Alex Hillman on Coworking That Works & The 10K Independents Project

[01:40] Paul: Today I'm having a conversation with Alex Hillman, who is the founder of Indy Hall, one of the longest running coworking communities in the world in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His personal mission is to help people become truly excellent collaborators so they can work better together. Love the mission. I'm excited to dig into everything you're working on. Welcome to the podcast, Alex.

[02:06] Coworking That Works: Thanks for having me, Paul.

[02:08] Paul: So it seems that something that might describe you is a word that I love, generosity. And you seem to be very generous with your time. You're very quick responding when I reached out. You're generous with your thoughts, your ideas, helping the coworking movement. Where does all this spirit of generosity come from?

[02:30] Coworking That Works: It's a really good question. I mean, my immediate reaction is I don't know another way. And obviously I know another way. I mean, I guess if I peel it back a little bit, I think some of it is a response to people who were generous with me early in my career. A couple of names come to mind in particular, Tara Hunt and Chris Messina. Tara is a, and has been sort of a luminary in the online marketing world, in not digital marketing specifically, but thinking about online spaces, online communities, and sort of the way people gather around ideas and brands and things like that.

And her and Chris Messina, who is probably most famous for inventing the hashtag, which is an interesting credential to be able to tout, the two of them ran an agency in San Francisco called Citizen Agency that I came across early in my freelance career as a web developer.

And I remember reading some of their blog posts and essays and talks, and they were working with a lot of Silicon Valley, Bay Area companies and sort of talking about this notion, this idea that encouraged companies and organizations to, if they cared about the people who they were trying to bring together and gather in— I don't want to say an authentic way, because the word authentic sounds so trite now— but to actually care, to be generous, sort of the more you give, the more you get, but only if you give to give, not to get, which is a complicated thing to try and teach a lot of, especially, you know, bigger corporations. But the thing that I remember the most from reading what they wrote and listening to their talks was they were saying the things that I thought but was too afraid to say out loud.

And a lot of that came down to sort of an intrinsic belief that I have is that, you know, business does not need to be about transactions. Obviously, business requires transactions in order to continue to grow and thrive. But for me, business is not about the transaction. The transaction is the result of getting everything else right. And they were articulating that in such an interesting and powerful way. And they weren't being strung up in the town square about it.

And if anything, businesses were flocking to them to say, teach me how this works. Teach me how to build communities. Teach me how to really understand who who our clients are, who our communities are. And not only that, but they were really generous with me as a fresh freelancer who was eager to learn and eager to try. And I feel like they— I owe a lot of my career to those early experiences with them. And I think a lot of my approach to generosity in my professional life really stems from that realization as other people gave to me.

I think it only makes sense to give where I can. And in every scenario that I can think of where I've had a challenge in my life, it's the people who in the past, perhaps I had an opportunity to be generous to them, with them, with no expectations. And those are the people that when you need them most are the ones who are going to turn around and help you out. So I think a lot of it comes down to that fundamental belief of my approach to business, which is it's all about the people, it's all about the relationships and the relationships track so much more importantly than the transactions. So focusing on those relationships is kind of what makes everything tick.

[06:40] Paul: That's an amazing early experience. It's so ingrained in so many people in the business world and they'll listen to what you just said and say, Well, yes, but bottom line, right? And I think that the challenge with that, and you write about this when you're talking about coworking business models, is you present two options, right? You start with the business model, you start with finding your first 10 people, and it's a completely different mindset, right? At the beginning.

[07:09] Coworking That Works: Yeah. Yeah. And not only that, but it's, you know, I think it's a matter of where your attention is. For me, I can't imagine figuring out a business model if I don't deeply understand the people who I'm trying to serve. That's another part of it, I think, is when you think about generosity, another word that sometimes comes up is service. And a business's job is to serve a customer.

And if you don't understand the customer, if you don't deeply connect, not that you need to spend your life with that customer, but you really need to understand the customer in order to understand how you can help them and what their priorities are and what they pay for and how they prefer to pay for it. And the more you can understand all of those things, that's where the business model comes from, from that understanding. So yeah, it's an inversion of a lot of what we see in sort of business media and sort of startup culture and things like that is, you know, come up with an idea and then figure out who wants it. That never made sense to me, even in my, you know, being attracted to, you know, technology and apps and even having the skills to build them.

I always sort of saw it for myself, the difference between— there's the opportunities to sort of build and tinker, And it might resonate with somebody, but I'm lucky if it does. Whereas I can be strategic and choose a group of people who I have some connection to, the opportunity to build some relationship with, and the presence to build an understanding of. And if I do that, the result will be I will understand their problems as well or better than they do. And then from there, I can turn those problems into business opportunities. And that's has really been my entire career.

[09:13] Paul: And you were in a good position when you started your coworking space because you were scratching your own itch and trying to create a space that solved your own needs at the time.

[09:24] Coworking That Works: That's true. That's true. Well, it's true. That's true and not at the same time. The itch that I was scratching wasn't that I needed a space. It was that I did not know where my other people were.

