Those numbers seem like they could be doable, especially since we’ve had 14 interested people so far.  However, it’s not so inexpensive that it wasn’t going to be a big risk, and a large expense initially.  Therefore, we decided to hold off for a little while and think about our plan.

At the same time, I also signed up for the Coworking Google group, so I’ve been getting daily emails from other space owners around the world.  I learned about what concerns they had, what challenges they’d overcome, etc.  I even had a chance to talk to a lot of coworking people in the US when I traveled through in July.

In the end, we decided to change our course and instead of trying to just push forward by ourselves, to try to find a few partners here in Beijing who’d like to do this with us.  There are a few advantages to this:

1. Coworking is all about the community, not the fact that you have spare desks to use.  Starting with partners ensures that from the very first day, there will be a community.  New people who come in to check it out will see at least the three to four partners working and will have people to welcome them.
2. On our side, we’ll know that the place we decide on is one where entrepreneurs in Beijing want to work, and not just one that’s convenient for me.  Even with only three to four of us, we’ll have had to negotiate a location, and it will probably be better than just me and Judy picking one.
3. It splits the financial risk so that no single person has so much money on the line.  Even if we get no customers during the time that we rent the office, we can all just treat it as us paying a little bit extra for something we all wanted (shared office space).

So, last week, Olof Nordenstam posted a message on the Web Wednesday Beijing group message board on Linked In asking about shared office space for entrepreneurs.  There was some interest, so we decided to talk in person at last week’s Web Wednesday meeting.  Turns out he and Carl (the other person who was interested) are really nice guys and we decided to try working together informally at Mucha Coffee (technically 木茶咖啡, since they don’t have Pinyin on their sign) on Friday.

I also sent out an invitation to the people who had responded to my coworking survey, and two of them, Steven and Sarah, showed up as well.  We decided to keep getting together semi-regularly, so I started a new email list on Mailchimp to keep track of where we’ll be working.

If you’d like to join us next time, please sign up for the Beijing Coworking email list.  Hope to see you soon!

When I asked Simon what his secret was, he told me that you have to make each line teach you something you can be sure about.  You can’t just guess randomly, and you can’t try to learn too much at once.  When Simon plays, each line is an experiment; he knows what every possible result will mean to him before he submits it.

Not only is this great advice for a game of Mastermind, it’s great advice for a startup.  Lean startups are all about feedback, but it’s very easy to start looking at your Google Analytics reports without knowing what they’re really telling you and how you should react to them.  Now, I have a spreadsheet on which I write down any hypotheses that I have, a test that will allow me to test the hypothesis, and what the next step is if the test confirms or denies my hypothesis.  The actual column names are ‘Hypothesis’, ‘Test Idea’, ‘Required Results to Confirm’, ‘Required Results to Disprove’, ‘Action if Confirmed’, ‘Action if Disproved’, ‘Real Test’, ‘Results’ (these last two are filled in over time as we run the tests).

I’ve only just started doing this, so I only have one completed test so far, but it’s a good reminder to think critically about what exactly I learn from any action I take, and I hope it will help Bespoke Row improve quickly in the future.  If I get enough comments here, I’ll write a follow up in three months or so on how it works out.

http://www.tonyspencer.com/2006/05/02/tab-skips-select-form-fields-in-mac-browsers/

Awesome.  The only difference between 2006 and now (Snow Leopard) is that in System Preferences, Keyboard and Mouse have been split into two separate menus, so you should go System Preferences >> Keyboard >> Keyboard Shortcuts to find the ‘All controls’ radio button.

Events

• Beijing Web Wednesday – Startup and tech folks who meet once a month at Nearby The Tree
• Mobile Monday – I haven’t had a chance to go to this yet, especially since my startup isn’t mobile related, but I hear it’s also exciting

People

• Benjamin Joffe – Twitter Organizer of Mobile Monday and deep thinker about tech in Asia.  I really enjoyed his presentation at the Geeks on a Plane Beijing mixer
• Frank Yu – Twitter Edits the Beijing Startup Digest newsletter
• Lee Kai-Fu – Ex. Google head and founder of Innovation Works.  I don’t know if he has a personal blog or twitter account to follow.
• Me – Twitter – only partially joking here; I’m trying to learn as much as I can in Beijing as well, so if you’re doing cool stuff, I’d love to follow you.

Newsletters

• The Startup Digest Beijing – currently edited by Frank Yu.  Fairly new, so only about one event per week listed.  I’m sure it will get better and bigger.

There are also occasional one-off events, like when Geeks on a Plane showed up, that are great, but don’t repeat, so I haven’t included them here.

Betahouse is a coworking location that is currently in a Central Square apartment/loft; they’re moving soon, though to somewhere else.  There are no bedrooms, but there is a kitchen with bar.  The whole floor is open with a high ceiling and wood floor.  Altogether, they have 9-10 desks, so it’s fairly small compared to other places I’ve seen. Pretty much everyone has monitors and full size computers and a reserved desk, so there are not many temp people.  This means the place is really focused on working and it’s easy to be productive.  Also, everyone has a key, so there are no open/closed hours.

I think this set up gives them a tight community, but it’s a little intimidating to walk in the first time.  You can’t help but be a little unsure of where you’re going, since it is just an apartment and you have to go up the stairs by yourself.  Also, there’s no secretary or door greeter, so it’s possible no one will say hi and welcome you.  You have to say the first word.

Overall, I think betahouse’s environment felt the most productive out of nearly everywhere I’d been; you could tell people were there to get stuff done while they were working.  They do relax, though; on my Friday in Boston I had some drinks over there after five and talked to people about startups and coworking.

