A new project called FreelancersWhoCowork.com has just been quietly launched to celebrate the 100s of 1000s of freelancers who choose coworking spaces as the base of their business operations.

So why freelancers, and why now?

We work with and support community managers at a lot of coworking spaces.

We work together to empower coworking members, and multiply the value of their memberships through shared buying-power and network-effects of 100s of connected, but independent, communities.

During these discussions, it’s increasingly clear that there are 4 broad groups of coworking world ‘citizens’.

There’s the startups (let’s collectively band in the founders and their executive teams here), who are usually trying hard to change the world in some big audacious way.

Then there’s the boostrappers, who are often small teams working on something that they’re passionate about, but not in the raising-cash-for-growth rollercoaster that the first group are in. This group often includes companies like creative agencies, web dev companies and other creative service providers.

The employees group is growing with the popularity of coworking in the corporate world. This is the group where you’ll find telecommuters, the remote workers, the corporate innovation teams, and most of the non-executive members of the bootstrappers and startups groups.

Then there’s the freelancers. These micro-businesses are made up of a single passionate person doing something they love, almost always superbly well. By providing expert services to other businesses, they are a core piece to the continued growth of their own community, and of entrepreneurship in their local ecosystem.

Over the last 4 years, whilst sourcing solutions for all 4 groups, I’ve kept a keen eye on the stories and resources being shared about the coworking sector.

There’s a lot of press is about the sector growth, some space operators, the ‘sexy’ startups (almost always only when they’ve just raised money, for some silly reason), and many many stories about how flexible workspaces and remote work is positively/negatively affecting employees.

So, after waiting long enough, we decided we’d help out (with support from a bunch of awesome organisations, and some others who are still coming onboard, ie sending logos over) to highlight freelancers who choose coworking spaces as their base of operations.

So, what is the plan for FreelancersWhoCowork.com?

Starting in May, the site will begin to feature profiles, podcasts and interviews with freelancers who cowork, with the hope that it promotes them, their business and also their coworking community.

We’ve just started accepting registrations on the platform, and will begin scheduling in blog posts and then podcasts with freelancers who’re interested in the free exposure, and are happy to receive our little newsletter of who else is freelancing from coworking spaces around the world.

The idea is to then allow these freelancers to democratically vote on what we’d build FreelancersWhoCowork into based on their needs as individuals and as a collective.

And then we’ll get it built/sourced/implemented, be it sticking to the story-sharing, a forum, a networking tool, a resource for fighting loneliness and bettering mental health, a geocities-like mess or a combination of some of the previous ideas.

We’ll start with highlighting amazing freelancers, but where it goes from there, is totally up to the freelancers who cowork.

Looking to support Freelancers Who Cowork?

Awesome, get in touch!