I didn't know who the other freelancers and entrepreneurs in the city of Philadelphia were. And it stood to reason that there were others, but I had no idea where on earth I would find them. And so the goal was not to create a place. The goal was just to find those people. Once I found them, spent time with them, I started understanding, oh wait, there are some patterns here. And the club eventually was all but asking for the clubhouse.

So I think that's an important distinction and tracks with everything we've been talking about so far, that my goal wasn't, and frankly, to this day, if I could do what I do without being responsible for physical space, I'm always thinking about what the next generation of this looks like. And ultimately the worst part of running a coworking space is the space. Right.

[10:33] Paul: The responsibility for the real estate.

[10:36] Coworking That Works: It sucks.

[10:39] Paul: So in many senses though, it sounds like you're still running a clubhouse.

[10:45] Coworking That Works: Yes. Yes. That's very true.

[10:47] Paul: That's amazing. And how have you ended up there? And so many people have ended up creating occupancy-based businesses as you call it.

[10:59] Coworking That Works: Boy, that's a real good question, Paul. So one of the things that has been interesting—

[11:06] Paul: Maybe we back up a bit and just kind of lay the groundwork of what kind of space you have. And it might even be helpful just to give like a brief 60-second intro in terms of what's happened with the coworking space, because I think a lot has changed in the last 10 years.

[11:27] Coworking That Works: Absolutely. So when, when we started down this path, there were not a lot of other options to look at. There were maybe a half a dozen people doing something called coworking in the United States and a few more around the world, and most of them knew each other having identified with this word coworking. And I was introduced to it by that, the duo I mentioned earlier, Kristin Sina and Tara Hunt. They actually started one of the first dedicated spaces in the Bay Area called— I mentioned the Citizen Agency, they created Citizen Space. I saw them create Citizen Space and saw how it could be an inspiration in many ways for the problem that I was seeing here in my own region.

And so like I said, it was the club, clubhouse model. The other part of what we developed, we were one of the first spaces that actually had a membership model. Every other space before us was either a co-op of some sort, which is super cool. I think co-ops are incredible models. It didn't quite fit right for what we wanted to accomplish. And then the other version is like what Citizen Agency was, which was effectively an agency subsidization.

So what I— I didn't have an agency to subsidize the space that people were asking for, and so we had to come up with a direct membership model. which is roughly what the vast majority of coworking spaces in the world appear to use today. The really important thing about the way Andy Hall was developed though, and this sort of clubhouse model that we've been talking about, is the creation of the physical place, which is now— we're entering into our 13th year. We've moved locations a couple of times, we've expanded a number of times. We are like 8 to 10 times bigger than we were when we first started. Now, the thing that has been consistent from the very beginning is the creation process is A, ongoing, and B, collaborative, in that anything that is good at Indie Hall is there because members helped create it or entirely created it.

The original space was more like a barn-raising process than the opening of an office or a facility. And even the word facility kind of makes me itch 'Cause I don't think that a facility feels very, not just transactional, but it feels very static. Like I created this for you. And I didn't create Indie Hall for anybody. I created Indie Hall with a group of people. And we continue to this day to create and recreate the environment at Indie Hall, both in the microscale and the macroscale with our members, not for our members.

And I think that's where the split you're talking about happens. Happens where somewhere along the line, the serviced office industry, the business center industry, and the workspace industry and the real estate industry came along, saw what we were up to, and went through sort of the typical arc of, you know, laughing at us, being like, oh, you're— that's cute, to being curious and starting to show up at our industry gatherings and conferences, to trying it themselves. To then deciding, oh, this is what we do now. And so when you encounter coworking throughout the world, what you're really encountering is a category, not one specific thing. And the best way I can describe coworking today in 2019, and this has been true for the last number of years, is that the word coworking is about as specific as the word restaurant. It describes broadly an experience and a transaction, frankly.

But, you know, in the same way that you could go to— even in one day, you could go to multiple different restaurants. You know, you're going to, you know, a fast casual spot or a fine dining spot. Are you going to a Thai noodle, you know, counter, or you're going to a big sit-down Italian family-style meal? And none of them are necessarily wrong or bad, but they're different. And the trouble we have today is that the word coworking describes everything, and we don't really have the jargon or the language to help us understand each other. So when I go to an industry conference, I now have to do way more work to figure out who are the, who are the, the community builders, who are the people who are deeply tuned to bringing people together, not simply putting butts in seats.

Um, and And frankly, I think the people who have it worst are the people who want to join a coworking space. To continue the restaurant analogy, imagine firing up Yelp or Seamless, one of the restaurant delivery apps. And instead of having photos of the food and descriptions of every dish and restaurant, every restaurant was just called restaurant and every dish was just called breakfast, lunch, or dinner. That's effectively the buying experience of coworking. Working today, and it sucks. So, you know, how did we get here is a really good question.

