The rise of Kuching’s coworking spaces
In a world where work responsibilities and boundaries are ever changing with the times, such also is the change in the way people work.
Open offices, digital nomads and working from home are some of the unconventional evolutions of the work habits of today, bound not by a 9-to-5 physical presence in your typical enclosed cubicle.
All these led to the birth of coworking spaces: a business services provision model involding individuals working independently or collaboratively in a shared office space.
Co- working spaces are fast catching on in Kuching, tapping into the needs of entrepreneurs, freelancers or just the general public in need of workstations equipped with the right tools and facilities to aid them in the course of running a business.
A recent search on Facebook recently revealed a variety of co- working spaces available in Kuching, all with different offerings and facilities to suit different customers’ needs.
Why are co-working spaces becoming so popular these days? According to co-founder of The Learning Curve, Kenneth Chai, Kuching is a unique place where business concepts should match the needs and expectations of the local economy, market and demographics.
“What works – or didn’t work abroad – doesn’t necessarily resonate here,” Chai said. He and his partners are planning to open up a co-working space soon to integrate with their existing science, technology, egineering and mathematics (STEM) enrichment centre.
“As a STEM education provider, we are not exactly venturing into another co-working space clone here in Kuching. What we are trying to is to set up a working and living community for local enterprises -- by a local enterprise ourselves.”
The Learning Curve, along with another social enterprise, will be resident enterprises at the space. Aside from that, it will also feature capsule accommodation and 24/7 access for entrepreneurs with global clientele or services.
“With a very reasonable cost and standard of living, we believe Kuching can offer itself as a low risk launchpad for non- tech, digital service oriented start-up founders.
“Besides, as a start-up ourselves, we believe we have to constantly create viable market for our business, instead of only relying on market demand.”
Chai noted that as conventional businesses downsize their operational expenses, and mature start-ups scaling up, these businesses will look for low-risk low-cost flexible and immediate working space for their external ad-hoc units.
This is the trend seen worldwide as the proliferation of start-ups and other small entreprises boosts the growth of coworking spaces.
But what other coworking spaces are there in Kuching that are quickly gaining attention? BizHive Weekly talks to a few industry players:
From this, the co-founders have their eyes on moving to a bigger area in order to add more facilities to their current offerings.
Currently, the My Placa features an open- space layout with individual one-person tables and a coffee table facing its floor-toceiling windows, along with a few other long tables to accommodate customers.
“We are thinking of moving to a bigger area or space. We are starting to look at shoplots at the moment,” Tan said. “We were thinking of adding in some different facilities from the feedback from the customers such as meeting rooms.”
Plans for evolving
Looking ahead, it is clear that My Placa will not be just like any other ‘co-working space’.
In fact, Tan shared their plans of also creating a platform at My Placa for home-made or locallymade products.
“During festive seasons, we do have homemade cookies to sell as well. It’s a platform for people to sell their home made products,” Tan said. “We have people who come here just to buy the granola or tuak.”
Additionally, the co-founders are looking into making My Placa a parcel collection centre whereby customers can send their items to the location and later pick these up at a more convenient time.
A creative move on the part of the co-founders, given that online shopping is practically a norm these days and does not seem to be a trend that is slowing down anytime soon.
“We actually looked into parcel collection. Like for working people, normally nobody is at home. Usually, courier services will go to the houses, and when there’s nobody there, they will just leave a card.
“It’s actually quite troublesome for ( the recipients), I mean to even go to the (postal delivery or company) centre to collect their parcels,” Tan said, based on her own experience.
“We are looking into it, we haven’t started, but we are looking into it. It is actually very convenient because we open until 10pm everyday so it’s convenient for them to just drop by and pick up their things.”