A whopping 80% of startups fail within the first 18 months – could office sharing be key to your business avoiding this fate?
The green-fingered among you will know that we’ve now entered sowing season, the time of year when gardeners plant the seeds for this year’s crops.
They’ll know that even the best crops need to right environment to truly thrive – and businesses are no different.
Office sharing is so much more than renting a desk
Some analysts believe that office sharing is the fastest growing tenure in business accommodation – with Reuters reporting a 23% rise in the number of businesses operating this way since 2010 and predicting that 30% of office space will be shared by 2030.
Many of the attractions of office sharing are obvious – its keeps your overheads to a minimum, allowing you to focus your resources on your talent and tech.
Then there’s the easy access to technology. At SciTech Daresbury our co-workers get access next generation computing platforms, world leading IP, and £170m worth of state of the art technology – all of which would otherwise be beyond the reach of all-but the wealthiest start-ups.
But the biggest benefits of office sharing are less immediately tangible – the instantaneous access to people on the same journey and the same wavelength as you.
Unconscious networking
The biggest benefit of office sharing is what we at Sci-Tech Daresbury call ‘Unconscious networking’. We’ll share a secret with you, almost no-one gets that excited at the prospect of traditional networking events – sipping lukewarm orange juice while knowing people are only talking to you to see what they can get out of you!
With office sharing this process becomes organic, natural and mutually beneficial – your next client, collaborator, or supplier could be sitting at the next desk. Whatever obstacles appear in your start-up journey – whether it’s a problem with funding, marketing, recruitment or technology – they’ll be someone in the same room who has already overcome it. It’s one of the many reasons we’ve been described as “the Silicon Valley of the North West”.
In the case of Sci-Tech Daresbury, you won’t just be collaborating with similarly-sized start-ups either – our industry partners mean we also offer access to world-leading technology firms like IBM, international accountants and auditors Mazars, or the cutting edge research of the University of Liverpool.
The right environment for a young business to thrive
Collaboration is key to what we do – 60% of our members have collaborated with a neighbouring business and 75% with one of our partners.
And we think that figure is only going to rise.
More than 100 high tech companies at all stages of their life cycle are now based at SciTech Daresbury, so there’s sure to be someone close by who can benefit your business.
Businesses based on the site have seen their annual sales grow by an average of 30% over the past five years, and our business survival rates at Sci-Tech Daresbury are more than double the national average.
Easy access to funders, clients, mentors and collaborators – that’s why office sharing helps you business scale up faster.
