With all kinds of names and designations from service offices to incubators, accelerators and coworking spaces, it’s important to understand the differences and characteristics that define each option to help you make an informed decision.
Coworking Spaces
Coworking spaces are office spaces with the community in mind, they are defined by their intention to create collaborative opportunities for their coworkers in the community. It is not just real estate office for rent, there must be a real and consistent effort to enhance the connections and interactions of the people in the space, and bring them that extra value that they don’t necessarily get in a traditional office space. FastCompany published a great article on the the benefits of coworking.
Executive Suites/Shared offices
A shared office or executive suite is simply office space and nothing else, there’s no added value from being in a network community and no one is actively engaged to create a community.
Hacker & Maker Spaces
In these spaces people with common interest come together to build things and share knowledge. These spaces are great places to learn and build projects but are not good places to work professionally, people use them to get access to machines for their projects and prototypes but don’t necessarily stay there working full time.
Accelerators
Accelerators work on fixed-terms usually for two to six months, taking applications from different start-ups and offering mentoring and educational benefits, an initial seed investment is made into the company in exchange for equity. Most accelerators offer office space but after their final pitch event they are usually turned over to make room for the next teams, after this their best optionfor them is to join a coworking space.
Incubators
Incubators are a company that helps new and start-up companies to develop by providing services such as management training or office space. Unlike accelerators the application process is not open to anyone, incubators do not serve any and all companies. Although most incubators offer office space and shared administrative services, the heart of a true business incubation program is the services and mentoring it provides to startup companies. They were an early step towards a more connected and shared business world, but have mostly ended up being just office space for rent.
Bars and Cafes
Not a workspace per se, but used by many as one. They are not designed for work, there are many inconveniences like noise, distractions and having to keep paying for coffee.
The Home
The cheapest option but not necessarily the most productive, working from home like on coffee shops comes with many different distractions, you might be inclined to take a nap or binge eating when these options are readily available, having pets or kids adds to the list of potential distractions, not to mention not having anyone to collaborate with.
Here’s a great infographic that compares working from home, at a cafe and in a coworking space:
