Last Monday on the 31st of August 2015 I decided to offer our Expert DOJO 8,000 square foot workspace in the prime real estate area of Santa Monica to be used by the entrepreneur community at no charge. For a long time I had resisted the notion of being called a coworking space because my deep belief was and is that coworking spaces do not improve an entrepreneurs chances of success, it just seems that way. As a company dedicated to success coaching in the entrepreneur field I wanted us to be thought of as more than just a space, but last week I changed my mind and offered our coworking space at no charge to the entire entrepreneur community. I hope my story will make you think differently about how you run your business.
New high tech companies fail at a rate of 98%. That means that in every 1,000 person conference there are 20 people in the room who will make some money. Most everyone else will lose. When I compared this number to the Israel tech scene I saw that they have technology eco-systems with success ratios over 30%. The reason for this is not just excellent coaching, tight partnerships between the private and the public sector, a close knit community and a better entrepreneurial education at an earlier age. It’s something much more primal than that. It’s how powerful a community can be when it believes that the sum of the parts are more than anything we can do alone. It’s the highest form of conscious capitalism and here in America we have never needed it more than we do today.
When I formed our Expert DOJO Success Academy we went to one of the biggest property companies in LA and asked them to serve the community in a location where they would normally put a high priced restaurant. They showed how much they cared for the community by providing us a location at a fair rent. When we went to Cort Furniture and asked them provide furniture for our entrepreneurs they gave it to us without a thought for payment. Now that we have the most beautiful coworking space anywhere in LA we are giving it to the community it was always destined for. We make plenty of money from our coaching services (http://expertdojo.com/membership/) because we are good at success coaching. Cort sells and rents lots of furniture because they are good at what they do, and the Mall will stay as profitable as they have always been for the same reason. Our other partners who care about this community are Microsoft, Enki, Benchmark email and so many more.
Our dream is that the entrepreneurs who use our space will help everyone they meet in our space and outside, so we can turn 20 successful entrepreneurs in a room into 100 and then into 200. More importantly, as entrepreneurs, everyone of us can look ourselves in the mirror and our families in the face and know that we made a difference to our whole community.
For those of you out there who feel this is tree hugging nonsense you will be interested to know that our enquiries and sales for our coaching services spiked at an all time high the day we made this announcement to the community and you should also know that this is not a one off action in a far away place. We are part of a movement which will go through schools, prisons, veteran associations and everywhere else we can find to make our world just a little better for us all. By joining this movement you multiply our impact on society and on your own business. You can see why we exist at http://expertdojo.com and you should contact brian@payitfrowardlabs.com if you have any questions or just want to show support to our community.