Speak up, indie coworking brands!

We don’t hear enough from indie coworking brands.

If you only followed LinkedIn, you would think that Big Brand Coworking is the only coworking. With hundreds of locations, high rise buildings, deep-pocketed investors, and a global market segment.

But that picture completely overlooks what we all know: that indie coworking is the heart and soul—as well as a massive market segment—of coworking.

In 2018, JLL reported that the top 10 coworking operators control 34 percent of the market, which meant that 66 percent of the coworking market was controlled by smaller and indie brands.

I haven’t been able to find any updated data about these market breakdowns. If you know of fresh data about the percentage of small and indie brands in the overall coworking market, please send it my way.

How to raise awareness of your indie coworking brand

But I do know that indies are wildly underestimated and underrepresented in conversations about coworking. And that’s not going to change anytime soon—unless we change it.

So here are ten things you can do to raise awareness of your indie coworking brand, and, in doing so, raise awareness of all indie coworking brands.

1. Share your origin story on your website and across your channels.

2. Share your “why” everywhere and frequently.

3. Share hyper-local wins coming out of your space(s) and community.

4. Share the advantages of being an indie coworking brand. Sarah Travers from Workbar did an outstanding job of this on LinkedIn.

5. Reach out to local publications and media outlets with a strong and compelling story angle about your space, purpose, impact and community.

6. Stress the importance of local dollars staying local rather than being siphoned across the country or world.

7. Be vocal about your indie nature on all your channels. The way to compete with Big Brand Coworking is to not compete at all. You are different and better. So be different and better out loud.

8. Dig deep into your local community with your programming, messaging and content. A huge unfair advantage you have over Big Brand Coworking is that you are nimble, flexible, responsive, and deeply rooted locally.

9. Don’t try to be something you’re not. Lean in to who you are, who you serve, and why.

10. And remember: We members aren’t looking for the biggest, shiniest, smartest space. We’re looking for the space that feels like our home away from home, gives us a sense of belonging, and helps us level-up our work and ourselves.

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