Before we answer what is coworking, lets first understand, why coworking?
Before we answer this question, let us ask you another question. What is a startup? Think about it for a while. Think about its goals, its flexibilities and its restrictions. A startup according to Wikipedia is “a company initiated by individual founders or entrepreneurs to search for a repeatable and scalable business model”. A startup is usually financed and operated by a handful of founders or an individual and provides products or services which are not available elsewhere in the market or which it feels are being offered in an inferior manner. In general (at least in the Indian context), due to the abundance of IT professionals, IT startups are more common. Due to this, a startup is generally highly flexible in terms of its location. The limitations of a startup, however, are generally monetary. Due to this reason, startups prefer to be based out of coworking spaces. Now, let’s answer our initial question “what are coworking spaces?”
What is coworking?
Coworking spaces are offices where space is provided to businesses (usually startups) on a seat basis i.e. one can rent a particular number of seats in an office space which will be provided to the business for a fixed period of time. Now you may be wondering, who in the world would ever pay for a place to sit? That this idea is preposterous and that it is surely bound to fail. But if we look at it, coworking businesses don’t just provide startup founders with a place to sit. Rather, these coworking spaces provide startups with a location, a face for holding their business. Coworking spaces if located well put startups in close contact with crucial industry contacts and act as a launching pad. Here are some benefits of coworking spaces. In fact, they have the potential to change the direction a startup may take. Thus, it is very important for a startup to choose a co-working space very carefully.
Logistics
Apart from these coworking spaces take care of other less lofty concerns but which are important nonetheless. These include facilities such as air conditioning, continuous access to high-speed internet, protection against power failures (a very important point in India), and a good working environment.
Motivation
Many new entrepreneurs soon realise in their journey how much of a drag starting a business can become, also, lack of ideas soon leads to frustration and overall reduced productivity. Imagine if you were locked up in your house and asked to come up with ideas for the world outside, how well would you fare? Not too good right? Yet, a large number of new entrepreneurs make the mistake of working solely from their home offices for the lack of economical offices to set up shop elsewhere. This leads to a stagnation of ideas and creation of rather stale ideas. In comes coworking and the day is saved.
Coworking Communities
Coworking spaces lead to the creation of coworking communities. These act like support systems. Whenever any member of the community feels down in the dumps, the community comes forward to grow together. Coworking communities can also act like filter systems to filter out our bad ideas from the good ones. Also, going out and talking to different people from different backgrounds with different aspirations and requirements gives us a different perspective and that is very important for any businessperson.
Contact Building
Moreover, coworking communities lead to socialisation with people from our or related fields and the creation of future opportunities for collaboration. All businesses depend on contacts and especially young ones and thus one should not miss an opportunity to socialise and create contacts. Thus, coworking spaces make this task easier by putting us right in the midst of the people we wish to create contacts with.
So, until now, we have seen what are coworking spaces, how coworking spaces help us keep coming up with fresh ideas, how coworking spaces act as a face of a startup, how they take care of logistical issues and lead to the creation of coworking communities which act as a support system. Moreover, we saw how coworking spaces put us right in the middle of like-minded entrepreneurs which opens up future collaboration opportunities. Phewww. And, we are not done yet. Working from coworking spaces has more benefits.
No Distractions
Accept it! Working from home can be very distracting. Somehow, the bed seems much more inviting, social media becomes more addictive, household chores become more important and anything which is not work engages us a lot when we work from home. The best way to tackle this situation is to not get into it. Instead of working at home, one can then start working at a coffee shop. But then again, you won’t get the benefits that are offered by a coworking space.
Better Work-Life Balance
When we work from home, it leads to the erasing of the line which separates work from home. Then we begin associating our home with work. Soon enough, we start disliking home. And work. This can get really bad and has negative effects on our health as well as our work. Thus, by travelling to a coworking space each day, we will be able to isolate work from home and thus enjoy a better work-life balance. This helps in setting up a routine. This way, you work better when you work and relax better when you do so. This leads to a more wholesome life.
The Future of Coworking
Many studies indicate that freelance work culture is increasing and by 2027 the majority of the workforce will comprise of freelancers. This is means that coworking spaces and communities are only going to grow in the future. Moreover, many forward-thinking larger organizations like General Electric, KPGM and Merck, are hopping on board the coworking train to make their brands more in touch with people outside their organization. Thus, you can be assured that this model of conducting business is only going to grow in the future.
Our advice for the future? Hop on board this great journey - together towards growth!
