Given the competitive edge, and financial as well as managerial independence, we currently have about 57 million people working as freelancers, worldwide. While the numbers are still counting, these constitute closely 15 million individuals based out in India alone. Interestingly, many are fast turning into small enterprises by easily exchanging work without any hiccups in the scaling up process. The secret behind that is coworking and shared spaces have emerged quite conducive for several freelancers operating across the world, including India enabling them for staff augmentation and handshake models. To understand this phenomenon better, let’s first quickly look at the challenges freelancers face in terms of improving or sustaining a good growth trajectory:
Isolation and Impersonal Business
Work Schedule and Discipline
Most freelancers initially fall in the trap of working from home, and the entire experience turns out nerve-wracking for them. The key reasons for this are: whenever they have a client meeting needed, they either do not find anyone they could delegate their work to nor would they find a conducive and stable space for professional level meetings.
Freelancers can effectively share their workload through internal tie-ups with coworkers handling the same skillset. Also, coworking spaces allow them to host client meetings, without the need for stepping out to a coffee shop and break the workflow.
Work Schedule and Discipline
In the absence of dependability of work, freelancers end up managing everything on their own and hence, could often be seen procrastinating their work. This is how they miss several deadlines, and many times, they have too much on their plate altogether. That reduces their bandwidth and hence, the scope for better incomes.
Joining a shared space allows freelancers to remain among the community of professionals who inspire and influence them to stay disciplined. Also, sharing the workload becomes easier whenever required. This way, all individual players can still distinctively allocate their time for professional and personal work.
Business and Income Scale Up
Freelancers specialize in certain core skills and hence, they may be regarded for their mastery orientation. However, businesses are unpredictable and one may not find enough demand pumping in for their services consistently. In that case, they need to extend the scope of their services to ensure they get a consistent income and business inflow. However, handling as many skills and delivering efficiently may not be possible for them individually.
A majority of coworking spaces have freelancers specializing in various skills within the same industry or service category. That helps individual freelancers find people with associated skillset next to each other, and present them as a part of their extended team to the end client to draw more business.
This phenomenon seems to be common in various coworking spaces across India. Starthub Nation, the premier provider for coworking space in the Chandigarh region, hosts several similar stories too.
“As a startup, I came up with limited money so I had to invest it very wisely. So, I decided to go with a coworking space rather than a private office. This was the initial idea but soon, I realized the benefits are beyond just the costs. The community has been providing me with enough opportunities to grow my network, and build relationships. Here, I have access to various freelancers and companies to outsource my projects and enhance my business outreach,” said Mukesh Garg, CEO, Social Toads, operating at Starthub Nation’s Foothills center in Panchkula.
Vishal, Founder at Job Solutions, adds, “When I decided to start my venture, the first target was to get the right place with a good atmosphere, and my search ended at Starthub Nation. It is a great Coworking Space. A new concept that is bound to be loved by Workaholics. While I may be looking for leads outside, I never fall short of opportunities within the Starthub community. The queries keep on pumping in.”
“I’ve seen freelancers loving the way these spaces have been set up. They get the professionalism they expect and are often indulged in the collaborations within the space. Teams are operating here that were confined to single freelancers, until a year ago,” added Simranjeet Singh, Founder & Director – Starthub Nation.
Summing Up
Coworking spaces are serving a big boon for freelancers worldwide. The collaborations allow business scaling without the hassles of costly team expansions and liabilities of having in-house employees. As such, Starthub Nation is being lauded for fostering collaboration between multiple businesses and helping them grow. Learn more here.
If you would like to learn more about how the coworking ecosystem works or you’re looking for space, you can connect with us at hr@starthubnation.com.We would be glad if you have anything to add to the insights.
