I spent yesterday working under the Manhattan Bridge in DUMBO, Brooklyn. No, you didn’t misread that. Loosecubes hosted an outdoor coworking space and I decided to check it out. They had free wifi, amazing food vendors and a nice mix of people. If you’re a freelancer looking for a nice non-coffee shop place to work, Loosecubes is the place to go. They’re an online community made up of offices with extra workspaces and freelancers looking to crash for a day.
Working hard under the Archway
I have the luxury of working in a beautiful loft in Soho but I have to admit, it was nice to spend the day working outside and get a change of scenery. I sat down with Kevin Swett and Anthony Marinos from Loosecubes (their official titles are Commander Awesome and Captain Awesome) and talked about the benefits of using a coworking space. Why is it, say, better than working from home? “Well, it gets you out of the house, so you’re not by yourself,” said Kevin. “There’s a lot of synergy when you’re working with other people. A lot of people have a hard time focusing when they’re working from home. Getting into a coworking space is a great way to refresh your work day and get some different energy into your work.” Anthony added, “In a coworking space, people are more likely to collaborate, talk to each other and see if there are any resources they can share to build stronger businesses.”
Another great thing about Loosecubes is that the company profile pages show you which offices are hiring. This is good news for those of you who are looking for work. Anthony said that a lot of people use the site for job hunting. It’s a great way for a company and a prospective employee to test each other out. “One of our hosts, Flavorpill, had their Loosecubes profile linked from their jobs page and told people that if they were interested in working there, to book a space through us,” said Anthony. “They ended up hiring some people through Loosecubes so that’s definitely happening. It’s a great way to meet the right types of people for your company.”
What are other people saying about coworking spaces? They’re not just for freelancers! ReadWriteWeb interviewed Harry Lin, former Vice President of ABC.com, who spent the first 6 weeks of his new startup in a developers coworking space. “The reason it was fantastic is that it’s a room full of 25 top notch Ruby on Rails developers. We were only paying for two of them in our engagement, but there were the other 23 sitting in that room working on various things,” he said. “We would come up with a problem or a hurdle we couldn’t get over and we would just shout out, ‘Hey has anyone ever done this with a library?’ and some guy would jump up and say, ‘Yeah, I’ve done that!’ Voila! Problem solved.”
On Quora, Andy Hillman says coworking spaces are a great way to build a relationship with someone before officially working with them. In other words, you get to try before you buy. What’s better than that?
Some Loosecubes/BestVendor sticker love.
The Loosecubes outdoor pop-up will be happening every Thursday this month under the Archway of the Manhattan Bridge so be sure to check it out. You have to book a space through the event page. If you need a Loosecubes invite, you might be in luck. I have a few invites left on my account and I’m happy to share. Email me and I’ll try to help you out. Don’t live in the New York area? No sweat! Put your zipcode into Loosecubes’ search bar and see if there are any hosts near you. Also, be sure to check out the top coworking spaces and networks on BestVendor.
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