Have you ever found yourself scrambling around public spaces in Singapore to find a table to do your work? During my schooling years, I often have to force myself to wake up early to queue outside public libraries to secure myself a seat to study in. If I fail to do so, I’d go to the Starbucks stores nearby, in hope of finding a seat that is near a power socket.

Sometimes, I would have to scramble around two to three Starbucks outlets to be able to find a seat. Even if I found a seat, there is a possibility of getting chased out if I stay there too long.

With coworking spaces and space sharing gaining prominence in Singapore, we have a plethora of places that we can work or study in. We can simply rent a table somewhere at a low cost and enjoy the facilities such as WiFi and power sockets for free!

The concept of renting a “day-space” may be foreign to some of you. To put it simply, it allows you to book a facility of your choice for your specified duration and for a small fee.

Benefits of Renting a Space

Here are three reasons why renting your own space may be better than going to public spaces.

1. Privacy

As someone who prefers a quieter environment to work in, I dread the crowd at Starbucks. When the peak hour hits, Starbucks is full of people chatting away while getting their caffeine fix. Even in the library, the person next to you may be too close for comfort or their books may be invading your space on the table.

Having your own facility can prevent a host of such problems because you can decide who goes with you, or if you just want to be alone. Even if you leave your bags unattended for a little while, there’s no need to be afraid of them being stolen because only you have access to your space.

2. Flexibility

I’m sure we all remember having to reach Starbucks or the nearest library right when they open so that you can “chope” the best seats. Oftentimes, we’d have a fear of getting thrown out during peak periods. With your own space, you can come and go anytime you want. You decide the number of hours you want to stay there for and there won’t be anyone throwing you out just because you’ve finished your cup of coffee.

3. Convenience

In this digital day and age, we do not leave anywhere without our phones and laptops. This brings the problem of us constantly requiring connectivity (WiFi) and accessible charging spots for these devices. Public spaces tend to provide WiFi but the signal may be weak or may require you to constantly reconnect. Charging spots may be limited in supply or not readily available.

Renting your own space easily resolves these problems, giving you ample charging outlets and a stable WiFi connection. You would never have to worry about exceeding your mobile data limit or having a flat battery on your laptops.

Why are people not willing to rent a space?

Despite these benefits, there are some negative points to consider. For instance, you will need to incur some costs to book a space. As public spaces are often free of charge (besides the money for coffee or tea), some people may be reluctant to book a space.

However, costs needed to rent such a space are usually only slightly more than your cup of Starbucks coffee. Besides, you get to stay at the place for the whole day, without having to worry about being chased out during peak hours. Moreover, some of the spaces for lease offer free coffee and tea.

With these pros and cons listed, which type of space would you prefer?

A business exists to serve its target users. Business owners first look at their business model and decide who they can serve, followed by who they want to serve. They often define customers they can serve as those that are directly linked to their business.

For instance, warehouse owners find their customers to be businesses that require more space to store goods. Tuition centres only look at parents with children who need academic help as their customers.

But what if we can cater to more? What if we can stretch the definition of who we can consider as our “customers”?

Having a fixed customer type in mind is natural; it is not wrong, but it is definitely time for businesses to think outside the box.

Businesspeople must learn to embrace customers outside their business model. This is especially so for those who have fixed spaces, and even more so for those who find these spaces to be underutilised.

Back to the example mentioned above, customers of a tuition centre are not limited to parents. Tuition centres are mostly empty in the day as students have to attend school. During these pockets of free time, they can look at other ways to maximise utilisation of the centre. For example, working professionals may need a location to conduct training sessions or students may require a comfortable space to study or even just a venue to host a small party. By being creative with who you consider as your customer, you can improve the bottom-line of your business while maximising the use of space.

Your space can serve more kinds of users than you think. It can be used in so many other ways. Don’t put a limit to the scope of your business. Your customers don’t always have to be those with a direct link to your business, it can be anyone who requires a space to utilise.

Get creative with your business, the possibilities are endless.

It is undeniable that utilising shared spaces is a trend for modern businesses and entrepreneurs. It allows one to interact and collaborate with people from other companies or meet like-minded individuals.

A quick search on the internet on ‘space sharing’ brings you to a plethora of websites offering coworking spaces. This is the issue. Space sharing is often misconstrued as sharing a workspace with others – it goes way beyond that.

Shareable space consists of more than just workspaces; there are many other types of venues that can be shared. A company’s lounge can be shared with the public during the weekends, a classroom can be rented out in the holidays, even a rooftop can be shared.

Many of you may find this to be too out of the norm – it is – but it is not impossible to realise this concept. The whole idea behind the sharing economy is to reduce wastage of underused resources through peer-to-peer sharing. This presents a win-win situation, where the provider has an opportunity to earn an extra income and the consumer can save on their expenses.

This phenomenon has been changing the way we live – it is time for us to change too.

So, why not keep an open mind about what other types of spaces are shareable?