The Coworking Book A curated look at the history and business of coworking communities

This project, like IndyHall, is a labor of love, and something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. The unfortunate reality is that I work to pay my bills, and dedicating time to this project interferes with that.

In the fall of 2009 I met David Hauser, the founder and CEO of Grasshopper at LessConf in Jacksonville Florida. Allan Branch, one of the founders of LessConf, insisted that I speak with David about coworking.

I spent the next 2 hours in a very noisy bar talking (erm, yelling) about coworking with David, giving him my whole story and the lineage from whence and why we came.

David responded near the end, “this is great stuff Alex, is it written down anywhere?” My sheepish response is always the same, “Well, yes, but not in any singular concise resource”. “Why not?”, he asked, and I said, “well…it’d take a while, and I want to do it right, and I have bills to pay…and…” I trailed off.

Over the following 2 months, David and I exchanged a number of e-mails about his desire to found a coworking space in his community near Boston. He wanted to do things “our way”, and saw the value in a resource that would help him. Not just help him, but help others.

David’s, and transitively Grasshopper’s mission is to “empower entrepreneurs to succeed” and he see coworking as a piece of that puzzle. In January of 2010, David signed Grasshopper on as the initial sponsor of The Coworking Book, a resource to empower people to succeed at developing coworking communities and building coworking spaces into sustainable business resources. This initial sponsorship is the kick-start needed to clear some time, focus on research and organizing information, and compile initial drafts.

The ongoing development of this resource will need additional resources to cover its maintenance. I’ll be looking for additional sponsors over the coming months to aide me in dedicating my time to providing this otherwise free resource for the global coworking community. In the interest of “just getting started”, I’ve focused on getting the resource up with the initial sponsorship contribution. If you’re interested in being a sponsor, please contact me and we can talk.