What I learned at Betahouse is that having permanent members who are really permanent, and have their whole office setup there, not just people who come in every day with laptops, can make the place feel more productive.  Once I can get a coworking space up and running here, I’d like to encourage some people to really make it their permanent office.

Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re really a coworking space – it’s more like an internet cafe.  All but two of the desks have their own computers on them, which you can use temporarily.  It seems that most of their money comes from their Apple repair service, and no one really appears to work here full time.  Therefore, unlike WorkBar, this is very quiet and there’s not a lot of idea exchange.

Overall, it’s a fine place to stop in if you need to get online on Newbury street or are visiting for a day and need to skype, but I don’t think there’s a lot that i want to emulate here when I open Beijing Coworking next month.

Workbar is about 2500 square feet in the basement of a building near South Station.  This is a really great location because it literally takes less than 5 minutes to walk here from the subway.  The inside is extremely colorful and has a lot of art on the walls, which adds up to make it very comfortable. They’ve separated their space into three main working rooms, each of which has about 10-11 seats (two per table generally).  One of them is set up sort of like a cafe.  In addition, they have one conference room, a lounge area with a couch, and a few little nooks where people can talk on the phone.

Today, I learned three great ideas from them:

1. Occasionally have a ‘free day’, but not let everyone have a free day anytime.  This is different than most places I’ve seen, and I really like it.  Today, WorkBar is really crowded and people are meeting each other, etc.  This probably makes it seem more lively than it usually is and helps people make relationships with each other that they then associate with WorkBar.  I still like the idea of letting people try out coworking, but maybe we could combine monthly free days with a 2-hours-free first time bonus.  That way, you can’t just get a whole free day anytime, but you can always try it out.
2. Bring in outside services for coworkers to talk to.  WorkBar concentrates on the tech industry, so they’ve brought in an associate VC to talk to startups today for 15 minute increments.  It’s totally free and can be about anything you want.  I talked with him about how to find quality contractors and cofounders and he had a lot of good advice.
3. Charge for extra services to reduce the normal cost of coworking.  This might be a big idea for me because rent in Beijing is so expensive that we’re going to have to charge a lot comparatively for memberships.  WorkBar charges separately for conference room space ($20 USD/hour, which is pretty high), but also has low regular membership fees ($150/mo).  You can also get memberships that include conference space and dedicated desks for more, up to the top plan for $500/mo for large companies that have a few people based in Boston and frequently need to host events.

I don't have a crown, and I'm not looking for a wife, but I'm still coming.

Next month is the MIT Pi Reunion in Las Vegas, so I’ve decided to go back to America.  Since I have to leave China for a day on July 10 anyway (because of my visa), I’m just going to fly to Boston on July 10 and stay in the US until the reunion is over on August 2.  In addition to Boston and Las Vegas, I’m also going to visit Ohio and San Francisco.

I already have a number of people I have to see in each city, but I’m not out of time yet.  If you’d like to get together, send me an email or leave a comment here.  I’m really looking forward to this trip and the chance to see all my good friends again.  The last five months have been exciting in China, but I know I must have missed out on a lot back in the States.

Here’s my detailed itinerary:

1. Saturday, July 10 8:30pm – arrive in Boston
2. Tuesday, July 20 noon – arrive in Stow
3. Sunday, July 25 11am – arrive in San Jose
4. Thursday, July 29 8am – arrive in Las Vegas
5. Monday, August 2 10am – depart Las Vegas for China

Luckily for him, I had faced the difficult task of buying deodorant in China myself and knew exactly where to go.  When I moved to China, I didn’t bring any, either.  I figured that it was inexpensive enough that I’d use whatever space it might take up for other more valuable things, and I’d buy some when I got here.  However, I didn’t realize that Chinese men do not use stick deodorant and that it would take me three weeks to find any.

Just in case anyone out there is searching the internet for an answer to this question, let me tell you where it is.  The first place I found some was at April Gourmet grocery store.  It’s close to Gongti West Road (工体西路), at the first intersection north of Gonti North Road.  If you’re walking north, take a right on that first intersection and go about 200m.  It will be on your right with a red and green sign.  The deodorant is only available behind the checkout counter, so you have to ask them for it.  They have two kinds – Axe deodorant and Axe antiperspirant.  Here is a page about them with a map on Google.

The other place to go is K.H.Sam’s.  They have more selection, but I can’t remember exactly what brands, since I didn’t buy any there.  To find it, go to the right side of the first floor in the back.  They are also located on Gongti West Road.  To find them, go across the street from Gongti West Gate (near Pavilion bar) and walk south about 400m.  They’ll be on your left just after the G3 club.  I can’t find a map for them on Google.

Good luck to all – Beijing is hot in the summer, so I hope this keeps you smelling fresh.

Writing blog posts and articles is not something that comes particularly easily to me, but I think it’s important for a startup. It’s a great way to show customers that a company has real people behind it and add some personality to the site, while at the same time increasing traffic and page rank. Bonobos has done a great job with their blog and it’s an inspiration to me. I’d like the Bespoke Row blog to also help educate men about clothing and encourage them to be less hesitant when faced with choices about their own style. Too many can only go to the store with their girlfriends and ask them to pick something out.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure I’m the right person to write that sort of blog; I’m just barely past that stage myself, and only because I’ve learned a lot while starting the company.

On the other hand, my friend Lis already knows a lot about fashion and loves to write, so she’s going to help out. I’m going to contribute posts once a week as well, but they’ll be about either the process of starting the company or about also being a guy who is still learning about fashion.

Anyway, my readers here should check it out if they get a chance. It’s great to finally have a site that I can release publicly after working on everything on my own for so long. The actual website for Bespoke Row will be open around July 10, so it’s time for everything to start coming together.