I like ideas. Others might say I need focus. So, here are some old ones cluttering my head. Ideas are free. Execution isn’t. Take my idea, let it live long and prosper in your capable hands. Tell me when you’ve brought it to fruition. I’ll be the first to promote it.
There is a huge market for a new kind of place to work. No one wants to work in offices, which are formal and rarely conducive to teamwork or creativity, and few people – after the first few months of it, really – like working at home either. It’s lonely and it’s expensive to set up right. So-called “third places” are going to be the new place for work, and if you start building your franchise now you could be very rich. Particularly because coffee shops are extremely uncomfortable to work in and the co-working movement is desperately slow, disorganized and revolves too much on schedules, membership and other red tape.
Besides, being an entrepreneur, you’ll want to make money. So here is what I would include in this new kind of coffee shop – something of a combination college library, hip office, and the corner coffee shop:
- Large monitors, ergonomic keyboards, and all the right cords, so that customers can just bring in their laptops and begin.
- Plugs and outlets that hang from the ceiling or are built into the table desks.
- Real table desks that don’t make it precarious to place a french soda next to a laptop, and ergonomic chairs.
- Copiers, faxes, printers, staplers, tape, paper, pens, and all the latest technology.
- Baristas that double as the Geek Squad if customers have IT issues.
- Private conference areas for companies to hold meetings in to impress clients and employees.
- Sofas, warmth, books and other comforts of home.
- Exposed brick walls and a library wall
- Really good food, wine, beer and all the regular coffee accouterments
Freelancers, designers and others will naturally make their way to your coffee shop because of the superior design. But you should also be the advocate for a new way of work and encourage stodgy companies to build new policies. The kind of policies that allow their employees to work at their company’s offices or in your coffee shop office which is going to be strategically placed within walking distance of all the young and established companies. The kind of policies that believe results are more important than physical presence. Where politics are kept to a minimum, and challenging work is the encouraged maximum.
Your coffee shop office should be the physical manifestation of how work can and should change. It should be more than a place, but a lifestyle for modern workers. None of these ideas are particuarly new or ingenious. But no one has executed on them and done it well. And no one has franchised the heck out of it. Maybe that could be you?