And I think, you know, one of the things that I, as I spent a lot of time sort of watching the meta of this kind of thing evolve, any sort of new technology, and when I say technology, I'm not necessarily talking software or hardware, I'm just talking about the the creation of a tool that helps solve a problem. You have your sort of first wave, the first wave of folks who come through and they sort of blind optimism to solving the problem, right? And I put myself in that category where we just saw the opportunity, not saw the opportunity, we saw the problem and said, well, this deserves to be solved. And then there's the second wave who comes along and sees other people solving a problem, goes, that looks good, I'll do that. And what they skip is all all of the time that we spend understanding the problem.

And all they do is really recreate the surface-level stuff, the open office floor plans, the cheeky posters and signs on the walls, the—

[18:00] Paul: Everyone's got good coffee.

[18:02] Coworking That Works: Everyone's got good coffee, yeah. So like, and that, I mean, everyone's got good coffee is an important one. Let's not get lost with that.

[18:09] Paul: That is a big upgrade. That is a big upgrade.

[18:12] Coworking That Works: It is. But my point here is that one of the references that I've taken some time to sort of dig into and figure out, like, this has to have happened before, this is not unique to coworking, and came across cargo cults, which were— are you familiar with this?

[18:33] Paul: No, I'd love to hear more.

[18:35] Coworking That Works: So in World War II, the United States military created some outposts on some islands in the Pan-Pacific area, broadly speaking, that were basically temporary military bases for, you know, you're watching over another territory or whatever it might be. And as we tend to, we came in and we, you know, took some beautiful, untouched by humans or only touched by native populations land, we paved runways, we landed planes, we brought in supplies and food and medicine, and along with it diseases and all kinds of other nonsense. And then when the war was over, we left, as we tend to. But the artifacts of our presence remain, and more importantly, the cultural impact of our presence remained. And when there were islands that were populated by indigenous tribes and communities, they had been introduced to our drugs and sometimes they became addicted to our drugs.

They became attached to some of our food and supplies and things like that. And their culture sort of irreparably changed. But when we leave, they don't know how to get the thing back. And so there are reports of of going back to these regions and finding that the tribes had built giant effigies out of tree— giant tree trunks that looked like cargo airplanes, and that they were seen doing dances in the runways that looked a lot like air traffic control movement. And what was sort of understood is that these these tribes were impacted mostly negatively by our presence, but they didn't know why. They didn't understand why these planes had landed in the first place, why these white men had come out and provided with all of these goodies.

And so they could only do what they knew, which was pray to the gods to bring more of the big metal birds out of the sky. And the way they do that is they create effigies, and they do Dances. And I think that is a perfect explanation for why coworking spaces all look the same, but there's a big difference in the experience and the culture between them. It's very easy to recreate the surface-level elements without understanding the underlying culture. And I think that's where the majority of the work actually needs to be done.

[21:20] Paul: Wow. I love that story. I definitely want to dig into that a little more, but I know in my own experience, I've sampled coworking spaces all over many different cities across the world. And it's interesting as a freelancer because you realize quickly that how they're selling to you, they're selling to pain points of, hey, are you lonely? Come here, sign up for our membership. Here are a bunch of cool pictures.

And then once you get in, there's those things they're basically selling you on are empty, right? Or yeah, there, I don't even know how to describe it. There's almost like a spiritual emptiness where you don't exist. And it's, it's really hard to explain to people. I think a lot of independents and self-employed people get get it, but they haven't really made work better. They've just put up a bunch of better looking offices.

[22:22] Coworking That Works: Yep. Yeah, I totally agree.

[22:25] Paul: Have you read Cubed by any chance?

[22:29] Coworking That Works: Is it Cubed or Uncubed?

[22:32] Paul: So the book is Cubed. It's a history of work as told through the workplace.

[22:37] Coworking That Works: And yes, I think I'm quoted in it. Oh, wow.

[22:41] Paul: Yeah, it's, and it tells of many similar things at different periods along the history of offices. And I think I'm, it sounds like you're hopeful though, that the next wave is kind of a reversion back towards the niches and more community-driven spaces, but it may take a recession or financial reset to get there.

[23:07] Coworking That Works: Well, I mean, so I have a couple of mindsets about this. One is truthfully, outside of a conversation like this, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. And to be more specific, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about what other people are doing wrong. That's another one of my core fundamental philosophies of business. If I spent every minute I'm spending time focusing on people who are doing it wrong, I'm not spending time, that time on the people who I could be serving better. I do— part of our business is very intentionally helping other people who want to do it better, because I have no desire to run multiple coworking spaces.

Like I said, I don't really even want to run one, but it's a means to an end. So, so, you know, I think, I think what you're sort of pointing to is— I was mentioning before, there's the sort of the first wave pioneers, blind optimism. Second wave is pure opportunism. And I think there's a third wave that I'm starting to see. I actually saw it more when I was in Asia earlier this year than anywhere else before. And the third wave of what coworking is or could be is sort of somewhere in the middle.

