LinkedIn Show Notes #29 from the Coworking Values Podcast Bullpen.
While you were running your space, we’ve been mining the podcast archive—three different conversations, one revelation about retention.
When £15 Became £35
Jules Robertson remembers when you could get a day pass in London for £15. Not that long ago, really. Now she’s watching the same spaces charge a minimum of £35, and some places in Notting Hill are asking £350 per person per month.
“I think you really have to pick your niche,” she told me on the Coworking Values Podcast when we spoke about Tally Workspace, the platform she and Laura built during lockdown.
They literally just put up a Squarespace site and went for it. Four years later, they’re watching London’s workspace market split down the middle.
The middle is dying. Not slowly—quickly. Quality spaces are packed. Budget spaces survive. Everything in between is empty at 2 PM on a Tuesday.
Jules figured out something most operators haven’t: this isn’t about money. It’s about tolerance. People will pay more or less, but they won’t pay anything for mediocre.
Three women have been thinking about this problem longer than most. Not the pricing problem—the staying problem. Why do some members stay for years, while others disappear after just three months? What makes someone choose to belong?
Jules Robertson: The Death of Good Enough
Jules co-founded Tally Workspace in 2020, just as everyone was panicking about COVID. Her strategy consulting background influences her approach to problems. She has been watching London’s workspace market unravel ever since.
“You also see many people wanting to have offices where similar types of companies are,” she says. Makes sense. If you’re a health tech startup, you want to be around other health tech startups, not accountants and life coaches.
But something else is happening. The £15 day pass is extinct. Spaces like Third Space in Notting Hill charge £350 per person per month. At the other end, operators like Sandbox Workspace take over buildings at the end of their life and offer rock-bottom pricing.
The middle market? Gone. Jules discovered that members aren’t looking for “good enough” anymore. They want exceptional quality or exceptional value. Everything else feels like settling.
“People are willing to pay for quality they want and if they think they get something out of it,” she explains. “They want it to be their gym, their café, their this. They want it to be everything.”
What you’re able to do this week:
- Could you write down whether you’re using a premium or budget plan? If you can’t answer right away, you’re probably stuck in the dying middle.
- Audit three things: your day pass price compared to local competitors, your coffee quality, and what your space signals about the work that happens there.
The answer will tell you which direction to go.
The operators who survive won’t be the ones trying to please everyone. They’ll be the ones who picked their people and served them completely.
Ashley Proctor: Twenty Years of Caring
Ashley Proctor has been doing this since before it was called coworking. Launched her first space in 2004, solving a problem for herself and her peers by creating more inclusive environments that prioritised the needs of the people working there. “We weren’t building a movement,” she reflects. “We were solving a problem.”
What began as designing shared spaces that actually worked for them became a two-decade experiment in community building.
She’s a long-term coworking consultant and community builder now. Was instrumental in creating 312 Main– that massive former police headquarters in Vancouver that got turned into a hub for social innovation. These days, Ashley organises the Coworking Canada conference and continues building community infrastructure across the country.
“I would like to be known for building communities of care,” she told me on the Coworking Values Podcast.
The original coworking movement wasn’t about real estate. It was about mutual aid. “There wasn’t an intentional building of the industry,” Ashley explains.
“It really grew out of this movement to really care for each other.” Back then, there were no coworking experts, no conferences, no templates. Just people creating spaces where “the moment you walked in, you could feel the difference.”
Somewhere along the way, we started measuring everything except what matters: how supported our members feel. Ashley’s approach focuses on care touchpoints—moments when staff actively check in, offer help, or remember someone’s story. “Our first goal was to make work better for everyone.”
Members who experience regular, genuine care stay longer. Those who feel invisible disappear.
What you can do this month:
- Add one care touchpoint. Not a grand gesture—something systematic. Maybe remembering coffee orders.
- I suggest checking in when someone’s routine changes.
