Richard Bliss and Trevor Smith had been working as self-contracted web developers when they decided to found their own Internet startup company, Impressure. Wanting to save money on overhead costs while they got their business moving, Bliss discovered that staying at home to work wasn’t the answer.
Richard Bliss and Trevor Smith had been working as self-contracted web developers when they decided to found their own Internet startup company, Impressure. Wanting to save money on overhead costs while they got their business moving, Bliss discovered that staying at home to work wasn’t the answer.
“At home, I have a lot of distractions,” he said, “And when you’re working at home a lot, you never quite separate your home life from your work life.”
Instead, they found success with a coworking space at Work Hive in downtown Salt Lake City. Work Hive, like many other coworking spaces provides a communal workspace — with an option for a private office — for various clients from different industries. It also includes shared amenities, such as Internet, copy machines, printers, conference rooms and coffee.
Among the advantages for Bliss and Smith in using a coworking space is saving $800 monthly, compared to an executive suite they rented at Regus Salt Lake City, and networking with interesting people, according to Smith.
Coworking space is a concept that many locals have become familiar with only recently.
“The first year when we had people call and ask about coworking, I always knew that they were calling from out of state, because people in Utah didn’t know the word ‘coworking,’” said Mark Morris, co-founder of Work Hive. “But in the last year or so, since some of the other coworking spaces have opened, I’ve noticed that that word is a little more well-known by small businesses or people that come in.”
According to a report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 40 percent of the U.S. workforce will be freelancers, temps, independent contractors and entrepreneurs by the year 2020 — likely increasing the legitimacy and familiarity of coworking spaces.
Morris said his goal at Work Hive is to help small businesses and freelancers, and based on demand, it seems he has succeeded. The Work Hive has doubled its office space every eight months for the past three years, according to Morris. The facility now has two offices housing 40 workstations.
“The time and capital it takes to set up their own office is particularly expensive, and if you’re a startup or small business, you don’t really know. … You don’t want to sign a year-long lease or don’t have a lot of time to look for an office space,” he said.
Another coworking space in downtown Salt Lake City that emphasizes flexibility is Holodeck by DeskHub.
“What we offer is the ability on a very low end to come and just work for the day between the hours of 9-to-5, with just a laptop. Then we have plans that start scaling up to having your own desk,” said co-founder, Dan Might, who added that clients can get a membership to access the office 24/7.
“It’s yours everyday. You can leave your own monitor at it, you can put those desks together with a team, so that if you’re a growing team, you can all work next to each other, and then, all the way up to a private office, if you want a team room. It comes with a closed door and everything like that, if that is what you need.”
Might emphasized that coworking makes sense financially for companies that are no more than 15 to 20 people because “there is a break-even in there.”
Holodeck’s success so far has resulted in being acquired by Desk Hub, which has a network of five coworking spaces — Salt Lake City and Portland; San Diego; Scottsdale, Arizona; and Atlanta.
Although some coworking spaces are geared to high-tech gurus, millennials and startups in their early stages, My Business Bar is a hybrid. It includes executive suites and caters to women — although 50 percent of the clients are men — and second-stage business owners.
“We really foster an environment for women and business,” founder Kathryn Christiansen said. “We want it to be a safe place, our design, our plan, our meeting space. It’s all really geared towards more of a women-owned business owner.”
Christiansen regularly hosts events, seminars and training for women in a large conference space at My Business Bar.
Although coworking spaces in Salt Lake City were rare when Christiansen opened My Business Bar in 2012, she is content to see the idea has recently taken off.
“These other locations have been popping up around SLC, which is fantastic for me because it’s just adding credibility to the concept that I believed in so long ago,” she said.
Christiansen believes the concept will continue to grow because of a growing younger workforce.
“They have a different frame of mind, a different ideal,” she said. “You see these other concepts that feed off of that sharing economy, like Uber and GreenBike. Coworking kind of fits into that same niche.”
Ian Shelledy, co-founder and executive director at Sustainable Startups, a local nonprofit organization that helps support startups and also offers coworking space, has his own reservations on whether the coworking space model will continue to grow here.
“Coworking took off in San Francisco, New York and places like that. One reason is because they are very dense and real estate values are very high, and that is a lot of what makes coworking make sense financially,” he said.
“And, we don’t quite have those prices or that density, so I’m curious to see if it will continue to grow here. I hope it does, but that’s definitely a question, I think.”