Alex Hillman of Indy Hall: People, not real estate, drive coworking value

Indy Hall may be a WeWork killer.

Unlike IPO-bound WeWork, which has an iffy history with founders and is filled with heads-down strangers, Indy Hall is focusing on what matters in coworking: trust and relationships.

Once a physical coworking space in Philadelphia, founder Alex Hillman — @alexhillman on Indie Hackers — took Indy Hall exclusively online at the beginning of the pandemic. Now Indy Hall builds a diverse community among indie hackers, freelancers, solopreneurs, and remote employees, offering a virtual space to work, grow, and socialize together.

Early into COVID, Hillman and the Indy Hall team quickly identified with the challenges that many feel with remote work. The isolation, distractions, lack of motivation, and yearning for connection can be tough for anyone. That's why Indy Hall took a traditionally physical community and transformed it to serve people missing their coworkers.

I caught up with Hillman to discuss Indy Hall, COVID-19’s effects, its pivot to virtual, and the future of coworking in a post-pandemic world.

On Indy Hall’s value

When I started Indy Hall, it wasn't because I needed a place to work, it was because I missed having coworkers. Even as we've grown over the years, that's stayed at the core. If people want a place to work, but don't really care who else is around them, Indy Hall probably isn't for them.

On the flip side, when people choose to go out on their own and realize the isolation and loneliness that can come with entrepreneurship and remote work, we know that we're able to help with those problems very well, maybe better than anybody else because we design everything we do for space to build trust and relationships.

What it’s been like during COVID-19

We were one of the first U.S. spaces to close for COVID, and I spent a few weeks urging spaces nationally (and internationally) to take the virus seriously. Our stance from the start was simple, and in line with our people-first approach: businesses and buildings can be rebuilt, human lives cannot.

It's definitely weird to have the one thing we've always been best at — bringing people together — and turn into the very thing that we're NOT supposed to do, at least in person. But we realized that was the opportunity: people are going to want to be connected now more than ever, and that's what we do. So the only way we screw this up is by abandoning that.

Our members were impacted in a wide range of ways: some lost some or all of their income, others less so, and of course others ended up doing better due to the role their work might play in the pandemic. We did our best to recognize that all three scenarios were possible, and just because somebody wasn't economically strained doesn't mean that the pandemic was "easy" for them.

Taking coworking virtual

While the space has been closed, we put all of our resources into our online community and creating first-class community experiences online. We've learned a ton, designed new experiences from the ground up, and while it's not a replacement for in-person coworking I'm really proud that our online community has been able to be a critical lifeline for hundreds of people who've been staying home and isolating during the pandemic.

Keeping the long view in mind wasn't easy, but it was the only way I could see getting through it.

The future of coworking, post-pandemic

My focus is still going to be on people and trust and relationships. We're extremely well-poised to be part of the support infrastructure for people who jumped into entrepreneurship during the pandemic, either by force or by choice. We're working towards a 10-year mission of helping 10,000 people become sustainably independent. Prior to the pandemic, that was an economic development plan but now the same plan is all about economic recovery and doing it in a sustainable way.

We're entering into a period of economic rebuilding, as well as rebuilding our lives around where we go, who we interact with, and what we consider important. We're already seeing unbridled opportunism of second wave coworking re-emerge, with even more aggressive land grabs than it has in the past. This will distract lots of people, also like it has in the past.

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The road ahead

I'm more interested in how we can take the lessons from the last 15 years of coworking and apply them to whatever the recovery needs. We've got 15 years of practice at things that have proven critical over the last year (remote work, collaboration, community building, emergent business models, and innovation), and they're all clearly needed as communities, cities, and economies work to recover.

While the workspace industry is salivating over all of the new remote workers they can cram into their empty real estate, I'll keep caring about helping people help each other thrive in whatever form that needs to take. It's what got us through the last 12 months of the pandemic, and I'm confident it's what we'll still be doing in another 5-10 years, even if I don't know exactly what it will look like.

Community-driven optimism

I believe that communities where people look out for each other will thrive, especially after more than a year of widespread isolation.

COVID hasn't really changed my outlook other than to reinforce that if people can think beyond desks and square footage, coworking has a long future ahead. COVID took trends like remote work that were previously only available to certain industries, and now it's normal and I believe in many more cases, desired or demanded by workers.

That said, remote work isn't a panacea, nor is coworking. They're just tools. Coworking is a verb, it's a thing people will do with or without special spaces for it.

Hillman's recommendations

Find and support a local coworking operator whenever you can. Not all local coworking spaces are great, but that's kinda like restaurants. You gotta try them to know if they're any good, and you'll find that the thing that sets the best ones apart is the people.

So get involved in the community. Focus on building relationships. You never know how you'll be able to add to each others' success in the future.

What do you think? Are you a fan of coworking — either virtually or in-person? Share your thoughts below.