Coworking connects entrepreneurs through shared office spaces
Christopher C., left, and Asier Ania |
Coworking allows people to work at their own businesses in a shared space with common resources.
When Christopher
Charlesworth’s crowdfunding business HiveWire started ramping up, he
realized it no longer made sense to run the business out of his condo.
So two years ago, he rented four desks in the Centre for Social Innovation’s Spadina Ave. coworking space, one of more than 20 such facilities in the Greater Toronto Area.
Located between Dundas
St. W. and Queen St. W., CSI Spadina has temporary and permanent
workspaces in two renovated floors of an old building with plenty of
light and exposed brick and beams. It is one of three CSI locations in Toronto.
Coworking is a growing
trend among the self-employed. It allows people to work at their own
businesses in a shared space with common resources. The major attraction
for people like Charlesworth, an MBA graduate from the University of
Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, is that unlike traditional rented
office space, the arrangement is flexible and there are plenty of
chances for networking.
“I didn’t have to sign
a lease,” says Charlesworth, who previously headed the undergraduate
recruitment program at the University of Western Ontario. “I can easily
arrange meeting space or rent additional desks. Because there is such a
wide diversity of organizations and individuals you end up connecting
with people you wouldn’t ordinarily meet.”
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CSI and other
coworking spaces rent desks and office space and offer the usual
amenities, including copiers, lounges and Wi-Fi. Many offer other
services as well, such as workshops, seminars and social gatherings.
For example, CSI gives
each member a profile on its intranet and the ability to promote
events, jobs and announcements. Lawyers working in the space provide
members with a half-hour of free legal advice, plus reduced hourly
rates.
CSI was founded 10
years ago and offers monthly packages for ‘hot’ desks, which are
available to multiple workers. Prices range from $75 per month for five
hours of use to $250 per month for 100 hours. Dedicated desks can be
rented for $400 per month and private offices or desk clusters are also
available.
Last year CSI launched
a loan fund that provides its members with loans of up $25,000 as part
of a program funded in part by the Ontario government, with help from TD
Bank and accounting firm KPMG.
The Foundery,
a smaller coworking space at Bathurst and Dundas Sts., has room for 50
members at any one time. A day pass costs $25, with a monthly rate of
about $290 for a hot desk. A permanent space with storage costs $490 per
month.
Bento Miso
on Richmond St., which caters to Web software developers and game
makers, has no permanent desk arrangements. Members can sign up for a
variety of hot desk packages from one day a month for $35 to six days a
week for $325 per month.
CSI recently offered a
seminar on how to use Google analytics and management of non-profit
organizations. The Foundery has sponsored workshops on how to earn money
making music. Bento Miso partners with the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.
They also offer after-hours game salons, pop-up Mexican cantinas and a
scotch-tasting club.
Charlesworth’s
decision to join paid off when CSI’s CEO Tonya Surman awarded HiveWire
its first big contract to develop a crowdfunding platform for CSI
members.
German-based industry magazine DeskMag
reports that as of February 2013, about 109,000 people in 81 countries
were members of coworking spaces, compared to the 50,000 recorded a year
earlier.
DeskMag editor Carsten
Foertsch also says his database includes 94 Canadian coworking spaces
with an estimated 4,100 members. Most of these facilities are located in
Toronto and other metropolitan areas in Ontario.
Ashley Proctor is a
partner in the Foundery. She says, coworking means everyone is working
for themselves, but not by themselves and describes members of Foundery
as “a bunch of ambitious, driven self-starters.”>>>
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