These days, most entrepreneurs are opting to use co-working spaces as opposed to renting out traditional offices and committing to leases. This means that there is a growing opportunity for people who want to provide these co-working environments in what’s called space as a service.
A co-working space provider is capable of taking the risk on behalf of entrepreneurs, they can (with enough entrepreneurs on the floor) afford to pay for a long lease to occupy a building or office, something that a sole entrepreneur might not be able to do.
In Kenya, current space as a service options for entrepreneurs includes Nairobi Garage, iHub, The Kijiji, Nailab, Ikigai and iBiz Africa. These co-working environments ensure that they take care of providing the services that entrepreneurs would traditionally take care of had they rented their own space.
Such services include the paying of rent, cleaning, Wi-Fi and Internet connectivity, security, printing and photocopying capabilities, conference rooms provision, phone booths, a furnished kitchen and sometimes even the provision of motivational speakers and events which would be valuable entrepreneurs.
/* custom css */
.tdi_3_01c.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_01c.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; }
In Nairobi, some co-working spaces can be rented on a monthly basis for roughly $80 (8,000KS). This is a truly affordable option for new entrepreneurs the need to inject as much capital into their ideas as possible without having to worry about setting up a traditional workspace.
What this means for real estate
For the real estate industry, it is clear to see that thanks to space as a service, demand for real estate could be on the increase. Space as a service providers will take on the collective risk that individual entrepreneurs couldn’t afford and this means that more offices could be filled with individual renters.
By Alila Wekoto, Business Development Manager at Deepfinity
