Weighing in on co-working

Tel Aviv / DPA

A young woman sits at a long wooden table in front of her laptop, headphones on, absorbed in her work.She’s got a single space in the sleek co-working office Mindspace, located in the centre of Tel Aviv.
The Israeli business has been very successful — its co-working office fills three storeys of two buildings on Rothschild Boulevard and the waiting list to rent a space is long.It’s now trying to spread its wings and enter other markets around the world, including Europe.
“For us, Germany is the gateway to Europe,” says co-founder YotamAlroy confidently.“We started in Berlin because the number of start-ups there make it an ideal environment for us,” he adds. “There’s lots of demand for open offices.”In the “start-up nation” of Israel, co-working offices are increasingly common.
Often they’re a mixture between cafe, library and modern office; Mindspace manages to exude elegance combined with cosiness all at the same time. But Mindspace has lots of competition, especially in Tel Aviv, a coastal metropolis.The biggest is WeWork, a US-based, international company whose founders include an Israeli, Adam Neumann.
He was inspired by the Israeli kibbutz, the kind of collective community unique to Israel
in which he himself grew up.Though co-working might be an idea which originally developed out of old-fashioned socialist ideas, it’s proving extremely lucrative in the modern world.
According to Forbes, Neumann is now worth 1.5 billion dollars, and WeWork has more than 50,000 members in more than 90 offices in 30 cities in
12 countries. The idea behind most co-working offices is similar: the renters are “members” and have access to services which go far and above a normal rental contract.
The main idea is that users can build new professional networks.“In a traditional office you usually only know people in your department,” says Alroy.At Mindspace Tel Aviv, there’s a “happy hour” every Thursday afternoon where people can make connections. Massages and even dating services are also part of the package.And members get to meet people from outside their own industries.“We have foreign firms, lawyers, graphic designers – not just start-up founders,” says Alroy.The concept is ideal for “small firms which are growing,” he adds.
At Mindspace, members can increase or decrease their office space month by month. “That’s good when a start-up doesn’t quite know where it’s going yet,” he says.One work space costs between 400 and 500 euros (445 and 556 dollars) monthly and members can choose between small offices with glass walls or open-plan offices.
And Alroy is very confident that his idea will take off abroad.“In Europe everybody’s much quieter [than in Israel] – they hardly disturb each other in an open-plan office.”