KCPowercat wrote:I'm too old school I guess. Who uses so much for working space? WFH people? Consultants?
The older term was office suites. Part of Lighton Plaza in OP is this style where a floor is just rows of small offices with doors that can lock.
The relevant concept for why it works is called the long tail.
This is fake numbers but shows the points. If 100,000 songs are made each year you have a top 100 that represents most sales. If the top 100 songs have an average of 1 million sales that's 100 million sold. Let's say the next 10,000 songs sell 10,000 copies each on average. That's also 100,000,000 in sales. You hit a point the market is too small relative to cost but it shows that if a product is targeted right someone can make as much money targeting smaller opportunities.
So when looking at businesses the tail provides the same view. In terms of numbers the small business market easily contains as many people as all the large businesses combined. think of how many small insurance offices there are alone.
The core idea directly relates to technology, that technology allows companies to target markets too small to otherwise through innovative products. That's effectively what coworking is, it's finding an office design model that works to share space and allow a small business to work in an environment they couldn't afford to otherwise.
Go beyond the industries described, MOST businesses will be the size this kind of environment works for them. it's just that most likely don't have an office today. A huge part of this market likely has a home office and works out of their car. How many handymen have an office today?