How we discovered the real purpose of our co-working space

Photo credit: Pexels.

I am Aditya Verma, founder of The Office Pass, a co-working facility in India. We started operations in March 2017, with our first center in Gurgaon, Delhi and six paying members.

In this article, I will share my personal experience in the past 3.5 months that cemented my belief that co-working is the new “LinkedIn.”

Before the launch, we identified a few critical success factors (CSFs) that define the character and personality of our business. They are:

• Keep the business capital light
• Focus on freelancers and small companies (less on tech startups)
• Be known for community and engagement
• Don’t be a real estate business. Instead, be a technology platform that would solve a real estate problem

Problem struck as soon as we started

While the business was initially good and we were adding members at a respectable pace, something was not right. As per the analysis shared during one of our weekly reviews in April, we had 18 paying members (up from six last month).

While that was great, four out of six members in the previous month had stopped coming. We were very confident of the way we were running the business, so this was completely unexpected and a bit baffling. We had kept in touch with all the members but failed to notice any early warning signs. There was something missing. We had a leaking bucket with an invisible hole.

Identifying the real problem

Sixty-six percent of paying customers (four out of six) leaving without a hint is a problem that warranted immediate attention. Issues like this would just amplify if they remain unattended.

To identify the problem, we decided to call and/or meet the four members individually and note down their concerns.

Profiling the members

Two out of the four members were Shakti and Vishal. They were friends pursuing a real estate brokerage business in Guragon. They took our membership, as they liked the office infrastructure and environment.

Another member was an employee of Cogo Freights, a company in Ahmedabad (a city 926km away from Delhi) who was using our co-working space as a remote office.

The fourth member was a lady in a tech support function of an IT firm. She was working from home before she used our facility.

Action plan to resolve the problem

Concluding observations