Latest / Small Business Success with Fexingo: Local Companies, Main Street Stories, and Community Commerce / How a Local Bookseller Built a Co-Working Membership That Works
Transcript
- Lucas: If these conversations have moved your work forward in some small way — maybe a pricing idea, maybe a way to think about repeat customers — a handful of listeners chip in every month at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's literally what funds making this many of these. No ads, no sponsors, just a small group keeping it going. Luna: Yeah. And we try to make every episode worth that cup of coffee. Lucas: Alright. So you walk into a bookstore, and the first thing you see is a row of desks. That's The Gutter Press in Portland, Maine — a used bookstore that gave up a third of its floor space for a co-working membership. Luna: I love that. It's like, why choose between browsing and working? You can do both. Lucas: Exactly. The owner, Jenna Quigley, told me she was watching foot traffic drop in 2023 — not catastrophically, but enough that she had this 1,200-square-foot store with about 400 square feet that was just low-margin paperback bins. Luna: So she decided to turn that space into something else. Lucas: She priced it at $150 a month per desk. That's about 60 percent below what WeWork was charging in the same neighborhood at the time. No commitment beyond month to month. By month nine, she had 42 members. Luna: Forty-two members in nine months — that's pretty fast for a small city like Portland. What's the break-even? Lucas: She needed 18 members to cover the foregone retail revenue plus the build-out costs — new outlets, better lighting, a shared printer. So she hit break-even by month four. And the real kicker is that members buy books. Luna: Right, because they're already in the store. They grab a coffee, browse the shelves during a break, maybe pick up a novel on the way out. Lucas: Jenna says the average member buys about two books per month. That's about $30 incremental spend per member. So the actual revenue per desk is closer to $180 when you factor in book sales. Luna: That's a nice little multiplier. And the retention numbers? Lucas: Average member retention is 11 months. That's high for co-working — national averages for flexible spaces hover around 6 to 8 months. She thinks it's because the space feels like a neighborhood living room, not a sterile office pod. Luna: There's a social aspect. You're surrounded by books, other regulars. It's not just a desk. Lucas: Right. And that community feel creates a kind of loyalty. Some members have been there since month one. One of them is a freelance graphic designer who says she gets more referrals from other members than she ever did from LinkedIn. Luna: That's the hidden value of a co-working space in a bookstore — the networking happens organically. You're not at a networking event, you're just working next to someone. Lucas: Exactly. Jenna told me about a member who's a tax accountant. During tax season, three other members hired him. That kind of thing builds a sticky ecosystem. Luna: So what did she have to give up to make this work? The floor space must have hurt her inventory. Lucas: She reduced her book stock by about 25 percent. But she got smarter about curation — she kept the high-turnover genres: fiction, cookbooks, local history. And she started selling more new books alongside used, which has higher margins. Luna: So she's not just a used bookstore anymore. She's a hybrid. Lucas: Exactly. The membership revenue is now about 40 percent of her total top line. She told me that without it, she would have been flat or down in 2024. Instead, she grew 12 percent year over year. Luna: And she did it without taking on debt or a big renovation loan. Lucas: No. The build-out cost about $8,000 — paint, desks, chairs, a new router. She did most of it herself on weekends. The biggest expense was the printer, which she bought refurbished for $400. Luna: That's lean. I think a lot of small business owners hear 'co-working' and imagine a WeWork-style build-out with expensive furniture and a kitchenette. Lucas: Right. She kept it simple. She didn't even add a coffee machine — she just partnered with the cafe two doors down. Members get a 10 percent discount there. So the cafe benefits, the bookstore doesn't have to deal with a coffee program. Luna: That's smart. It builds a local network, not just a single business. Lucas: The biggest challenge she faced was actually operational. She had to learn how to collect rent and sell books without doing either badly. She set up a simple invoicing system through Square, and she blocks off the first 15 minutes of her day to handle member requests. Luna: I wonder if there's a ceiling to this model. How many desks can a bookstore support before it stops feeling like a bookstore? Lucas: Jenna thinks her max is about 55 desks before the space feels crowded. She's at 42 now, so she has room to grow. But she's not in a hurry. She wants to keep the vibe right. Luna: That makes sense. If it gets too busy, you lose the thing that makes it unique. Lucas: She's also considering adding a small meeting room for $50 an hour. A few members have asked for it. That would be another revenue stream without adding much cost. Luna: Is she planning to share her model with other independent bookstores? Lucas: She's been getting emails. She told me she's working on a simple guide — basically her spreadsheet and her checklist — that she'll share for free. She thinks this could work for any retail space with extra square footage and a welcoming atmosphere. Luna: I hope she does. I think a lot of small businesses are sitting on underused space and don't see it as an asset. Lucas: Yeah. And the beauty of it is that the membership model smooths out the revenue. Book sales are seasonal — holiday spikes, summer slumps. But membership revenue is monthly and predictable. Luna: It's a hedge against the retail cycle. That's a valuable lesson for any Main Street business. Lucas: So here's the concrete takeaway: if you have 200 square feet of dead space, you can probably convert it into $2,700 a month in membership revenue. That's $32,000 a year. For a small bookstore, that's the difference between surviving and thriving. Luna: And you don't need to be a bookstore. A cafe, a hardware store, a florist — any retail space with a corner that could become a desk. Lucas: Right. Jenna's story is a reminder that the best business model might be hiding in plain sight, underneath your slow-moving inventory. Luna: I think we should go visit The Gutter Press next time we're in Portland. Lucas: I'd love that. Maybe we'll even get some work done.