What Makes A Good Coworking Space?
The best are indispensable community assets
Hey reader,
Today’s essay is a follow-up to one of the most-viewed Mountain Remote newsletters, “Why I love coworking spaces and find them inspiring” (link below). I encourage you to read that essay first and couple it with this one.
Resources from this week’s essay
More Mountain Remote back esssays for further reading:
Coworking As a Modern Benefit, from Remote
Working At The Office Costs Twice as Much as Working Remote, from Money.com
And, welcome to the 23 new subscribers since last week! Glad you’re here.
What Makes A Good Coworking Space?
In over a decade of remote work, I’ve worked from more than two dozen coworking spaces spread across four continents. Some are large and vibrant, always brimming with activity and events. Others, such as a space I worked from for 18 months in west Denver, are quiet and often vacant.
Any space worth visiting prioritizes fast Wi-Fi coupled with soundproofed spaces for Zoom calls and an endless flow of hot coffee. Those perks don’t guarantee success, however.
Zippia expects 36.2 million American employees to be working remotely by 2025, and that doesn’t include the 16.2 million currently self-employed Americans who have the remote option).
Still, coworking is a tough business model. Coworking space owners or managers must balance their own costs while keeping membership fees affordable. Most individuals aren’t willing to pay more than $250 per month for a hot seat membership, and often less. Those looking to rent a dedicated desk or office expect to find one at a better rate than what is available in nearby traditional office buildings.
On top of that, additional value is often needed to retain members in markets with tight competition. This can come in the form of networking events, on-site yoga classes or group bike rides, and other practices that take both time and effort (and, generally, money) on the part of management in order to execute.
The best coworking spaces embody the first point below along with at least one of the following. In your search for a place to work from, whether or not a particular coworking space meets one of these aspects should be immediately apparent.
It’s owned or managed by someone with ample remote work experience
The reason many coworking spaces fail to gain enough members to survive is that there’s no benefit to working there vs. going to a coffee shop or staying at home. Many spaces I’ve worked from simply lack inspiration — it’s quite clear that the person behind the space wanted to capture a piece of the remote work trend without doing proper research and/or simply wanted to fill some vacant space in an office building with “something passive.”
Above all, a good coworking space is anything but “passive.” You can’t just set up a Wi-Fi router, lug in a few desks and chairs, hang up a few “hustle or die” posters, and call it a day. The coffee shop down the street beat you to the punch on that (with the possible exception of the posters).
The reason a remote worker or distributed team is willing to pay for coworking is because it‘s a place they actually want to be in. Coworking should be everything that a fluorescently lit, cubicle-lined office tower isn’t — hip, modern, and inspiring. It should encourage people to get up and walk around, to spend a couple of hours at the hot seat counter before an afternoon in a comfy chair on the balcony.
It should encourage conversation and collaboration. Remote business owners and freelancers, who comprise the majority of coworking members, often go about much of their day alone. They need people with fresh perspectives to bounce ideas off of, to share a lunch with. A good coworking space is a miniature, less-intimidating version of Shark Tank, where ideas are spoken and heard before being refined and re-approached.
Remote workers need community, and the spots that understand this become indispensable community assets. If their goal was to spend the day uninterrupted at a desk, staring fervently at a computer screen, they’d just stay home.
A good coworking space is a reason to get out of bed in the morning and hop on a bike/scooter/train/bus to go somewhere even though you don’t have to.
It’s hard to grasp why this is so important if you haven’t worked remotely yourself.
It serves as a magnet to bring remote workers to a destination
Bali’s Outpost Coworking appears regularly in Mountain Remote articles. I’ve referred to it more than once as “the greatest place in the entire world.” When I was a member in the summer of 2017, the Ubud coworking space had been open for just over a year. Yet, it had already established itself in digital nomad circles as a destination coworking space worth traveling to the Indonesian jungle for, and an upstart rival to the long-established Hubud, located a 10-minute scooter ride away.
