space-sharing

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?