Can't Afford an Office? Rent a Desk for $275

By EMILY GLAZER

Originally Published on WSJ.com

Forget privacy. Shared workspaces are the latest trend in office space.

The offices, set up in a variety of ways but emphasizing open space and the ability to rent a single desk, are also known as co-working spaces. Such offices have long been popular with technology start-ups in the San Francisco Bay Area looking for cheap space, but as the latest tech wave rises, shared workspaces are popping up in cities around the country.

Besides the cost advantages, entrepreneurs in technology and other fields say they like co-working spaces because their open floor plans boost collaboration, offer more flexibility on leases and can even help land investors.

"Nowadays with the shared workspaces you don't need to buy furniture, you don't need to set up Internet, you don't need to sign a long-term lease," said Saeed Amidi, founder and chief executive of Plug and Play Tech Center, a co-working space in Sunnyvale, Calif., with about 1,000 workers. "You can just get started... within two hours of walking in."

Workers share deskspace at General Assembly, a New York co-working space that opened in January.

Plug and Play is exploring expansion to Pittsburgh, Chicago, San Diego, Denver and Vancouver, said Mr. Amidi.

Meanwhile, reserved desks at General Assembly, a new 20,000 square foot co-working space and educational center that opened this past January in New York, are filled, according to the company.

Investors are also showing some interest. General Assembly said last month it raised $4.25 million from Yuri Milner of investment firm DST Global, and venture firms affiliated with Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos and Starbucks Corp. founder Howard Schultz.

Loosecubes, a start-up that has created an online marketplace for office sharing, lists more than 2,300 spaces across almost 500 cities and 60 countries, and claims 7,000 registered users. Last year, it raised $1.23 million led by prominent venture capital firms Accel Partners and Battery Ventures.

Office spaces amenable to co-sharing are proving to be more popular and lucrative than traditional Dilbert-like offices both for established companies looking to change their atmospheres and companies hosting the spaces for start-ups. The total vacancy for a "creative" space with open floor plans ideal for co-working was 2.54% in San Francisco in July, and the asking rent ranged from $32 to $53 per square foot per year. Meanwhile, more "historical" spaces with closed-door offices that lack open space had a total vacancy of 10.55%, while the asking rent ranged from $21 to $36 per square foot per year, according to commercial listing broker The CAC Group.

The Pitfalls of a Job Without a Desk

Owners of stodgier office spaces are tearing up their floor plans to chase the market. Earlier this year, a building at 115 Sansome St., in downtown San Francisco, started remodeling for a more flexible layout to appeal to high-tech start-ups.

"We are transforming this project because we think we will achieve greater demand for the space as well as higher rents than could be attained by maintaining the traditional office space," says John Winther, founder and managing partner of Emeryville, Calif.-based Harvest Properties, which is leasing the building.

Other spaces, like the roughly 12,000 square-foot Launchpad in New Orleans, help entrepreneurs by housing service providers that can help expand their business. Launchpad, which is popular with "techies" and creative types such as filmmakers, has expanded twice since its June 2009 opening.

Common workspaces are spurring innovation and providing start-ups with the collaborative atmosphere one might find in academic settings, but with more opportunity for venture capital. WSJ's Andy Jordan reports from New York's "General Assembly".

Workers pay $650 to $1,600 per month for a closed-door office, $450 per month for a permanent desk, file cabinet and personal landline and $275 per month for any available desk. The space can handle 70 companies and up to 170 people.

"If you need your LLC started, there's a lawyer upstairs; if you want to get your books down, there's an accountant right there; if you want a commercial start on the Web, there's a filmmaker in house," said Co-founder Barre Tanguis. "We've done a lot to nurture that and deliberately curate so we have the right people around and the right dynamic."

Collaboration is another part of the appeal of sharing space. Software firm Atlassian lets start-up Odiago use its space for free. In return, Odiago engineers offer Atlassian their expertise in open source software. "It's a full on win-win," said Jay Simons, Atlassian's president. "We take our people and basically embed them in [Odiago's] team.... the best way to learn is to sit next to each other."

The emphasis on learning has been such a draw at some workspaces that they organize workshops or demonstrations of the latest technologies. General Assembly hosts lectures regularly in addition to events such as a recent start-up demo night. Its layout includes a communal area with large, cushioned couches and industrial wooden tables in addition to breakout rooms, small phone booths or even cocoon-type seating for privacy.

Since the action is growing at co-working spaces, investors are also hanging out there more. At Plug and Play, angel investors, including Sand Hill Angels, Band of Angels and The Angels' Forum, typically visit every Monday afternoon to review the business plans of start-ups. More established venture capitalists including Sequoia, Menlo Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners, typically drop by every other month for deal reviews, Plug And Play's Mr. Amidi said.

Click here to view the original article on WSJ.com.

Thanks for Joining Us!

Thanks for making last Thursday's LMN LA event at The Gamble House a success!

We had a great time at last Thursday's social and want to thank everyone that was involved.

Congratulations to David McKinney for winning both a Starbucks gift card and the CORT prize bag with a Cheesecake Factory gift card. Congrats to Chris Davis for taking home a Macy's gift card and to Jenny Ahn and Rebecca Hodgers who both took home Starbucks gift cards.

Pictures from the event can be viewed on CDR-Data's Facebook page.

