunks… with desk space being but one of those revenue streams.
It offers the opportunity to create targeted ecosystems of entrepreneurs and innovators in rural communities that rival urban clusters.
For tips on how to build your community of collaborators this canvas developed by Fabian Pfortmüller, Nico Luchsinger and Sascha Mombartz is a great place to start. It is also worth having a look at the work of the Innovation Collective to see what is possible.
For help figuring out your place in this new world and what your online community might look like, feel free to get in touch.