How can I create a space which will be both a with coworking space and with private offices ?


I know you're asking "how to do it". The truth is that the effectiveness of this has nothing to do with floorplans and layouts or design, and has everything to do with culture and the things that motivate humans.

Before you model after other coworking spaces and how they've done it, you need to take a look at how well it's working for them. And that's probably going to be harder than you think, since a lot of the affects of this kind of "hybrid coworking" are subtle and hard to see without a lot more data and experience.

Quick background: I've been running a coworking space without private offices for nearly 7 years, and I've worked with hundreds of coworking spaces of ALL flavors around the world on helping them grow and retain their memberships and how to lead communities with vibrant collaborative cultures.

With that said, the benefit of mixing private offices with coworking:

Hybrid coworking spaces are a commonly used technique for quickly hitting revenue marks when opening the space. They can easily be rented for more revenue than a single desk. And in fact, they can generally be rented a whole lot easier in the first place.

But within those benefits lies a whole host of problems, both from the business and the culture side.

The problems with private offices on the business side are:

a) they can only be used by one person (or one group of people)

For what it's worth we don't "rent" desks at Indy Hall and I strongly recommend banishing "rent" from coworking vocabulary. Members contribute, renters consume.

b) while they can bring in larger chunks of revenue from a single source, they're also greater liabilities. the loss of a private office tenant is a much greater financial hole to fill than that of a coworking member.

The problem with private offices on the culture side is are:

a) private offices tend to breed territorialism. A culture of "this is mine" is clashes very hard against a culture of "this is ours".

b) people are terrible at making choices.

People are drawn to what they know, and that informs what they think they want. For most people, coworking falls into the category of "I didn't even know that option existed a minute ago".

Because of that, with everything else being equal, when people are shown the two options of coworking & semi-private offices, they're far more likely to choose the private offices. That's not because they want a private office, but it's because they know exactly what they're getting...even if it doesn't give them what they actually want.

By offering two options, you're making it harder for them to choose the option that they really want. At the same time, private offices make it easier for people to isolate themselves, even when it's the very thing they entered seeking a solution for when they consider coworking.

Even at Indy Hall, where we don't have private offices, it's fascinating to watch people who intentionally choose to come in and pay money to work around other people instead make the decision to find a corner to hide in.

I like to think of this effect a bit like when you get into an elevator: when you get in by yourself, you'll probably stand in the middle or on a side. But as soon as a second person enters the elevator, you both naturally rearrange to the opposite sides...trying to get as far away from the other person as possible in a 3' square space.

And don't get me wrong, there's value in private offices. You can build a business offering them by themselves, as well as in a hybrid. But nearly every space that I've seen that's a hybrid has MUCH higher turnover rate than the pure coworking spaces. This results in stunted growth and a far less vibrant community.

The bottom line is this: make it easy for people to choose the thing that will solve their problem. The #1 problem that coworking solves best is isolation, and private offices make it harder for people to get that solution even when they know they want it.

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