Coworking Into Business Innovation
Inspiration strikes, but deciding to take your ideas into a business of your own is a very calculated endeavor. Building your idea into a brick and mortar corporation takes strategy, vision and shared resources. Coworking is the perfect strategy for taking your idea from a concept to a business of innovation.
Digital nomads have embraced coworking for obvious reasons, but the collaborative culture it imbibes has created a formidable niche for startups. Entrepreneurs, freelancers, and digital nomads all agree that this is a 21st Century incubator for innovation in business. Starting up or starting over, collaborative culture building gets a boost in this kind of environment because you are working shoulder to shoulder with many different types of skill sets, idealists, thinkers, and like-minded innovators.
If you are seeking a way to fast track into your own business venture through a coworking environment, here are some things to consider:
- Know what your needs and goals are beforehand
- Choose a complementary environment for those goals
- Select a coworking company close by so you are not commuting
- If you are relocating, this is a perfect scenario for networking
- Delve into the terms & amenities provided
- Do a trial offer, if available, to test it out and see how it performs with your existing clients
- If it’s too loud or crowded or does not jibe with your workstyle, keep looking
Coworking Innovations
Aside from the obvious networking opportunities within a coworking environment, remember that you are also working toward making a new work life, not just making a living, so use the opportunity to educate yourself a little bit on collaborative office design. Coworking provides the unique opportunity to experience what works for you and what doesn’t, to navigate how other people actually use a collaborative workspace and to pay attention to how multiple generations simultaneously interact and cope with open plan design.
Coworking has become big business for companies like WeWork, who have built workplace culture into their brand aesthetic by creating spaces that are uniquely designed to fit the geographical areas they serve. There are many advantages to taking this step in your startup journey. Some entire corporations lease within large coworking environments for the multilevel networking benefits they provide.
What benefits will small-medium sized businesses get by relocating to a collaborative coworking office space? Here are just a few:
- Lower overhead and long-term lease savings
- Open networking opportunities with like-minded professionals
- Increased productivity with fewer distractions than working from home
- Set working hours and on-demand amenities
- Professional growth opportunities through on-site workshops, seminars and meet-ups
- Collaboration opportunities with complementary skills that you may not provide
- A stable office base while you build your empire
Austin has a thriving startup scene. Office Furniture NOW! has from time to time worked with the Capital Factory, an open coworking environment for tech startups. They provide a rich networking environment charged with entrepreneurs, peers, mentors, angel investors, and venture capitalists. The Capital Factory’s open coworking environment allows innovators to get some of their most challenging questions answered by working alongside others who are on the same trajectory. It is an invaluable experience to network among your peers when you are launching a new business venture.
And here is something else to ponder, if you have large office square footage and you are considering downsizing, why not reconfigure the unused areas and lease them out as coworking spaces for startups that are complementary to your industry! This could be a win-win situation where they could provide beneficial services you don’t offer to your clients under one roof, and you could provide a unique workspace incubator to mentor local entrepreneurs.
Coworking provides many unsung benefits like adding structure to your day while you are still deciding what direction to take with your venture and networking with like-minded individuals. But if you are paying attention to the details of how these spaces work, you can learn a lot about your future office design needs. All in all, it’s a powerhouse of innovative opportunities.
Photo by WeWork Austin
MEET JULIE SHEAFFER: Julie can provide you with answers and furnishing choices to fit your collaborative workspace needs. Her combined product expertise and application knowledge can help furnish your coworking workspace or your next business venture. Contact Julie at 888-910-3769 x129 or julie@officefurniturenow.com. For more inspiration visit us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter!
