An interview with Tara Hunt

The LaunchPad team met Tara ‘missrogue’ Hunt, at the SXSWi meetups and core conversations. Tara, Co-founder of Citizen Space in San Francisco, had a lot to say about coworking at the meetings. I caught up with her via email recently to ask her to share some more of her thoughts on coworking.

Spike Gillespie: How did you get involved with coworking?

Tara Hunt: I got involved early on… in about 2005. I had met Chris Messina and accompanied him to a meetup for ‘Coworking’, a 2-day-a-week space in the Mission [neighborhood in SF]. Chris was excited about making it more of a permanent space and/or opening his own space. He talked to Brad Neuberg, who ran the space in the Mission about using the name ‘Coworking’ and Brad was cool with it. We started calling together meetups at Ritual Roasters to see who else would be interested and found out that there were MANY! So, we started to get people together to go look at possible spaces to rent. Meanwhile we were blogging and posting lots of photos of our search. Because both Chris and I have a following of people interested in what we are working on, the idea caught on in many other places and soon Coworking was no longer a space, it was a movement.

Spike: What does a typical coworking day look like for you?

Tara: I rented an apartment about 2 blocks away from Citizen Space so I can be there in moment’s notice 24/7 for people. But mostly, I get up, go into the office, pull up to my desk and work amongst many other interesting folks. We get loads of international drop-ins, especially around large conferences. That’s a total bonus.

Spike: Before coworking was officially coworking, were you coworking? How?

Tara: Not really. I was working at a company in the Bay Area and commuting everyday. I wanted to convince them that I should cowork from the city, but I ended up quitting and starting The Hat Factory (the original space we launched with, which is still being run, now by Eddie Codel) instead.

Spike: There’s a lot of buzz about coworking and how great it is. Do you see any pitfalls — e.g. A coworking space doesn’t have an HR department. So what
if a coworker isn’t working out — how do you handle that?

Tara: We have limited space at Citizen Space, so we can be really choosy. We’ve never had an issue, but if there was a nasty coworker, we would just ask them to leave. We run things pretty casually.

Spike: What’s your business model? Anchor tenants? For profit?

Tara: We break even pretty much every month. Citizen Agency, our consultancy, supported the space until it was running smoothly. We rent desks for $350/month and drop-ins are free. Pretty simple model, but it pays the bills and keeps everyone happy. I don’t think I’d have the energy to put into a space that ran for profit. That would be a full-time job. I consult, I’m writing a book, I run lots of events and do a lot of community work, so, for me, Citizen Space has to be low maintenance. Besides, not making a profit makes it easier for the tenants to feel ownership.

Spike: You’re writing a book. Tell me about it.

Tara: Well, it’s called The Whuffie Factor: 5 keys for maxing social capital and winning with online communities. I’ve been consulting in the community marketing area for several years now and, before that, as a guerilla/word-of-mouth marketer. The premise is that there is a great deal to be gained from companies and individuals participating in online communities, but they have to approach it right. Communities don’t work in the classic transaction-driven models, communities work on social capital, which includes trust and reputation, connections, access to resources and depth of relationships. My book reframes the approach and teaches companies and individuals how to interact in online communities.

Spike: There’s talk on the Google Group of a feat of coworking being co-opted by the corporate world. Could you speak to that?

Tara: Well, we have been getting a great deal of press. I get an average of one call per week these days. And people are pretty excited. There are millions of solo entrepreneurs out there that could really benefit from working in our spaces. I guess many of the office-share spaces that have been around for years see this and think, “We are coworking!” But they aren’t. I hate to be a hard-nose, but there are major differences between office shares and coworking spaces, many of them qualitative, but these differences are obvious to people who walk into Citizen Space and say, “This is a living, breathing space.” (I’ve heard that multiple times.) We define those qualities as: collaboration, openness, community, sustainability and accessibility. Not that coworking spaces can’t be profitable businesses, but if you put the profitable business first and the community second, it ain’t coworking.

Spike: What are some hurdles you’ve had to clear with your space?

Tara: I travel a great deal and want to keep the overhead low, so Citizen Space doesn’t keep regular hours. It’s hard to have a steady flow of drop-ins when they don’t know whether we’re open or not. I really wish there could be a card-key system. We’ve talked about it. Something that lets trusted members of the community let themselves in when we aren’t there (for a small fee). But we just can’t be giving out keys willy-nilly because of security.

Spike: Your advice to someone wanting to start a coworking space?

1. If you can’t be a ‘patron’, i.e., someone who can support the space yourself without making any money for the first year, then find one. This way, you can put community ahead of making money and build a nice atmosphere.

2. Build community before you get a space. We did. Indy Hall did. New Work City is. Caroline Collective is. Office Nomads did. This is consistent across the board. Get the support first before you get the space. You can’t just build it and they will come.

3. Build out simply and slowly once you have 1 + 2 covered. We started simple and have built out from there. I know there are spaces, like Launchpad, that are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into infrastructure and that is cool, but not everyone has to. People just want a space to come to so they aren’t working alone anymore. If the need for a fancy photocopier comes up more times than not, THEN invest in it. We don’t even have a phone system, just VoIP. Everyone uses their own cell phones. We don’t have a photocopier. Only 3 people have EVER asked (in 1.5 years) and there is a Kinkos nearby. I don’t know. Providing a nice space with a great atmosphere is key. The other stuff is overhead.

Spike: Anything else?

Tara: Coworking is about the worldwide support community. It is about the movement. The spaces all take on their own flavors, but you can tell the ones that are dedicated to what Coworking is when you walk into them. They live. I recommend that anyone interested in setting up a space go and visit a bunch of the core spaces like Indy Hall in Philly, Office Nomads in Seattle, Workspace in Vancouver, Station-C in Montreal, and Citizen Space in San Francisco before you set up your own. It’s hard to describe what I mean by ‘living’, but you’ll know exactly what I mean when you walk into these spaces.

Photo by Scott Kveton