Sam struggled at first to get a lease signed, but eventually opened a space that was about 5,000 sq feet, more than double what they had had previously. In 2009 or 2010 they began to outgrow their space and started looking for larger space during the peak of the recession.
He’d hoped just to make enough money to pay the rent for the coworking area, but it was so popular that they were able to pay for the whole space. Initially, there were a lot of people who were waiting for a place like The Coop, so Sam had a rush in the beginning. Sam’s space started out with 8 desks from Ikea. Grateful to find a space where he could work, he also discovered the benefit of working and networking with people in the space.Īfter his experience working in a coworking space in NYC, Sam looked to see if there was a similar space in Chicago, and didn't find anything, so he decided to open up his own coworking space and decided to open The Coop.ĭescribe the coworking landscape in Chicago in 2008 when you opened The Coop vs. Eventually a friend told him about co-working spaces, and he found a nearby space called “The Change You Want to See”, a non-profit space set up like a gallery. At first he found a cafe to work in, and would sit there all day and work, but after a while wore out his welcome. He found over time, as his business grew that it was more and more difficult to work in the homes where he was traveling. Around 2008 he was traveling a lot between NYC and Chicago, and would work anywhere while he was traveling. Sam ran a digital agency for ten years, making websites, doing branding, and other projects. Tell us the story of how you got interested in coworking.
DESKTIME APP WEB DESIGN SOFTWARE
Listen to Sam's story as he describes how he transitioned from running a digital agency out of coffee shops and his girlfriend's apartment, to running his own Chicago coworking space, where he discovered the need for a software to manage coworking spaces and developed the Desktime App.
0 kommentar(er)
