CARRBORO -- CARRBORO -- When Brian Russell heard that some folks in Raleigh were considering opening a business similar to the one he operates in Carrboro, he had some advice for them.
"Charge what it costs to make a profit," Russell told them. "It's going to cost more than you think and costs are always going to go up."
In any other business such advice would be comical because it's so obvious. But Russell is part of the co-working movement, which seeks to create cafelike spaces where developers, writers and other independent contractors can work.
Co-working, as its proponents will eagerly tell you, is about community-building, not furthering the cause of capitalism.
But after nearly three years of operating Carrboro Creative Coworking, Russell has learned that the two can not be entirely separated. To survive, he has had to raise his prices and tweak his business model.
"There weren't any established market expectations of what things cost," Russell, 40, said.
The co-working movement has been gaining in popularity in recent years, particularly in San Francisco and other wired cities where there are a large number of freelancers.
Co-working spaces have begun to pop up in North Carolina, including several in Charlotte. Russell hopes to eventually open one in Durham.
The economic downturn has, in many ways, made co-working more attractive to companies and entrepreneurs trying to keep costs down.
On the surface, co-working doesn't seem radical.
Many of the services offered by Russell and other co-working spaces - desk or office space, Internet access, meeting rooms, a mailbox - are no different than what you'd get if you leased an executive office suite or set up in a business incubator.
The difference is the casual nature of the whole endeavor, which is perhaps best exemplified by the flexible leasing options.
Carrboro Creative Coworking offers tiered pricing that allows people to lease a seat at a shared table, a desk or even a private office. Leases can be as short as one day or as long as a month.
Monthly users are given a key to the space and can come and go at all hours.
Co-working started as a movement to get freelancers out of their houses and into a place where they could be more productive. That continues to be its greatest appeal.
"For me, at home, it's a little hard to focus. All my stuff is there," said Dave Mason, 42, who has leased an office at Carrboro Creative Coworking since March. "I want to pick up my guitar and play it or start playing with my dog."
Mason is a product manager for Mountain View, Calif.-based Mozilla, the nonprofit responsible for the Firefox Internet browser. He and a friend pay $900 a month for the space, part of which is paid for by his employer.
Mason said being around a community of like-minded professionals has its benefits.
"It's good to have the social interaction and there are times when you get great ideas," he said.
The rise of co-working is an acknowledgement that although many freelancers love the freedom of not going to the office; they still crave the structure and human contact that it provides.
Vinci Daro, 38, admits that her attempts to work from home were a disaster. She and her husband have two young children.
Daro, who helps education companies develop math curriculums, found herself working all the time while at home, even weekends.
"Every once in a while I try again and it's even more of a disaster," she said. "Now I come in and do my work and go home. It completely changed the dynamic at home."
Daro pays $150 a month for access to the shared workspace. Russell has since raised the cost to $250 for new members.
A freelance web developer, Russell started Carrboro Creative Coworking after receiving a $90,000 loan from Carrboro's revolving loan fund.
About 20 people lease space in the 3,200-square-foot location, and Russell estimates that at least 100 have cycled through since it opened. A number of businesses have used co-working to ramp up to the point where they became large enough to need their own office space.
"It's not making me super rich but I didn't start this off to get rich," Mitchell said. "I started it off to perform a social mission with financial responsibility."
He was excited to learn about the efforts of Sara Rose Roman, 25, and Cristina Roman, 21, to create a Raleigh co-working site.
The sisters, who grew up in Durham, are raising startup capital and are in negotiations with Empire Properties about leasing space in one of the company's downtown properties.
Sara Rose Roman, a therapist for children with autism, plans to use the space to develop Change the Triangle, a new nonprofit she has started. Change the Triangle is focused on getting young adults more involved in Triangle volunteer projects.
Cristina Roman recently moved back to the Triangle and is working remotely for the Washington-based daily deal site LivingSocial.
"I thought about moving back to Raleigh and not having a work community and how tough that would be," she said.
The Romans have used social networking tools such as Twitter to help gauge the number of people interested in co-working in downtown Raleigh. They believe the demand is there.
Russell hopes they're right.
"Their choice of where they physically locate and what they do is going to be crucial to getting those folks to come there," he said. "But also marketing. All that takes a long time. I'm still telling people about co-working."