And it's the people who are aware of the sort of cultural nuance, but they've also seen the cheap facsimile edition, and they're like, well, there's got to be something in between. The other thing, you know, with the folks who were those blind optimists, a lot of my peers, is the businesses they started were unsustainable. You mentioned, I think in my introduction, we're one of the longest running. That's not because we were the first, we weren't, but most of the spaces that opened around the same time we did have either gone out of business or they've significantly changed their business model to be more of a service office or event rental or things like that. And very few remain sort of this pure membership model that we run and have for over a decade. And I think it's partly because of our relentless focus on the community experience that you were talking about.

So I think third wave coworking is this sort of sweet spot where people are like, okay, it's got to be sustainable. But also, I have to actually deliver on that sales pitch you were describing. I think you're 100% right that people have gotten better at selling it than they have at executing it. And I think some of the big box coworking organizations, the big heavily funded ones, are a big part of that. They had a massive financial obligation to figure out how to sell it. That is a bigger priority than actually delivering on what they sell.

So if we look beyond coworking even, I think where most of my optimism for this comes from is less about coworking as a discrete thing and more that I think people are learning that work and place are related to each other in a different way today than they were before. And more non-co-working organizations are, I think, actually taking it really seriously. I think we have a lot of work to do, but I'm very, very interested in the impact that coworking has had on people's willingness to just kind of revisit What is work? What is the reason to have an office? What are the tools we have to develop culture? As technology changes and more people work remotely, either remotely for an employer or remotely with clients, whatever it is, like, how do we recreate the most important parts of work?

And how do we reinvent them, then maybe they were better than they were before? So I think we're at a really interesting turning point. I think there's a lot of of folks that are smart and working hard at this. And actually I think a lot of the best stuff is happening sort of adjacent to the word coworking anymore, because right now, you know, like, like we talked about before, any open space in a building is just being called, you know, called a coworking space. And it's, it's, it's kind of lost a lot of its meaning, but there is still this underlying movement of people who, care about what it means to bring people together, what it means to have a workplace where people look after each other, what it means to build sort of positive work cultures, whether it's for you as an individual, for a group.

I believe you're right in that some sort of economic reckoning will probably push push us quicker in a new direction. Because right now there's, you know, without economic pressure, unfortunately, businesses tend to not change a whole lot. But I think that the, probably one of the biggest economic pressures is hiring and companies realizing, wait a second, the best talent we have might not be where we are. And that being one of the bigger fuels for remote work or remote hiring and things like that. And I think that remote work presents enough really different constraints than we're used to that it kind of forces a full rethinking in order to be fully successful. That kind of stuff gets me pretty excited.

[28:50] Paul: Yeah. I love that you're broadly excited by just improving how we work. You say you don't have to go to a coworking to cowork, right?

[29:02] Coworking That Works: That's right. That's right.

[29:04] Paul: That just tells me, you know, your customer, right? But that scares a lot of people. And so what, how are you thinking about helping people work better together? Because I do think ultimately, this is one of the big drivers, a lot of independents, I know they talk about, I want to work with other people. But it doesn't happen, right? Because we just don't have the tools, we don't have the mindsets, we don't even know what to work on with other people.

What are some of the experiments or lessons you've learned in terms of helping people do this?

[29:41] Coworking That Works: Yeah, one of the biggest ones, I think this is like a major design pattern for us at Indie Hall, and when I think about any sort of networking experience, and even networking is another one of those words that makes a lot of people itchy. And I think it's because people have had so many bad experiences with networking where it is transactional. It is about, you know, how do I get something out of you or what are you trying to get out of me? One of the things that I think Indie Hall has allowed us to experiment with is really investigating what are the things that people build their bonds around. And it's very rarely the work itself. If you think about most work and work-related collaborations, even think about like when you're in high school or college and you have a group project, and a lot of people have really negative experiences with group projects.

And I think that scar tissue is part of why we approach collaborative work so poorly. But in those group projects, you're thrown into an arbitrary group where the goal is to to finish the task. And the thing that binds you together, the thing that brings you together, the only thing you know you have in common is the task, the goal, the work itself. And the trouble there is the work doesn't always work. Like it doesn't always go the way you want it to, whether that means, you know, you get a bad grade or you miss a deadline, or you just don't create the thing you set out to create. And when you reach the finish line and the work itself is not great, which is statistically going to happen some percentage of the time, well, what are you left with?

Well, now you're just mad at a group of people for not pulling their weight or for not thinking the way you do and all these other things. And I think it all tracks back to this core problem of you were set up for failure because the only thing that bound you together was the work. And if I look at the best collaborations, the best experiences, the most enduring business partnerships that I've seen form throughout the indie hall community, it was people who built relationships before they started working together. It's back to the earlier part of our conversation where I said relationships before transactions. It's the same thing. People are approaching a collaboration as a transaction instead of a relationship.

