Holy shit. I'm a huge believer in coworking spaces, have actively used and promoted them, and have been a member of - and know people who currently are members at - WeWork. I had never heard of SPE's, though. That some crafty financial skullduggery, right there. And a wicked-rickety tower to stand $20bn of valuation on top of! I still like the Office Nomads model: Own the building. Full disclosure: I was a tenant for several years, and am personal friends with the owners.
This is the first I've heard of the coworking movement--it reminds me a bit of the hacker/maker-space trend. It seems robust in theory, but I can see the execution being tricky. I would think that owning the space is the safest, though not the easiest, way to go about establishing one of these spaces.
Coworking is freaking magical for the solopreneur. Sitting at home on your couch typing on a laptop is only going to get you to about $2k/month, if you REALLY work at it. There's only so much money people will pay someone, when their office is a coffee shop. In a coworking space, the energy and vibe of the space just makes money fall outta the sky. Think of it: If you work for yourself, and you don't want to work today, you don't go in to the coworking space and faff about on Facebook, or go into YouTube spirals. Instead, you stay home, or go to a coffee shop. So a coworking space FEELS different... the air is spicy with energy and productivity. People are there because they are WORKING. When the productivity stops, they leave. Being in that kind of electrically-productive environment stimulates the brain cells, and makes you hyper-productive. AND, it gives you an office where you have a conference room, and a secretary, and a printer, and you can meet clients and do presentations, and brainstorm on whiteboards. You can't do that in a coffee shop. Coworking is brilliant. Took my business from about $1000-$1500/month to more than $5k/month. Made ME better. More confident. More professional. More productive. I'm a fan. Can you tell? =>
"One top San Francisco broker put it this way, 'WeWork’s openly been saying for years that if the market tanks, it’ll renegotiate every lease it has.'"It may be that WeWork will shiv its landlords only when it becomes truly desperate, but with $18 billion in short and medium-term debt and losses running nearly a billion a year, desperation may arrive sooner than anticipated. This, by the way, is where WeWork’s pivot to the Fortune 500 is going to bite harder than a third grader in a schoolyard fight. Sublease 100,000 feet to 400 dinky entrepreneurs and start-ups and chances are some will prove to be cockroaches that survive the next downturn—the space may stay half-leased. Sublease that same 100,000 feet to General Motors or Microsoft, companies with better—and more conservative—economic forecasting models than you’ve ever dreamed of, and they will go dark before your feet hit the floor.