Shared Workspace in Charlottesville

Daniel and the folks at Cloudbrain have proposed what I think is a brilliant idea (archived: 2019) that is probably being done elsewhere … this would be perfect for Realtors who don’t need the wasteful infrastructure provided by larger facilities, when all many of us need is a coffee shop, occasionally a larger conference room and quiet space to work/write. The idea’s not necessarily new; I’ve heard it a couple of times locally over the past few years – what’s needed is for someone to step to the plate and lead the way.

Based on the comments on his post, it seems that there are plenty of interested people out there seeking this space.

We’ve been throwing this idea around for a while and I’ve talked to enough people that have been excited about it, it seemed time to take the idea to a new level: A Blog Post.

WHAT IF…

We leased one of the large empty office spaces on the Downtown Mall and turned it in to a workspace for internet workers, developers, designers, bloggers, writers (etc.) that work alone or in small teams.  It might look something like:

• Fast WiFi
• Large tables where you could work on your laptop
• Couches and comfy chairs for lounging / discussions
• A conference room you could use for meetings with clients
• Coffee, WII, Xbox and other brain stimulants
• Whiteboards for brainstorming and announcements
• Simple rules like “Headphones = Do Not Disturb”
• A community of smart creative web workers

There seems to be a lot of 1 – 4 person companies in Cville that (1) Spend most of their time on a computer (2) Want to be Downtown (3) Are paying too much for office space or work from home and (3) Would benefit from being around other creative people during the day.

We could charge a monthly fee (similar to a gym membership) and you could use it as much or as little as you want.  Would anyone be interested in something like this?  Leave a comment with feedback / suggestions.  If we could get 15-20 people to commit, I think it could be do-able.