MBA2335 Q&A Wednesday: Should I join a co-working space or work out of a cafe?

Let me tell you about Intuit QuickBooks. When I was starting out my business, I remember sitting at my desk late at night not working on my business but cleaning up numbers, tracking and reconciling payments and wondering how this became my life. But once I automated the admin side of things, of my finances, those nights had disappeared and I felt a whole lot better. Outdo it with intuit QuickBooks QuickBooks is the trusted end to end solution that businesses rely on for getting paid, managing finances, paying employees, finding new customers, and more. QuickBooks provides a team of AI agents and trusted experts. So doing it yourself no longer means doing it alone. Their payment agent gets you paid faster, their customer agent finds leads, follows up and secures more sales, and the accounting agent automates and categorizes transactions. Get your critical business jobs done with QuickBooks on the Intuit platform.

Ready to save on new tech? It's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event celebrating our customers with fantastic deals and benefits. Product perks include Dell Rewards, free shipping, premium Support and more. PCs like the Dell 14 with Intel Core Ultra processors will help you do more faster and with a premium suite of monitors and accessories, you can upgrade your whole setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals.

Hey amazing listeners, I have a huge favor to ask you. We are launching our all new live course platform Course Ninja on Product Hunt today. Product Hunt is a site where you can discover new products and upvote the ones you love. And this is where you come in. We need you to upvote Course Ninja. All you gotta do is go to this link100mba.netPH and click that upvote button. By clicking that button you help us reach number one product of the day. I am so excited for the launch of course Ninja. Me and my team have been working on this for over two years and you can help make it a huge success for us with a few seconds of your time by clicking that upvote button. Again that's10nba.net ph smash that upvote button. Thank you so much in advance for doing that. Hey welcome to the $100 MBA show. Because a better you equals a better business. That's why we deliver practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started back in 2014 and today's episode is Q and Wednesday. On Q and A Wednesdays we answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you've got a question you want to ask. Go ahead and email me over@omar100mba.net Today's question is from Joel and Joel asks I'm not that productive at home. I don't like working from home because there's just too many distractions and too many excuses not to get things done, whether it's family or chores or what's happening outside the window. I'm thinking about working out of an office or even just a cafe for at least three or four days out of the week. What do you recommend Omar? Should I join a coworking space or just pop into the local Starbucks? I'm thinking maybe the cafe is a cheap option and might just work. Let me know what you think. Solid question, Joel. I'm sure a lot of people are looking to go to a place to work. Many people especially like digital nomads that travel. They like to go somewhere to work and get some stuff done to focus and separate life from work so they can go back home and just focus on life and household chores like you mentioned. So in today's episode I'm going share with you a few personal experiences when it comes to this decision. What I recommend and why, where you work, the environment you get things done for yourself, for your business is so important and worth the investment of time of making this decision. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Throughout my over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience, I've worked in many different environments. I've worked from home, of course, at the kitchen table, on a couch at home. I've also worked in private offices that I rented, in co working spaces, in cafes, in restaurants, at the library, in my car. I've tried pretty much everything. And here's the bottom line. Like I mentioned, where you work, the environment that you surround yourself in to get work done is far more important than most people talk about. This is the place where you're going to be making the decisions that will shape the future of your business, your life, your everything really. It's where you're going to have to get the things you have to get done to see your dream come true. It's a place where you're going to have to collaborate. It's the place where you're going to meet with people. It's going to be a place where you're going to have to take calls or close sales or write emails or whatever it might be. You need to make sure this space is optimized for getting things done. This is why you are getting out of the house in the first place. Right. Because you want to get things done. Now, I understand everybody's different. Some people like a little bit of white noise. They like a little bit of distraction in the background. But