I was a founder and operator of the Los Angeles free co-working space DropLabs. We lasted for 3 years before closing out of lack of interest. We never intended anything other than a free place for geeks to collect and work. We had events in the evenings, which were fairly popular. Having multiple partners with graduate business degrees, we chose not to incorporate, we just rented a space and called it "Droplabs" (why invite the taxman?)

However, our location was near downtown, and the 20-something geeks were both afraid of downtown and would rather pay $40-$60+ per day to have a chair in a WeWork space in Hollywood or Santa Monica. It did not make sense, so I tried spending a week at each of the more popular co-working spaces, and learned they were not occupied by geeks or "real" startup people, but wealthy 20-somethings playing a startup game, dating one another, and with zero serious intent other than wasting their parent's money.

I learned to be a success as a co-working space, one needed to create a "dating safe play pit" for white wealthy 20-somethings. I have zero interest in that.