And so what we try to do is give people opportunities to build relationships with people that they might need later, but they don't need yet. Uh, they might collaborate with later, but they don't need to collaborate with now. And when you enter into a collaboration with that preexisting relationship, with a little bit of nuanced understanding of who each other are, and with the understanding that even if this project goes belly up, we still have that thing that binds us together, you approach the work differently. The work takes a different priority. And I think the work output itself ends up being better because you're more willing to listen to each other. You're more willing to try to understand each other because the relationship exists as space to do that.

So, you know, when I think about things that we actually physically or tangibly do, one of the most counterintuitive things we do is we try and slow people down a little bit from their typical business networking or partnership mindset. When somebody comes in to Indie Hall and they're like, I need to— I want to hire a programmer, I'm like, well, there's a whole bunch of them here, but you should probably get to know other people too. And if you actually get to know and be known, not only will you find the programmer you're looking for, but you'll find lots of other people that you may benefit from collaborating with also in the future. Or, you know, bringing people's personal interests to the surface and making them a priority. When somebody joins our community, we strongly encourage an introduction through our online forum.

Our online community is a big part of our resource set as well, because most people are not in the physical room every day, and so the online community is sort of this this tool to be able to access each other regardless of where you are. And so we encourage people to introduce themselves, but we do that in a way where we try to undo all the bad habits that people have of introducing themselves. I'm like, you're not trying— you're not writing a professional bio here. Your accomplishments may be interesting and impressive, but people here aren't necessarily looking to hire you. Instead, tell me, you know, where you're from. Are you new to Philadelphia, or you, you know, You've been here your whole life.

What interests do you have outside of work? People tend to build these bonds over things like movies and comic books and music more quickly than they do over the latest programming language or otherwise. So I think it's a lot of That kind of counterintuitive experience and expectations is another part, is just letting people know from the very, very beginning, you know, when somebody, or somebody's first impression of us outside of, um, you know, our website, which I think sends, uh, tries to send a message, um, that is congruent with all these ideas. Yeah. Um, but you come in for a tour and our tour is not a tour of the physical space. I mean, it is, But the space is just a backdrop for describing the kinds of things that people do, or the ways that you can get to know the other people in the room.

And obviously you're coming there to get work done, obviously you're coming there to be productive and have this change of scenery that is somehow better than what you currently have, but the reason you choose Indy Hall is because we've made it easier, more possible to get to know the person sitting next to you because that's a cultural expectation and because we've created all these little sort of cues and tools that make it easy for you to say that, you know, I'm interested in comic books, maybe I should go every Wednesday or the next Wednesday with the group of people who are going to pick up comic books from the local comic book shop because who knows what else I have in common with them. Them. And sort of setting that as the groundwork, I think, changes what collaboration ends up looking like pretty dramatically. And the, again, the relationships become the foundation.

[36:26] Paul: I love it. It, uh, when I reflect back on some of the best partnerships I've had as an independent, they've all been friends first that turned into something else, right? And so many people come to me and say, hey, we should find something to work on. I think my response now will be Alex Hillman convinced me that we should focus on trying to find a friendship first.

[36:53] Coworking That Works: Yeah, yeah. And just, you know, I think we're— look, I mean, we're all super busy. So there's a lot of things that don't get time or attention unless we decide they're a priority. And even, you know, exactly your point, people reach out to us wanting to do, you know, the word partnership usually is code for I want you to do something for me. And so, you know, I don't say we don't really do partnerships, but we build partnerships. And, you know, I don't— there's a great quote from a friend of mine, his name is Derek Nabors, he says you can't create collaboration, you have to be a collaborator.

It is an active thing. Um, and you know, the invite would be like, let's go get dinner or drinks and just like, I want to get to know you more. I want to know your, your MO. What is, what are your goals? What does success look like to you? What else are you working on besides this thing you approached me with?

Maybe the thing you have in your mind isn't even the most valuable collaboration we could be working on, but you can't discover that unless you give it a little bit of space. So that's sort of the counterintuitive reality. If somebody shows up, wants to work with you, that feels good, but we sort of intentionally pump the brakes and say, cool, like we should get to know each other and treat it a bit more like a first date, you know, rather than a wedding.

[38:29] Paul: So this might be a good transition. I want to throw out some words that you've used in presentations. You have a bunch of presentations posted where you have short phrases or words, and I assume you have some stories behind them. But this one might be a good transition with just how you're talking about creating those connections. Embrace chaos.

[38:51] Coworking That Works: I love that one. So that one gets credit. Credit should be given to— I mentioned Chris Messina and Tara Hunt earlier. They're on. That's from their citizen agency manifesto, is to embrace chaos, and sort of an idea that I learned from them. What does it actually mean?

I think when you're creating— people say they want these dynamic, thriving ecosystems, but they only want them so long as they work exactly as they expected them to, which obviously undermines the whole point. So when I think embrace chaos, I think there's sort of two parts. One is acknowledge that chaos is part of the mix. It's not a bad thing. If anything, it's a good thing. And then the other part of it is to be willing to grab onto the chaos and kind of learn how to ride it, learn how to surf it.

