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Four Questions With Gerard Sychay of Cincinnati Coworks

Author: @GoneCoworking is the adventure of Beth and Eric, two crazy kids traveling the country to prove that it really is possible to be a location independent freelancer! The coworking community provides a unique opportunity for traveling telecommuters/freelancers/business owners to have a professional workspace and remain connected with their peers while away from home. Here’s an inside look at some of the coworking people and spaces we’ve met along the way!

Chatting with Gerard of Cincinnati Coworks

GC: How were you first introduced to the concept of coworking?

Gerard: Honestly, I don’t remember at this point. I knew about coworking for the longest time, but I mistakenly defined it as rented office space. When I had the glimmer of a wink of a thought about opening one I started digging deeper and realized that coworking was very different from office suites.

GC: What are the benefits/challenges of coworking?

Gerard: I like to tell people that coworking offers self-employed workers all the benefits of working in an office, and none of the bad stuff. That is, you get to chat with colleagues, go to lunch with them, but nobody answers to anyone, so there is no boss, no politics.

The primary challenge with coworking is really the working environment. Working in an open space, next to one another, is not for everyone. Working in a dusty loft, with second-hand furniture is not for everyone.

GC: What sets Cincy Coworks apart from other facilities a traveling freelancer might visit?

Gerard: If you are a freelancer and work in Cincy Coworks you will be working right next to someone who is at least somewhat like-minded. Our current space is too small to avoid this.

There are plenty of office suites in town. Even better, market rates are so low right now, that you could get your own office for cheap. But you won’t talk to anyone and you will work alone. And if you work alone, why not just stay working at home?

GC: I love how part of your slogan is “not just for working.” What other benefits does coworking provide for entrepreneurs/freelancers that an office suite can’t?

Gerard: In addition to the benefits above, we are located in an up-and-coming neighborhood with a coffeeshop, an Asian restaurant, an organic market and deli, all within a couple blocks.

We’d like to hold more evening and weekend events and encourage our members to hold events, but this is a work in progress.

Check out this cool video for a sneak pick into life at Cincy Coworks!

If you’re in the Cincinnati area, and are looking for a place to cowork, you’ll be please to know that Cincy Coworks is a proud member of the Coworking Visa program, and are happy to welcome drop in visitors any time they’re open. Follow @cincycoworks on Twitter, or head over to www.cincycoworks.com to learn more!

#financefriday: Rate Setting

Normally a superhero dons a cape and mask before saving someone. Today, Greg Fuhrman arrived at Cohere Coworking Community in relatively inconspicuous attire: a blazer. Greg is a “freelance Chief Financial Officer.” I’ve given him that title because he works p/t or interim for small and growing companies that need a little CFO love.

Greg taught us what a CFO’s role is, why we might want a CFO’s help, how to set and raise rates, adding employees and tips and tricks for securing venture capital! Yep, all that in just one hour at #frankfriday today.

Today’s financial focus will be on RATES. How much are you charging and is it enough?

Never undersell yourself.
Longer projects can be at a lower rate in return for the security of a long term contract.
Urgent projects demand a premium rate, sometimes double what you normally charge. If a company expects you to drop everything for them, it’s going to cost ’em!
Measure yourself against your peers. Your peers are people in the same industry with similar experience.
What seems like a lot of money to you may not phase a company with deep pockets.
You should not be charging less than $50-60 per hour. Yep, you read that right.
Know what your minimum dollar amount to survive is and work backwards from that number factoring in how many billable hours/month or week you can tolerate as a creative. (Angel’s note: I’ve noticed that many technically creative people can only produce high quality work for about 5 hours/day. This 5 hours/day is in addition to the more functional parts of freelance like billing, writing proposals and catching up on twitter).
When setting your rate, factor in taxes, retirement, insurance and the cost of doing business in your field. What software or equipment do you have to keep up to date?
Get off on the right foot with a new client by telling them your normal rate and then discounting their project. “My normal rate is $120/hour but I can do $100/hour since this is a large project.”

In summary, you probably aren’t charging enough. What could you accomplish if you doubled your rates and worked half as many hours? Marinate on that and tune in later this week for Greg’s advice on how to raise your rates.

Contact Greg (gregory@fuhrmanconsulting [dot] com) if your business needs an interim CFO, business planning or a long-term strategy.

Entrepreneurial Amnesia

Bringing coworking to nearby Loveland, Colorado has been an adventure. We’ve roved around looking for fast, reliable and secure internet. We’ve picked up shop and moved mid day for greener pastures. We’ve celebrated milestones and then suffered disappointment when things didn’t work out after all. I’ve asked myself several times if I can really do *this* again. Can I?

It seems like a hundred years ago when the Fort Collins crew was crammed into that reception area at RMI2 for free coworking. I have to think hard to remember how every Tuesday morning I would arrive twitter-pated to start the day and explore the concept of coworking with my new little circle of friends. I’d drag tables and chairs together and arrange them in some sort of semblance of a “real office” and then wait for the first freelancers to start arriving. We did this for just 5 weeks. Five weeks was all it took to grow a little community of coworking addicts in Old Town. 6 weeks after that Cohere opened. Ah, Cohere. Our (near) perfect little slice of historic Old Town with exposed brick, original hardwood floors, sunlight everywhere, sweet high back chairs and fun furniture. Comfort. Bliss. Sweet productivity and calm all at once. Hasn’t it always been this way?

Flash to today: in the back room of Dazbog in downtown Loveland. Four freelancers, 8 cups of coffee and the weirdest collection of music playing over the loud speaker (think The Beatles, funk and Bruce Springstein together at last). Don’t misunderstand me. Dazbog has been great. The owner has been flexible and helpful (the free snacks didn’t hurt)! But we’re in a coffee shop. You’ve all heard me talk about the horrors of freelancing from coffee shops and yet here we are again. We’ve found about the best possible coffee shop situation. To have a private room with a door, windows and a caffeine source 12 steps away is really, truly delightful.

I have to keep reminding myself that our beginnings in Fort Collins really were humble and not the perfect, flourishing community that we are today. Remember dragging those tables around? I mean, really dragging that stuff from the way back of the building? Remember those not so comfy plastic chairs? How about trading off and on for power with the only outlet? Remember that? What about the day we browned out the internet connection because there were 14 of us in a room built for 6 on an internet connection that was probably meant for 4?

In discussing the current coworking situation in Loveland today, we realized that the reason the U.S. economy needs entrepreneurs is because entrepreneurs can’t remember what it was like to start the first business. Much like child birth (or so I’ve heard), I just can’t remember if or how much pain there was when I started Cohere Fort Collins. I can remember the facts of having to move furniture back and forth but I don’t really remember the irritation or exhaustion of it all. I remember having a hundred things to do each day but I have no idea what I was feeling other than excitement. I think that this is the ONLY reason that entrepreneurs carry on. We take the risks, we take the plunge, and we’re never, ever looking over our shoulders into the past to remember how it was the last time. We just can’t remember the pain.

So we lost our free internet connection in Loveland today and will remain in the coffee shop for many more weeks. So we’ll be cold and need to wear jackets while we cowork. So we’ll be distracted by the weird music playing. So what? The most important part about coworking is being together. Just being together. We did it at RMI2, we’ll do it at Dazbog and we’ll keep doing it until we crash their internet and use up all of their chairs!

Sure, I don’t really remember the pain of starting Cohere the first time around. I’m sure to forget the little quirks that Loveland has held so far. But when we open in Denver next year, I’ll be just as excited and just as blissfully unaware of the past points of pain as I am today.