Once confined to megacities, coworking spaces are nothing new to the Upstate. They showcase the region’s burgeoning entrepreneurial community, they support new business with low-cost office space options and build startup culture, according to the people who run them.
They also tend to be the opposite of lucrative.
“If you’re trying to make money, it’s not a good business to be in,” said Chris Merritt, one of the coordinators behind CoWork, one of the first such businesses in Greenville. The 25-desk space has always been self-sustaining financially, but neither Merritt nor cofounder Matthew Smith get paid to coordinate everything involved in keeping the lights on.
“We’re not compensated for that, and that never really was our goal,” Merritt said. “We’re at a point of saturation that the bills are paid and we love the folks we work with. If someone leaves … we’re not pulling out our hair.”
Proximity and productivity
Such a balance is hard to find, so much so that some coworks founder before they get there. Last year, startup costs stymied plans for Conrad Cowork, a space slated for a historic iron forge near downtown Greenville.
“Before I got deep into it, I thought all that was required was a beautiful building, some interested early adopters, and a healthy amount of luck,” said Greenville software developer and entrepreneur Josh Lewis in an email. “I knew most coworks lose money but I was confident I could get it to break even.”
While the project ultimately failed, it resulted in Lewis meeting the cofounder of his current venture – e-commerce firm DirtJockey – and he considers the experience a success, he said.
Another entrepreneur, Greg Cotton, originally planned to open a cowork in Taylors Mill, but shifted to a more affordable option, he said. His project WRK GRP instead targets creative professionals and weekend warriors with enclosed studio spaces that allow for both collaboration and – if necessary – solitude.
“What I’ve come to find is that people like to be part of a community … but they don’t want to be right next to the next guy,” said Cotton, who constructed 14 studios inside the mill and has plans for nine more.
The difference between WRK GRP and the average indoor strip mall, however, is the community within the space, he said. “It’s a coworking space with walls. I want the guy who just moved in to realize that the guy next to him could foster his business.”
Rather than building a cowork outright, Anderson entrepreneur Craig Kinley has plans to build his own demand for a cowork with the soon-to-be-launched incubator e-Merge @ The Garage. Coworks help support new business by providing low-cost, low-commitment space, but Kinley says he would need more than a dozen interested people to fill the space.
“When you come out of an incubator, you’re typically not ready to pay and sign for a three-year lease,” he said. Kinley plans to graduate four to eight new businesses from the incubator this year. “If I could find 10 or 15, it would be a no-brainer for me.”
Collaboration to keep costs down
The Upstate is home to a handful of co-located spaces, which include “traditional” coworks that offer desk space and conference rooms as well as co-location and membership-access concepts targeting creative work. The Printshop in Greenville provides access to printing equipment, while Project Hub in Spartanburg plans to give its members access to equipment that might otherwise be too expensive for individuals to purchase.
Another Greenville cowork, OpenWorks, was able to keep costs down by setting up shop in the unfinished space at the bottom of 2 N. Main St. downtown. Without the reduced rent and no long-term lease commitments, the downtown location wouldn’t have been possible, said Adam Gautsch, who manages OpenWorks with Logan Metcalfe.
OpenWorks will relocate in June to the Bank of America building on North Main, where they plan to offer both permanent and temporary desk options. While the new space is smaller, Metcalfe and Gautsch say the move will help OpenWorks build Greenville’s entrepreneurial community by being more visible.
“Allowing for places like OpenWorks, the Next Innovation Center, The Iron Yard is putting technology people out in the open,” Gautsch said. “There is business behind technology that has helped people realize that there is energy behind things beside real estate investing.”