In our day-to-day, The day-to-day of running a coworking space is pretty chaotic. There's so much that is unplanned, unexpected. A lot of it is just, you know, kind of catching a moment, talking to a person, observing a thing, hearing a thing, maybe not even, you know, saying anything. But I think, you know, one of the ways that we embrace chaos on a regular basis is by saying yes in a very particular way. When somebody comes to us with an idea, however wacky it may be, the goal is to find a way to say yes. And that may be by listening to it and finding like the kernel of what it's really about and guiding in that direction.

But one of my favorite things is just to say, that sounds awesome, what can I do? To help you do that. And it's sort of this ninja move where I'm gonna catch the energy you threw at me, and sometimes, you know, in a more, you know, if you were thinking of us as more of like a hospitality-based thing, you know, whatever the customer wants, you do. And we turn it around and say, whatever the customer wants, within bounds of reason, they can do, and we work to empower them. So embracing the chaos on the day-to-day is just sort of, I think, catching the energy from whomever, whatever direction it's coming, even if I wasn't in that particular direction myself, and sort of being willing to carve that wave a little bit and turn it into something really good or really positive. It's a skill.

It's a practice. I don't think anybody is inherently good at it, but it's something we try to do every single day.

[41:39] Paul: I love it. What about infinite good is greater than finite bad?

[41:47] Coworking That Works: Okay, so this is sort of my internal risk management philosophy. I should back up and say that people assume that as an entrepreneur, I'm a risk taker, and I don't think that's true. I really dislike risks. By the time I'm doing something that appears risky, I have kind of evaluated it and determined that there may be some risk, but the opportunity is the upside. And that's really what the infinite good over finite bad is. If you look at anything that is being presented or it's an opportunity or really anything that you may consider risky, It is really good to understand the bad in something, the problems in something, the risk in something, but the bad tends to be pretty finite.

If you can understand what the boundaries of the problem are and then turn your attention to the upside, the good, and say, well, if I can contain the bad, but the good is effectively infinite, which In a lot of cases, good things don't happen because people only focus on the one or two bad things. They say, well, you can contain the bad thing, you can mitigate the bad thing, or you can redesign it so the bad thing isn't bad anymore. But you've taken all of the energy out of what you could be putting into the infinite good just to focus on the very finite bad aspects of whatever that thing might be.

[43:23] Paul: What about JFDI?

[43:27] Coworking That Works: So JFDI is a personal mantra first that has kind of taken on a life of its own. It— can we swear on this podcast, Paul?

[43:39] Paul: I think we can. I'm not sure.

[43:41] Coworking That Works: We'll see what the editor says. JFDI stands for Just Fucking Do It, and I have a tattoo on my right forearm that is in big block letters. It's actually a big tattooed rectangle with the skin is the relief that says the letters JFDI. And JFDI is this reminder to me of whatever the thing that I know is the right thing to do, but I'm hesitating for some reason to just fucking do it. It's pretty straightforward there, but what's interesting about it it is. It's become this sort of indie hall mantra of sorts, and even beyond indie hall.

Some friends of mine have the tattoo turned into stickers which are now on laptops all over the world. And it's this sort of reminder. It's meant to be a personal reminder. It's not just fucking do anything or just fucking do everything. It's that one thing that you're hesitating on, but if you did it, you things would be good, you're just, you're afraid of something or you're uncertain, but there's literally nothing in the way except for you, to have that reminder, mine happens to be tattooed on my forearm, so I see it in the mirror when I brush my teeth. I think a lot of folks have found that reminder to be encouraging, and it's a piece of how Indie Hall works too, People come to us with an idea, we're like, that sounds great, just do it, just fucking do it.

[45:17] Paul: I love it. It's cool that I just Googled it quickly. It looks like there's a whole bunch of merchandise across the web now with that.

[45:26] Coworking That Works: Yeah, I mean, I looked briefly at what it would mean to trademark it and I was like, then I have to defend that trademark. And you know what, I'm just gonna let it be out there in the world.

[45:37] Paul: Yeah, you don't want a second business. Business to run, right?

[45:40] Coworking That Works: No, no. And honestly, again, it was for me first. The fact that other people identify with it at all, I think it's just, that's just cool.

[45:48] Paul: That's awesome. So in March, you published a long-form essay talking about what you call the 10,000 Independence Project. And I love your framing around this. And it seemed like it was in response to maybe frustration with, I don't know if people listening around the world know, but the US basically went into a frenzy across the nation to compete for Amazon to come to their city. And it was crazy amounts of money. And I'm sitting there as a freelancer and I'm trying to do the calculation.

I'm saying, what if they just gave each freelancer $25,000? And it was just mind-blowing how easy it would be to like ignite an ecosystem with just creative humans. So maybe tell me about your own personal spark for starting this and what you're trying to achieve. And I know you put it out there looking for edits and you're still evolving the idea.