- Celebrate member wins in your newsletter. Pick one thing that says “we see you as a human, not a revenue stream” and do it consistently for 30 days.
The spaces that master retention aren’t the ones with the best amenities. They’re the ones where members feel genuinely known.
Helena Norberg-Hodge: The Ladakh Lesson
Helena Norberg-Hodge spent 50 years watching communities die and be reborn. She’s a linguist who landed in Ladakh—the high-altitude desert in the Western Himalayas—in 1975, just as the outside world was arriving.
What she witnessed was devastating: a joyful, self-reliant culture suddenly learning to feel poor when faced with global media.
“When I first went to Ladakh, I found a people who had a standard of living that was materially simple, but who were prouder, more joyful, and had a greater sense of well-being than anyone I’d ever met.”
That experience became her life’s work through Local Futures, understanding how global systems destroy local communities and how to rebuild them.
The most loyal coworking members aren’t loyal to the space—they’re loyal to the place.
I agree with what Helena pointed out to me on the Coworking Values Podcast: “We are being driven by an army of algorithms…that thrives on polarisation, hatred, division.”
Coworking spaces that treat themselves as isolated islands—beautiful interiors disconnected from their neighbourhoods—are fighting a losing battle against the placeless global economy.
But spaces that become part of the local ecosystem create something stronger than customer loyalty. They create belonging.
What you can do this week:
- Draw a 200-metre radius around your space. Count how many local business owners are aware of what you do.
- Visit three of them. Not to sell them anything—to understand how you might support each other.
- Ask: “How could our communities help each other thrive?”
The spaces that survive won’t be the ones with the best WiFi. They’ll be the ones that become part of the neighbourhood’s immune system.
Three Ways to Stop the Churn
Jules, Ashley, and Helena understand something most operators miss: retention isn’t a metric you track—it’s a culture you build.
The coworking industry spent fifteen years perfecting the art of getting people through the door. We mastered the tour, optimised the pricing, and designed spaces that photograph beautifully for Instagram.
We forgot the most important part: giving people a reason to stay.
Many coworking spaces struggle with member retention—not because of pricing or amenities, but because they’ve forgotten what community actually means. Every person who leaves takes relationships, knowledge, and energy with them. What’s left behind isn’t stronger; it’s weaker.
Jules’s market positioning. Ashley’s care touchpoints. Helena’s local roots. These aren’t just retention strategies—they’re ways of remembering what this work was supposed to be about.
Three things you can do this week:
- Write down: Are we a premium or budget option?
- Add one care touchpoint this month.
- Visit three local businesses within a 200m radius.
Stop measuring how many new members you signed this month. Start measuring how many existing members you had a real conversation with.
What’s one thing you could do this week to make your current members feel more seen, more supported, more rooted in your community?
🌐 Event: Unreasonable Connection – The world’s smallest coworking event.
Small groups of coworking community builders who actually run spaces, talking about what actually matters, we meet online once a month.
Just us, figuring out how to do this work better together.
No sponsors, no frameworks, no bollocks.
Wednesday, October 15, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM GMT / 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM CET. – RSVP here at Unreasonable Connection
🏣 How do you decide on a virtual office offering
Virtual offices keep appearing in our discussions, but the compliance landscape remains unclear. AML regulations, KYC requirements, local authority rules – it’s a proper maze.
We’re working with Nexudus to clarify your space’s position in the virtual office landscape, particularly in London. Our quiz takes no more than five minutes, delivering a clear score on compliance gaps and practical next steps.
To be clear, this is not ‘lead generation’, the folks at Nexudus don’t want and won’t get your email address.
We heard the same questions being asked for years, even more so since COVID.
It’s not legal advice.
But it is based on our industry research and will save you hours of Googling and going down rabbit holes.
💬 Community on LinkedIn
The LinkedIn Coworking Group is a great place to connect with guests on this and other Coworking podcasts, and also other listeners and Coworking community builders.