Grow or Go
It’s no secret the coworking movement has indeed become a global phenomenon. As a Co-Founder of QNS Collective, I experienced the excitement of this movement firsthand. When QNS Collective started, it met a very personal need. I had been freelancing as a designer after leaving the ad agency life and wanted a better place to work, other than my lonely apartment and the bustling neighborhood coffee shop that one could only stay in for so long. Finding that no coworking spaces existed in my native New York borough of Queens, I decided to pull up my bootstraps and opened the first coworking space in Queens with the help of investing partners.
When we opened our doors in 2012, I envisioned a place designed to foster creativity, full of different people, different services, and vibes, all sharing the same goal, and getting work done. For three incredible years, we did just that.
Early February of this year, my investing partners and I made the hard decision to close our coworking doors at QNS Collective and focus on retailoring the space to a larger company. With mounting competitor pressure and a new coworking space opening to the right and the left of us in the past year — ironically, flanking us on the same street I had chosen years ago — being first to market was no longer sustainable. I was proud of my vision of knowing where to build and proud of the community we had made, but we were faced with coworking’s real estate reality. We needed to grow or go. In a business where space equals revenue, our 5,600 sq ft space reached its maximum business growth potential, and we had no other choice but to close. I felt like a failure, although I knew it was the best business decision. Saying goodbye to a business can be an emotional and conflicting journey. Here are 3 lessons I learned:
1. Build a team to support the companies day-to-day
A year into building QNS Collective, I discovered I was pregnant with my daughter Marina Simone. I was 40 years old and finally having a child after multiple previous efforts to do so. Although I was a high-risk pregnancy, I worked an average of 15 hours a day, passionate and committed to what I was building and running on an irrational belief of my capabilities. After some complications, I was forced to slow down. The thought of this didn’t seem possible or right. But the biological reality of my situation forced me to look at the business reality I faced: as a business owner, I cannot and should not do everything myself. I needed to hire staff, build a team, and learn to delegate. This may have been a concept that seemed evident to many, but to me, it felt scary to release control in this way. It was also going to be expensive, and I wasn’t sure we could afford the additional help.
The thing that drove me to quit my design consulting business and sacrifice personal relationships to work unreasonable hours to build QNS Collective, was the same thing that kept me from asking for help. If a business is expected to grow, you need a team to help you build from the original concept and dream exponentially. A team to support the company day-to-day, so as founders we can focus on leading the business vision, culture, and financial performance.
It was also hard to face the reality that as a business, we had started out as several partners involved in the day-to-day, and it had ended up with only myself solely managing everything. As an entrepreneur, things can get lonely and hard, but every successful entrepreneur knows that you need a team of support to share the burden and then achieve success.
2. Community makes us who we are
Well before opening QNS Collective, and before signing a lease or finding investors, I scoured the internet for every piece of information I could find from other coworking spaces. I visited other spaces and attended the largest coworking conference to better understand the current climate for new spaces and the types of people that resonated with the need for coworking the most. All of the information I gathered spoke to a specific community: start-up, tech and millennial.
I also found that other coworking spaces seem to have a barrier of entry in their marketing. Sort of a “cool table” effect where only a select few could “get access” if they could afford it or fit in. Growing up in New York City in Queens, I knew this was not the vision I had for QNS Collective. I was committed to opening a space just like Queens where everyone would be invited. Home to more than 2.3 million people who speak at least 150 different languages, the most multicultural place on earth, QNS Collective needed to represent just that, and we did. I understand the intensity of competition in certain markets sometimes demands a business focus on a niche or targeted consumer. But in a community focused business like coworking, I learned we must always embody the local community.
As a result, we had a truly multi-cultural community that supported each other and were at all levels of their entrepreneurial journeys. We had a range of pricing to help every entrepreneur, from drop-in day rates, to incredibly affordable monthly packages, to full offices if they wanted them. We had one long community table in the kitchen where all could have their lunch, and an open lounge with bean bags and couches for people to gather for conversation and a sharing of ideas. Numerous members hatched plans together, coordinated progress and did business. All in all, I was proud of the community we made, and the community made us what we were. At other coworking spaces you will likely feel this lacking, with many small offices dividing everyone, and small lounges that don’t allow for an easy ability to gather. But at QNS, we had this feeling of community, and it really was a Queens establishment where everyone was welcome. I hope that more coworking spaces will refocus on the purpose of this model, so more collaborations and more successful progress can support the entrepreneurs who work within their walls.
3. Space equals revenue
For many companies, real estate is the most significant fixed cost. With the changing working trends like outsourcing, downsizing and increasing levels of telecommuting, corporations are reducing office space at unprecedented levels. This creates an additional opportunity beyond entrepreneurs starting their own companies for coworking spaces to thrive.
The design of a coworking space is critical to every element of its performance. When I launch QNS Collective, I focused on the hot desk model in a communal open space where members could sit anywhere they chose. Within one year in business we found the design of our space was not being maximized for a greater revenue model. After that realization, we quickly shifted and built private office spaces where cost per square foot had more value.
In a heavily competitive market like NYC where real estate is at a premium, space truly does equal revenue. You have to maximize your square footage for a higher return on the dollar. For anyone entering the business of creating a coworking model, this will always trump every other decision you may make for your space, so keep this in mind.
In the past three years, I have met incredible people, have been a part of helping amazing projects and businesses get up and running, l’ve hosted some really cool events and loved every minute of it. As I look to my next chapter, I believe the world needs empowered collaborative communities and I look towards building this reality by continuing to foster the start-up community of Queens.
