There are many people who ask for the differences between a coworking space and a shared office, the advantages of the the former against the latter. As we understand it, there are many of them.
A coworking space is a shared work space supported by a community, and the word community is the main value of a coworking. The second one, in my opinion, is flexibility.
It’s true that you can meet with 3 other friends and rent an office and share expenses, that might be not very expensive but, is it cheaper than a coworking space? is it worth it? There are many things to take into account.
When you rent an office with your 3 friends, that oblies you to a term contract, because it wouldn’t be nice that someone, after two months, just leave the plan. However, in a coworking space you have much flexibility, for instance you can come just some days of the month with a short plan or just be a month out without paying because you are travelling to Mozambique. You don’t have that pressure of term contracts that is so bad in mobile companies.
You can get along with your 3 friends or not, but you will always be the same people in the same space, there is no flow of people coming in and out. It is possible that your professional networks don’t grow much in such environment, but they do in a coworking space. And it is unlikely that one of the friends spend time organizing events and activities trying to build professional networks and a cultural atmosphere around the shared office, which is very essential in a coworking space.
And if we just leave poetical issues aside and think in practical things, the expenses in a shared office are not just the renting of the space, but also the money to furnish it, Internet, electricity, cleaning, insurance… And not just money, you need time and energy to manage all those things. You just don’t take care of all these boring things in a coworking space, you just pay a fixed price per month and free your mind for more important things.
If you are still not convinced, can I tell you one more advantage of a coworking space? You can try it whenever you want to see if it is what you expect without commitment.
Compañeros estamos totalmente de acuerdo con vosotros, un coworking va mucho mas allá de la oficina, nos sólo en cuanto a gastos, sino en cuanto a interactividad con el resto de coworkers y/o empresas.