I'm here to ask you, forget about what you like for a moment and ask yourself, what do you need? You need focus. You need the time and space that will lend itself to getting the work you need done, to allowing yourself to make decisions and to implement. So there's a couple options out there that most people look at. The cafe route, going to a place with good Internet, it's bustly, it's nice, it's got coffee and drinks and all that kind of stuff. And then there's the option of an office. And the option I recommend is a co working space that has a community. And we'll talk about that in a moment and why. And that's a little bit more formal. Right? Well, we'll talk about it in a moment. Okay, so let's go down the cafe route. Now, cafes are great, right? They're fun, they're interesting. And I think they're a great option when you're traveling and you're in a pinch for some good Internet. But in terms of a place to go to regularly, every day, consistently, or three times a week, I don't think it's a great option and I don't think it's actually the budget option. Let's account for the fact that, let's say maximum, you're going to go four days a week to the cafe, and you just can't sit in a cafe for hours on end without ordering food more than once if you're gonna spend eight hours. So let's say, let's be conservative. Coffees, you know, a muffin and maybe a lunch, it's gonna cost you around $30 for, you know, having enough food on your plate or enough order items to make it seem like you're not just squatting in their cafe. That's $120 a week. That's nearly $500 a month. Yes, you're getting food and you're getting a meal out of it. But when we talk about dollars and cents, most coworking spaces are cheaper than that, right? Far less expensive. Especially if you could do a hot desk where you don't have a permanent desk and you just, you know, sit there and you use the space. Most co working spaces, and I'm not talking about wework the fancier ones, talk about the more local ones, the ones that have a startup kind of vibe or a community. These are usually subsidized by the government or just less expensive because they're not as super, super fancy as we work. And they're about $300 a month, $400 a month and they will give you free coffee and a lot of them have treats in and they have events and they have pizza and meetups. So you will get some perks and you will get some interesting things. But mainly the reason why you're doing this is not for food, you're doing this for the space. And a co working space is going to be far superior than a cafe. A cafe is not meant for work, it's meant for eating. The tables are not meant for laptops, they're not desks. Same thing with the chairs, same thing with the environment. People that are in that cafe, they're there to have coffee and a tree or lunch. They're not here to help you brainstorm ideas or get through a problem in your business. That's what a coworking space is for. That's what's so great about having a community around you in a space. But more importantly, there is a security element when it comes to cafes. Their wi fi is not going to be rock solid and they're not going to be using high security routers on top of it. You have a very transient community in there that's walking in and out of that cafe that might not be super friendly when it comes to to hacking through and trying to get on people's devices through the router. Yes, you can use a VPN and I highly recommend you use a VPN whenever you're out in public. But it's just a higher risk when you don't have the same people showing up every day who have a vested interest to keep things safe. Cafes are unpredictable. Okay, Meaning they could close, they could have a problem, they could be too full and you can't find a place to sit. While a coworking space is always going to be available. You got a pass, you walk in, you get to work. So I love the idea of a cafe for the once off when you're traveling, when you can't find a spot, but as a semi permanent thing a few days a week. No, it's not a great solution because it's not really meant for what you're looking for. A space where you can get things done. Now we look at the coworking space. Yeah, it's a bit of a commitment and you got to kind of sign up maybe for two months in advance. But there's a lot you get out of it. You get the community, you get the feedback, you get a lot of perks. Often, like a lot of companies sponsor these spaces and give you credits like on server costs or tools that you might need to run your business. You also build a network, you make friends, you get to know people. And there's kind of like an underlying agreement between everybody that, hey, we're all here to work. It's much easier to run a meeting with no noise in the background when you have a meeting room in a co working space or to run an interview or to collaborate with your team. It's just better for work. It's reliable, it's safe, it's easy. And in my opinion, it's a no brainer. Hi, I'm chef Franklin Becker. You know the jingle now discover the facts about Ozempic, a GLP one. There's only one FDA approved Ozempic made by Novo Nordisk. Learn about the real thing.

