Always room at the table: our potluck theory of scaling community spaces
Alex Hillman
I have a very vivid memory from growing up, of a surprise guest who joined our dinner table.
In this particular memory, we were celebrating Passover, and one of our traditions at the Passover meal is to arrange the table with a full glass of wine for a particular “spiritual” guest, but my family had adapted the tradition to put out a whole place setting.
I never really thought much about the traditin until one year during the meal, we had a knock on our door. It was a family friend who we hadn’t seen in a while, and just randomly stopped by to say hello but was completely unknowing of the meal or tradition.
While we joked that he was our Elijah that year, and there was something extra memorable about already having a place setting all ready for our unexpected guest.
“What’s your capacity”
Among the common idle questions we get about Indy Hall is “how big is the space” or more specifically “what’s your capacity”?
I’ve always found this question innocent but strange, especially because most of the time the answer is meaningless. Our square footage doesn’t really tell you much of anything about what happens inside the space, and “what’s your capacity” only really matters in the context of fire safety during an event.
The thing about these measurements is that they’re finite.
Over time, I’ve come to answer this questiond differently because I think what people are really asking is “how full is the space?” and more specifically “Will there be room for me when I show up?”
Here’s the thing: we’re not an airline that oversells seats only to bump passengers to another flight. We’re not even a gym that sells memberships that it hopes people forget to use.
We actually want people to come in to the clubhouse and enjoy each others’ company!
In our first year, and our first space, we only had about 18 workstations. But we had far more than 18 members!
The thing we realized we needed to pay attention to wasn’t the maximum capacity…it was the availability of a place for someone who showed up unscheduled, much like the dinner guest from my childhood Passover memory.
When we noticed that there was only one or two empty spots most days, we’d either add a couple more workstations or even place a temporary waitlist on our higher-utlization memberships for a few months. And as we grew, this approach scaled SO much better than a basic occupancy target that many other coworking spaces were optimizing for!
The Unique Value of Community
You might be asking yourself…what does this have to do with potlucks?
The beauty of a potluck is that, like our version of managing our capacity, potlucks scale with their participation. As long as everyone who shows up brings something to share with everyone else who shows up, we are guaranteed abundance.
We try to apply this to everything we can at Indy Hall. Most businesses are limited by their inventory or their time. When they sell their “thing” they have to go find more to sell to the next person. Yay capitalism!
But within the boundaries of Indy Hall, we get to do something different.
Unlike a business where each person is purely a consumer of that good or service, Indy Hall’s model asks:
What if every person who showed up was themselves part of the value that everyone else came for?
That’s a way more interesting question, if you ask me.
Whether it’s our coworking space, a community meetup, or a holiday potluck, we’re always looking for ways to make sure there’s a seat at the table for you and anyone who wants to be a part of it.
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