[46:52] Coworking That Works: Yeah, yeah. So if anybody wants to sort of read that long form, is very generous of you, it's an 8,000-word diatribe. IndieHall.org/10K is the full document. Exactly like you described, I was watching these cities go head to head, which in itself felt really weird. Cities should not be competing against each other. This is a rising tide.

Ecosystem building 101 is the sum is greater than the parts. So the fact that Amazon strategically divided us, I thought was really frustrating. But also, exactly like you said, I was like, you know, they're promising 50,000 jobs and cities are doing backflips for 50,000 jobs. And Philadelphia is a reasonably large city, it's the 6th largest city in the US, but even in our city, 50,000 jobs is not that many jobs. I mean, it's a big number, number, but it's not nearly as big as I thought it would need to be in order to catch the attention of, you know, City Hall to be willing to invest, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars in just writing the proposal was maddening. And so I stayed out of it for the most part, with the exception of one panel that I said yes to being on.

And that panel was really just talking about the pros and cons. I made it clear I was on the con side of things with a line that kind of vibrated the room and I think planted the seed for the document, which was, 50,000 jobs is undeniably a good thing for our city and any city that gets the 50,000 jobs, but 50,000 jobs from one company is about the worst way to do it. And that one company being Amazon is the the worst, worst way to do it. So maybe what we should be doing is taking a look at that goal of 50,000 jobs and saying, what are the other ways to create 50,000 jobs that aren't as expensive and risky as this Amazon proposal? The other thing that I said in that panel that seemed to vibrate the room was, the real winner here is the loser, and the real winner I said, the winner here is the real loser, but the winner is the city who comes in second place.

Because if you come in second place, you were good enough to get on Amazon's radar, but you don't have to deal with the fallout. So a number of months went by and it kept swirling on these topics and keep talking to people. And Amazon ended up announcing who the cities were going to be. That was its its whole own thing. And I said, I need to write this down and turn this into something. And at the same time, we were coming out of a phase of Indy Hall's history where we had spent a few years kind of heads down on the operations side of things because of a large and unexpected move.

To make a long story short, a relationship with a landlord ended not on a high note. And the ensuing 3 years or so took us out of our usual mindset of everything we've been talking about today, honestly, and very, very tactical, very like getting the space, getting a new space, getting it set up, learning how to be in it. And so it was just kind of coming out of that phase where I'm like, okay, why do we exist again? Like, what am I doing here? Like, again, I'm not in this to run a coworking space. Why did I just spend the last 3 years heads down making this work?

What's the long term for us? What are we working on for the next 10 years? And then the Amazon proposal kind of catalyzed around a few ideas where I said, you know, if 50,000 jobs is undeniably a good thing, but Amazon or one company is the worst way to do it, what would be better? And, you know, better would be 5,000, 10,000 person companies. Only a little bit better, but still better. 10,000, 5,000 person companies and so on and so forth.

And if I track that kind of matrix all the way back, you know, 50,000 entrepreneurs or freelancers probably isn't the right answer either because we do need a job ecosystem, even though I do believe the job ecosystem will look different in the next, you know, 10 to 20 20, 30 years, I still think we need businesses creating jobs. So 50,000 freelancers is not the right answer either. But somewhere in the middle, there's a sweet spot. And so what I realized, I started doing some more research and started doing the math around if we help 10,000 people become sustainably independent, statistically, the way business and firm creation works, at least in our state data, is roughly 80% of businesses never grow past one person.

So what if instead of glorifying giant companies, what if we start to glorify the solo business, the one-person company, and then the opportunities to collaborate and build bigger things together without being a giant corporation, as not an alternative, but maybe a really good one. Maybe one that we should be investing more in. And then if you start running those numbers out, you know, the 20% that do grow past one employee, they hire their first, and then some percentage of those will hire their second, some percentage of those will hire five, and so on and so forth. And you sort of run those numbers out, and by helping 10,000 people become sustainably independent, the math suggests that we would create almost 80,000 jobs, including the initial 10,000 independents. Over the same 10-year period that Amazon was offering us 50,000 jobs.

And so my proposal was, why don't we look at what it takes to help those 10,000 people, those initial 10,000 people first, go from surviving to thriving, go from, I know how to pay my bills most months, to my bills are covered, I'm saving for retirement, I can go on vacation, my healthcare is, I can afford it. You know, it's not the typical feast and famine that a lot of freelancers go through. We can teach that. Those are learnable skills. I've learned them, a lot of my friends have learned them, and I've also— part of my career has been teaching and helping people learn how to do that. So I know it's doable.

We just need to do it at scale. And it's scaling the small thing instead of scaling the big thing, which feels right to me. As we laid that out in this essay, the essay was, I think a lot of people read it as a plan, and it wasn't. It looks like a plan. It's got pieces of a plan, but the reality is that it's more of a way of thinking. It's about taking the big problem and breaking it down into smaller things that we actually have the ability to work on without anybody else giving us permission or resources.

