What the End of Coworking at General Assembly Means for New York
Nothing.
Yeah, it doesn’t mean anything. Chill out.
General Assembly isn’t really a coworking company. It’s been an education business for quite a while now, if you haven’t noticed–and it’s a business they’re damn good at. By professionalizing startup education in NYC, GA has made a huge impact in the community.
By number, most of the people who pass through its doors are there for classes, not to work. In fact, GA East is the only one of its locations around the world that has any kind of coworking in it–and, while it’s a very cool group of people, it’s pretty small compared to the number of people at WeWork or the total amount of people working in one of the billion or so NYC coworking spaces.
So, they’re just focusing on what they’re good at, which is what any good startup should do. GA isn’t any better at coworking than anywhere else. If anything, they were above market in their pricing. NYC didn’t really need GA providing desk space–we seem to manage that pretty well on our own. We do need them continuing to offer classes, because curriculum development, faculty management, and running classroom space is hard. So, good for them to focus on that.
We’ll be just fine.
Yes, it’s a cool group of people–and I was a community member as well. What that group should just do is pick up and move to another space. Everyone at GA East should just move out into another shared space on their own.
I’d be happy to join it.
In the meantime, you can find me in Brooklyn, and when I’m in the city, in the lobby of the Union Square Hyatt. It’s very cool and they’ll give you the wifi password at the front desk if you ask–yes, just like the Ace.
Or maybe I’ll hang at the Alley, or New Work City, or WeWork, or GrindSpace, or WorkBench, or SparkLabs, or Regus, or Techspace… maybe all of them.
And if you want to come to Brooklyn, we have Dumbo Startup lab, NYU/Poly, The Yard, BrooklynWorks at 159, Secret Clubhouse… Tons of places.
Keep calm and cowork on.