Once again, we'd like to thank all of our sponsors for helping us put on this event.

Thanks to CORT Furniture, DaVinci Virtual Office Solutions and CDR-Data for helping with the expenses and providing the great prizes. 

Thanks again and we look forward to seeing everyone again in the fall!

Join Us at OBCAI's LMN LA August Social!

Join us at our social on the back lawn of the historic Gamble House in Pasadena on the 18th of August. Wine and cheese will be served at 5:30 followed by a meeting and discussion. Fantastic door prizes will be raffled off after the meeting. Topic for discussion will be announced soon.

Carolina Rendeiro, President of the OBCAI, will be making the trip all the way from Florida to attend our LMN LA event. She'll be able to give us a glimpse on the upcoming goals and objectives she has for the future of the OBCAI. She'll also be able to answer any questions you may have about the upcoming OBCAI conference.

$20 per person.

Thanks to CDR-Data and CORT Furniture for sponsoring the door prizes.

Plenty of free parking in lot and surrounding streets.



For more information on the Gamble House, visit their website at http://www.gamblehouse.org/

RSVP on evite today!

A Message From MorningStar Software's President, Tom Hurt

MorningStar draws on its 20 years of success in developing management software for the North American OBC industry to offer a comprehensive collection of features to OBC clients around the world. From tracking marketing and sales information to fully integrated efficient invoicing, MorningStar’s seamless interface with your CDRData service, printers, fax machines, scanners, and phone systems ensures that every cost is accounted for and translates into profit instead of loss.

MorningStar offers several services to save your clients money and create additional income for you. For example, through MorningStar you can receive up to a 45% FedEx discount. MorningStar clients can also benefit from significant savings on their customers' credit card transactions. Plus our integrated credit card processing allows you to just click on a system link once a month to process all of your credit card customers.

Your custom portal provides online convenience your customers will appreciate including: requesting service, reserving conference rooms, paying invoices and reviewing their account history.

Thomas Hurt

MorningStar Software

281-890-8469

CDR-Data to Continue Telecom Billing for Celebration Corporate Center

CDR-Data is pleased to extend their partnership handling the telecom billing for Celebration Corporate Center. For over three years, CDR-Data has been assisting the luxury office center with managing their telecommunications and expanding their revenue. With Celebration Corporate Center’s various tenants receiving building access 24 hours a day, the many phone calls made to and by tenants can be difficult to manage. CDR-Data simplifies the process and consolidates every call into clear and precise reports, which allows Celebration Corporate Center to profit while focusing on providing their tenants with office space tailored to their specific needs and budget.

As the first and only town to be developed by The Walt Disney Company, Celebration and its unmatched standards are perfectly suited for the 50-suite office center. With their upscale executive suites, conference rooms, waiting areas and an executive lounge, Celebration Corporate Center has an office prepared for businesses of various sizes. Celebration Corporate Center’s location in Osceola County, Florida also provides their tenants the ability to be surrounded by a quaint, small town with downtown Orlando only 30 minutes away. CDR-Data is proud to assist the office center with their telecommunications as Celebration Corporate Center continues to expand and become a key provider of office space in Southern Florida.

About CDR-Data Corporation

CDR-Data Corporation, based in Pasadena CA, <http://www.cdrdata.com/> consists of a group of professionals with decades of experience in the telemanagement, call accounting and IT industry. By using an ASP environment, this team has consistently delivered proven products and services that provide answers to management's questions of telecommunications usage and billing. CDR-Data has gained its market share by consistently delivering high quality and flexible solutions to each and every CDR-Data client.

About Celebration Corporate Center

We’ve made the investment, so you don’t have to.  At Celebration Corporate Center, <http://celebrationcorporatecenter.com>, we have compiled the latest technological advances in office equipment, telephone services and internet capabilities.  We then combined them with top notch service delivered by professional multilingual office technicians and receptionists.  To top it all off, we have created an upscale Executive Lounge, state of the art conference rooms, and elegant waiting areas.  We assure you that you will be impressed, and we guarantee that your clients, customers and business associates will be equally impressed. In business, Image Is Everything, and perception is often reality, let us provide you with the image you deserve at a price you can afford.

For More information:

CDR-Data Corporation                                           Michelle Chin            626-791-7900

Celebration Corporate Center                               Christen Smith           407-566-2000

####

Seven Tips on How to Make Working From Home Work For You

Working from home has become a common alternative for many people who want the flexibility of not having to trek to the office on a daily basis. But with the conveniences, there are also extra struggles that a person working from home may encounter. Lori Spiess, owner of VirtualOffiCenters and OffiCenters in Minneapolis, has learned many fundamental home-office tips while working with small business for nearly 30 years. To read her seven tips on how to make working from home work for you, click the link to read her article on http://www.newbizminn.com/Office%20Space.html.

Thanks for a great conference to everyone involved with GMIS!

Sunny Santa Fe was beautiful at this year's GMIS and the conference was a great success. We had a great time meeting with IT professionals from all over the country and learned a lot about the industry.

Congratulations to Paul Nelson from the City of Clovis, NM and to Elaine Isler from the City of Mobile, AL for winning CDR-Data's raffle. Both took home Starbucks gift cards for $100.

We look forward to seeing you all again in August 2012 in Chicago, Illinois.

Click here to view pictures of the event on CDR-Data's Facebook page.