And, and the beautiful thing is, and I said this explicitly in the document, I said we don't need City Hall to fight, you know, to give us anything like Amazon was demanding. If they do, if they do help us out, that would be really great, but this is what we can accomplish without the help of the city government and city resources. Imagine what we could do if we had a local bit more. So, you know, if we fast forward to today, and literally this week I was on the phone with some of my contacts at City Hall, the Commerce Department reached out, they're very interested in learning how they can be helpful. We're talking about some actual things that they can do that don't require the city to spend more money, but instead to allocate resources that they've already allocated.

Just their— I think the problem is, is independent businesses, these solo businesses like like yours, Paul, and frankly, like mine and lots of my friends, are a blind spot for governments and organizations. They just— it's not that they don't— in some cases, they don't know we exist. I was in a meeting with the Commerce Department. I literally think, you know, out of 15 people, I think maybe 2 have ever met an actual freelancer. So like, that's a real problem, but, you know, we can we can shine a light in the blind spot and be like, hey gang, your workforce doesn't look the same anymore, and the way you support it therefore needs to change. Let me show you where they are.

And as luck would have it, I run a coworking space, and that is more happenstance than anything else. But the other cool thing is, is like, the coworking spaces of the world, back to our conversation from earlier, are reasonably well networked. Networked. And so the ability to activate, you know, resources, education, programming, and support through coworking spaces to actually support the independent ecosystem is way more doable today than it was 10 years ago. And that to me suggests that we're at the inflection point where we should be doing something. So, you know, the next 10 years of Indie Hall, the goal is to help those 10,000 people become and stay independent.

And that number, by the way, that's a full Philadelphia goal. But what's been cool is how much this has resonated with folks in other cities and places around the country and around the world. Part of why we're talking. And, you know, for me, that, that my hope would be that anything we figure out in Philadelphia becomes part of the model that can be used to help build thriving business ecosystems that actually match the century that we're in, in places around the world.

[56:54] Paul: I love it. I didn't read the memo or essay or diatribe as a plan. I actually read it as a call for people to dream in a new direction. And that's why I loved it so much. Like the title of my podcast is Reimagine Work, and I similarly do not I do not think we can solve work's problems by pointing out all the flaws. I think we need to dream in a new direction.

And I love what you're doing with this. So keep it going. I'll be rooting for you, happy to help. And I really think this kind of thinking is just going to unleash so much creative potential in the economy and the way people actually want to work.

[57:41] Coworking That Works: No, thank you. I guess that the response has been very positive. It's allowed me to reconnect with a lot of folks who, you know, just because life gets busy, I've fallen out of touch with, you know, old friends, old colleagues. It's been really cool to see every, you know, everyone who shows up has— I mean, just like you shared with me, the document was more like almost like a Rorschach test where like everyone sees sees it in their perspective, their angle. There's a thing that really stands out to them, and that matters a lot to me, is to see what are the patterns and what stands out to people. Again, this goes back to my core thesis from before.

The thing I'm going to build is going to be the thing that matches the patterns. So having more people reach out, having read it, or read part of it, because it is kind of long, and say, you know, I read up to this point and this thing really got my gears turning, I want to know what that thing is because there's a good chance you're not the only one. There's a good chance that maybe your articulation of it is a little bit different, but there's a common thread, and that becomes the glue that can bring together different individuals, different organizations, different resources, different ideas, all under this one banner of a goal that even if we don't reach the 10,000 independents or 50,000 jobs, which I think the number is super achievable. Even if we don't, let's say we only do 8,000 jobs, we still create 8,000 jobs. That's still a win. So there's no way to lose here.

And in addition to that, all the connections and relationships that are being built through the process, we could create 10 jobs and I'd be happy because of all of the connections and relationships that have happened along the way. Again, I think we will create far more than that, but the good, the infinite good in this is not the jobs. The infinite good is, as you said, the rethinking, reimagining, and the connections that are built along the way.

[59:47] Paul: I love it. Where do you want people to reach out to either follow some of the things you're writing, or if they wanna connect, learn more about Indie Hall, where would you point them?

[59:59] Coworking That Works: Yeah, so I'm pretty active on Twitter, @alexhillman. My blog is dangerouslyawesome.com. You can check out lots of past essays and articles about coworking, community building, and things like that. I mentioned indiehall.org/10k for the 10K Independence Project. There's a newsletter that you can sign up for on DangerouslyAwesome.com as well, where I periodically share the stuff that we're working on, new articles, new resources, podcasts that I've been on, like this one, and things like that as well. So if you're into this kind of conversation and want more, those are some great places to go check things out and say hello.

If you happen to be passing through Philadelphia, come meet us at Indy Hall. Come spend a day working with us. See what it's all about. I'd love to meet you in person.

[01:00:46] Paul: Fantastic. It was great talking to you today, Alex, and hope you have a fantastic day in Philly.

[01:00:52] Coworking That Works: Thanks, man. You too, Paul.