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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

At $300 you're better off finding 1-2 other people and renting a small office together. Leasing an office is really not a big deal.

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I disagree, the networking benefits you get from a good coworking space more than make up for the cost.

This sounds suspiciously like the kind of thing people are inclined to tell themselves because hanging out with the geek crowd at a coworking space sounds more fun and more ego-gratifying than getting some bleak office somewhere. Starting a company gets bleak. Deal with it. It only gets bleaker if you don't.

If I wanted social contact, I'd (a) start or attend meetups, and (b) work out of a coffee shop or the library. I wouldn't pay a $100-$150/mo(!) premium for it.

$200/mo sounds like a decent price for this, though, especially if I wasn't super-committed to my company.

Plus, an office in Monadnock is hardly bleak. I was really surprised at how reasonable their rates for starting offices are.

And there are much cheaper office spaces in Chicago.

I'm really having trouble following your logic. Are you advocating working in a bleak environment just because it's cheaper? The implied contract of a place like this is a desire to interact with other professionals on a daily basis, that's very different from strangers at starbucks.

I would find this valuable if I was self employed. I'm the type of person who currently has the choice to work from home or the office every day, and 95% of the time I choose the office.

I don't know about other people, but I don't really care about the environment when I am working - be it coding or designing or researching. All I need from the envolironment is for it be quiet and have good lighting.

Yes. That is what I am advocating. Or, to hit my sentiment more precisely: I'm advocating not spending 50-75% more per month on working space simply for the benefit of hanging around like-minded people.

I'm not advocating avoiding like-minded people; that would be silly. I'm saying there are ways to get that benefit without shelling out cash for it, and, for that matter, the control and stability that comes from having a 6mo or 1yr lease instead of a month-to-month arrangement.

If it's so hard for you to get the networking and cross-pollination you need that you have to pay $150/mo(!) to get it, I have bad news about how hard it is to acquire customers, partners, and investors.

>some bleak office somewhere

An office is as bleak as you make it.

I hope it's obvious that I agree strongly with that. It'd be hard to imagine a bleaker space than we started out in (the unventilated warehouse attic of the Haymarket Square building in the West Loop). It was still fun to have a space.

Agreed. Plus, you need all the quiet time to focus and concentrate that you can get. I've found coworking spaces to be full of distractions. Spend your non-working time socializing/networking instead of your working time.

One thing that bothers me about coworking spaces is the "anti-office" mentality that assumes the world would be a better place without any kind of working privacy.

Working around other motivated, hard-working, intelligent, fun people is about a lot more than having warm bodies around so as not to be "bleak."

The amount of serendipity & opportunity that comes out of coworking - when the coworking community is run properly - is incredible.

I moved to Philadelphia from Vienna, Austria for the community at a coworking location (http://indyhall.org). It's not because I lacked for bodies.

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