The recipe to start a co-living house (in any industry)
Tips I've learned from running a house and being apart of a house in the past :)
I get asked a lot what learnings I learned from living in a house and setting up a house. The way I wrote this piece may seem like a “6 easy steps to run a house'“ but in reality, it takes a lot of work. While it’s only been a month and a half so far at the Dojo House, I thought I’d compile a list of things that have worked really well so far and things I learned from those who started houses in the past.
1. Raise way more capital than you think you need
It’s always better to have leftover funding to spend on programming than go into debt. I’ve been in situations where landlords can suddenly charge you way more fees at the end than you expected. I’ve also heard situations where people don't pay their rent on time, or people need to be chased down months after the house ended to pay their dues. It’s always better to be safe than sorry! When finding a property, having a budget that is half or a bit more than half of the amount you raised is a good idea. You’ll always run into extra expenses no matter what, so it’s good to be prepared.
2. Location matters!
It’s important to make sure you aren’t too far away from all the action. Every city and location has its pros and cons. Do you want to pick a city with a plethora of innovation where members of the house can really utilize their surroundings? Or is the goal of the house a retreat where you only want to focus on members to bond with each other for a month or two?
The Dojo House being the first biotech house naturally resides in Cambridge. Cambridge is more of a college town so Harvard and MIT are not too far away, and the city can still be easy to get to via transportation for weekend outings. It’s pretty easy to find co-working places nearby at Harvard or Boston Public Library, which makes things a lot more pleasant in case the house get’s too stuffy at times!
Having a house that other people can get to can also be a pro depending on the type of house you want to set up. When inviting guests over, you don’t want to burden them with an hour-long trip to get to your location.
While this is a given, you’d also want to pick an area that is safe, groceries/necessities are accessible, and transportation is closeby.
3. Keep some extra bedsheets
The Dojo House loves having our guests over. Having a couch to crash on with a few pillows and bedsheets has been super fun. We love our guests! From our biotech friends who stay over late at night talking about the future of cryopreservation who needs a place to sleep in, we always want to have them covered.
Having guests over is one of the highlight experiences of a co-living house. You can increase the number of cool people you meet, and they also get to briefly experience what it’s like to live in a co-living house. Naturally, they tend to invite more people to stay a few nights at the house, and we get to have more fresh perspectives come in and out of the house.
4. Have a space that’s not too big and not too small
Engineer an environment where people can naturally bump into each other. The Dojo House has one living room and one medium-sized kitchen. If the house were to be a beaker with 8 different chemicals mixing together, there needs to be plenty of space for particles to keep bumping into each other for collision conversations. Houses that lack a living room/have too many found it the hardest to get people to bond and talk to each other. The more often you see someone, the more likely you are to talk to them.
We have wholesome mornings in the kitchen where we all eat together, or co-work together in our makeshift wework, because that’s the only space we can work/eat at. We keep plenty of chairs and make sure our living room stays super cozy for us to hang out with after work. We also keep an ample amount of chairs in the kitchen to make room for everyone during larger group dinners.
5. Keep consistent with programming & have a theme
While the notion of bringing together “cool people” to live with each other sounds great, you need to have a north star of the house that is very clear and apparent. Is the theme bio-themed? Will everyone be expected to work in biotech/research? Is everyone a wet-lab scientist? Or is it a tech house where everyone is working on tech-based companies? Not having a theme can make it 10x harder to think of programming to run, and also when planning events that will be of value to most members of the house. You need to have one common string that ties the group together, or else it’s just another regular house with roommates where you all split rent.
People are always super excited about the first week of the house. They all want to explore the city together, eat together all the time, but naturally, that excitement dies down. If you want to run a 2-3 month house, keep some consistent events on the calendar every week. It could be as simple as nightly syncs where everyone talks about their day. If you don’t have consistent programming from the start, it’ll get harder and harder to get people to come to the big-ticket events or guest speakers.
Giving some responsibility to the house members to organize a guest speaker every week or event can also help keep the momentum going. It also reduces the workload for the house organizer.
Having a group project together is another easy way to bond. The Dojo House does a recurring story of self series where we present our lives from the day we are born up until our present selves. We all look forward to hearing someone’s story every week.
6. Make sure you are fit to lead
Running a house is never an easy task. Sometimes there are conflicts that may arise, and while solving conflicts shouldn’t be your main priority it can affect the culture of the house negatively.
If you don’t show an example of what it’s expected out of someone to be a member of the house, chances are others will not follow the expectations set of them. If everyone has to do a certain set of chores, you must make sure you do your own chores consistently as well. If people are responsible for showing up to an event and it’s a mandatory event, you must be the first person to show up on time. And this goes with any community, not just a co-living house.
And that’s it! (jk).
Till next time,
Subaita