When researching Bali coworking spaces prior to my trip, and seeking recommendations from other remote workers for the same, nearly everyone I read and spoke to recommended Outpost. These are the reasons why:
Outpost’s nightly events and parties provide not only great professional value but an easy way to quickly make friends.
Its associated coliving facilities and available services including airport transfer and scooter rental make for an all-in-one accommodations package that significantly reduces the stress of arriving in a new location.
The space itself is bright, vibrant, and inspiring, situated above a creek and with access to a pool and pool bar at the adjacent hotel.
It has an onsite coffee shop and cafe, plus free coffee and tea for members.
Overall, Outpost effectively approached every pain point of the traveling remote worker and offered an easy, all-in-one solution. For someone like myself traveling from the other side of the planet, knowing that I’d have a smooth transition into life in Bali made all the difference. I signed up for a membership before ever arriving on the island, and added a coliving package to boot.
It offers food and beverage service that eliminates the need to venture offsite
Above I mentioned that Outpost offers free coffee, and also has an onsite cafe. Free coffee is all but standard in coworking spaces, but the cafe made for a nice perk. Rather than hopping on the scooter and driving into town or walking across the street to the restaurant Sage, I could grab lunch onsite if necessary without even having to disconnect from the Wi-Fi network.
On a trip to Mexico City in March, I experienced a fresh take on coworking hospitality at OpenHub Coworking in the Condesa neighborhood. OpenHub eschews membership fees altogether, offering access to any who buy at least one cup of coffee.
What separates OpenHub from a cafe, then, is that it doesn’t skimp on any of the coworking amenities — there are call booths, a conference room, ample desk and long-table seating, and lightning-fast Wi-Fi. The cafe also serves a full food menu.
As a result, the space was busy each time I went. It charges prices you’d expect in New York for a coffee or sandwich, but the value proposition is there — buy coffee daily and lunch a couple of times a week, and over the course of a month you’ll still spend less than the average coworking membership, plus keep yourself satiated.
Given how tough the coworking market is, this business model could prove to become more common in major urban centers with high densities of remote workers. Condesa, of course, fits that bill perfectly.
The argument can be made that this is gentrification at its worst, particularly given that Condesa and its surrounding neighborhoods are experiencing rapid cost-of-living increases that are driving out some locals. OpenHub, however, is simply responding to demand. It’s not the first coworking space in the area, nor will it be the last to open its doors.
It blends coworking into another business model
In 2019, my wife Alisha and I spent two months in Oaxaca City, Mexico. We joined a coworking space called Convivio, located in the heart of the city about a 10-minute walk from the Zocalo. Convivio occupied the upper floor of a two-story building that also hosted a restaurant on the bottom floor.
That wasn’t the key to its success, however. In the evenings, Convivio served as a vibrant live music venue that hosted local and touring musicians multiple times per week. The counter that, during the day, served as customer service for the coworking space transformed after dark into a bar (free mezcal was available all day to members, though, which tended to end our productivity around mid-afternoon).
This helped the space monetize its business for most hours of the day and be less dependent on coworking memberships to turn a profit.
Other coworking spaces embark on similar quests, occupying restaurant dining rooms while the restaurant is closed or even taking over classroom space in a church. Often, these combos offer added benefits to members without driving up their monthly bill — quite the opposite, as the cross-platform business model allows the owner of the space to keep membership affordable.
In closing, I can’t say enough about the role of coworking spaces in helping develop my career. I’ve met clients who became great friends, embarked on affiliated rafting and snowboarding trips, and sparked ideas that I otherwise wouldn’t have, all by signing up for a hot seat membership.
Here’s to the good ones, and the people that make them awesome.
That’s all for this week. See you next time!
Tim Wenger’s essay highlights what makes a coworking space truly exceptional. Beyond essential amenities like fast Wi-Fi and soundproof rooms, the best spaces foster community and creativity. They blend vibrant design, networking opportunities, and added perks like onsite cafes or event spaces, turning a simple workspace into an inspiring hub for remote professionals. It's these unique touches that transform coworkingspaces into indispensable assets for remote workers.
https://www.matchoffice.be/fr-BE/loyer/bureaux/liege