Talk to your healthcare professional today. Call 1-833-OZEMPIC or visit ozempic.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about Ozempic. Semaglutide injection. 0.5 milligram, 1 milligram and 2 milligrams. Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter?

Right?

And the best part, they accept Discover. Except Discover in a little place like this? I don't think so, Jennifer. Oh yeah, huh? Discover's accepted where I like to shop. Come on, baby, get with the times.

Right?

So we shouldn't get the parachute pants. These are making a comeback, I think.

Discover is accepted at 99 of places.

That take credit cards nationwide, based on.

The February 2025 Nielsen. Now, when it comes to choosing a co working space, I highly recommend you shop around. Okay. Some communities are going to have a lot. If you're in a big city, a major city in the world, you're going to have tons of options. We're talking about dozens and dozens of options that are local to you. If you're in a smaller city or a second city, you might not have as many options, but still explore all your options because some spaces are going to vibe with you and you're going to like it. Maybe you like a little bit of livelihood and noise and maybe even just the personnel and the people there are younger and that's kind of your vibe. Go ahead and choose. But some places are going to be really quiet and buttoned up and quite professional, unless there's an event happening and people are having pizza and drinks and relaxing that might be up your alley. So it's good to actually visit and to see what the vibe is. Remember these spaces, you're usually going to commit to something not long term, like a year, but maybe a couple months in advance. And then it's month to month. And of course you can buy a day pass. I recommend this if you want to try a place out. Heck you could say this week I'm going to try five different places, five different days. A lot of these day passes are like $10, $15 and it's worth it because now you know what it's like, what the people are like, what eight hours there is like, what the commute is like, all that kind of stuff. You have a real world experience. It's a good investment of time and money before you make a commitment. I've been to a lot of different coworking spaces and I've signed up for a lot of different ones as high end as like a wework or Regis and even on the low end, really scrappy coworking spaces. I'm the kind of guy that likes the ones that are closer to the scrappy side. I like people that hustle, that work hard, that are trying to make it happen. I like that energy. I found that when I went too high end, like when wework, just too many corporates, there's too many non entrepreneurs, people that are maybe employees or it's just an office space for bigger companies. And it had a different vibe and it was just too fancy for my liking. I just didn't value all the fancy furniture and the lighting and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's good and all, but I'm okay with something a little bit more scrappy with a great community and I'm all for saving some money when I can, but I only discovered that because I tried them all. Now when you go to a co working space they usually have a few different options. You can do like the day pass I talked about. They usually have like a hot desk option where you can either say, hey, I have a membership that allows me to come in a couple days a week which is a really inexpensive option or you have like unlimited and it's still hot desk where you just plop yourself on a desk or a tape and there's you know, specific tables around in the co working space that you can choose from or you can go full fledged and get yourself a dedicated desk. And this means that you can set up like your monitor and you'll have like A filing cabinet, and you have all your stuff and your mug and all that kind of stuff. And you basically have an office or a desk in an office that's permanent. Now, if you travel a lot for long periods of time, maybe the permanent desk is not a good idea for you because you might be wasting a lot of money because, let's say six months out of the year you're traveling around. And maybe the flexible desk is better for you. But if you're not doing that extensive amount of travel, and maybe you travel a few times a year, and when you do it's only for a few weeks, then the permanent desk sometimes will be a better value in terms of time. Why? Because I used a hot desk and then I moved to permanent desk. Why? Because you save a lot of time. Every morning you come into the office, you got to set yourself up, you got to set up your computer, you got to unpack, you plug in your charger, and you got to try to find a nice spot every single time. With apartment desk, you have your own desk. It's always there. No one's going to use it. It's all set up. You go in, you save a lot of time every day. I'm a big fan of coworking spaces. I think that if you're building a business and you're looking for some collaboration, some support, some help, a community, maybe just some people who bounce ideas off, then it's a great option than just trying to work by yourself at home or at cafe. It's really a good value in my opinion. And I think it's one of those expenses that some people might think, oh, I'll just work from home instead of paying, you know, the few hundred dollars a month. But I actually think it's a good investment in getting focused work done. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you got a question you want to ask here on Q and A Wednesday, go ahead and ask. Email me at omar00mba.net don't forget, hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app. If you haven't subscribed yet, go ahead. Whether you're on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Overcast, hit subscribe, hit get the next episode automatically, and you get our latest episode immediately. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Most of us spend more time working than living, meaning we probably work more or spend more hours of the day working on our business or working at our job than living at home. If you remove sleeping, really, then you probably work three times as much than you do live at home. So where you work actually is a big deal. It's a choice that you need to take seriously because you spend most of your wakeful hours there. You might as well make it a good choice. Something that you like, something that you enjoy, something that makes you motivated and gets you going to show up. One of the things I thought it was a really interesting benefit of working in a co working space that I didn't think about before is you kind of feel motivated to go see your colleagues. And they're not your colleagues, so to speak, but your co workers in the co working space. They become your friends. You want to see what's going on with them and how they're doing. And then when you don't show up one day or you come in late, they're like, hey, is everything okay? We haven't seen you this morning. It's just nice to have that camaraderie like in an office when you're an entrepreneur. It can get lonely sometimes as you know the best part about it, you could just try try it for a few days to see if it's for you. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you on Friday's episode. I'll see you then. Take.

Is it time to reimagine your future? The right business skills may make a difference in your career. At Capella University, we offer a relevant education that's designed to focus on what you need to know in the business world. We'll teach professional skills to help you pursue your goals like business management, strategic planning, and effective communication, and you can apply these skills right away. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella Eduardo.