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Poll: Coworking in the South Bay Area

3 points by chengmi ↗ HN
Poll Question: How much would you pay for a good workspace that's always open?

We're looking into starting a new kind of affordable cowork space in the Cupertino/San Jose/Sunnyvale/Mountain View area for students and pre-startups.

We're tired of getting kicked out of cafes at closing time, and wonder if anyone else feels the same way. Here are the things we would want in a good workspace:

  1. Big tables
  2. Wifi, power outlets
  3. Place to meet and talk
  4. Open long hours
  5. Whiteboards, printers, lockers, etc.
What else do you look for?

5 comments

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rms
$500 a month if you get some showers...
SwellJoe
I'm pretty sure they'd rather you not live there. (Not to say you wouldn't make a fine roommate, I just get the feeling they'd like you to leave occasionally so that others may co-work.)
aaroneous
I think co-working is really neat, so kudos on starting something up in the south bay. Adding to your list: Conference rooms and smaller break-out rooms are an important (and often overlooked) feature, communal fax & coffee machines are good additions, and the biggest place I see co-working spaces fail is in underestimating the bandwidth they need: a few people pushing around big files can saturate a line pretty quick.
SwellJoe
Careful with communal coffee machines. If not cleaned daily, coffee machines begin to reek. I mean, it's a truly disgusting smell. And communal stuff tends to get not much in the way of TLC...tragedy of the commons and all being what it is. Maybe if you put "Edit" and "Discussion" buttons above it, folks will take care of it...
SwellJoe
I may be an oddity, but it'd have to be walking distance--like in downtown Mountain View--for me, though being close to Caltrain would also work. I don't have a car, so it's pretty much guaranteed I would never go to the office if it weren't close.

But I'd probably enjoy having an office to go to a couple of days a week. I get a bit weird after a week of not really interacting with real people.