I wrote a coworking book. Finally. Kind of.

Back in 2011 I wrote one of my most popular posts ever, about how to fund a new coworking space. It’s been read tens of thousands of times.

It’s also where I galvanized a core concept in our approach:

Build the community first. Focus on your first 10.

This one piece of advice has payed bigger dividends for my readers than anything else I’ve ever written.

It’s been adapted and adopted. It’s been modified, even bastardized.

But it works.

My recommendation even made it into the official wikipedia page for coworking…and I promise it wasn’t me who added it.

Community first is an order of operations. But for us, it’s even more.

Community first is a core repeatable design pattern behind the success of everything we’ve ever done.

Community first is a way of making decisions that put the community first and keep them there, and a special collection of benefits that come with it.

The advice sounds good, doesn’t it? But I’ll admit, something is missing.

HOW to build the community first.

How do you actually find those core people? Where do you look? How do you approach them? What you can do with them, once you’ve found them? How do you know when you’re ready to start looking for a space?

This is the “book” people have been asking for (and I’ve been trying to write) for YEARS.

I finally figured how to capture the best stories from our earliest community building efforts, and the lessons those stories contain.

Across 11 chapters, Adam and I worked together to capture dozens of stories and lessons I’ve never shared before. This stuff is honest, personal, and raw.

We’ve gathered and organized stories and lessons that were previously scattered across the internet and the ether.

This new format has let me share a new level of depth & detail that I’ve never been able to capture before, even my best writing or talks.

This isn’t a guide to every single aspect of running a coworking space.

“The First Ten” is an audio narrative designed to show you what we did, to help you understand why I did it, and how I got the most important stuff right at the time it matters most: the beginning.

While you’re learning what we did, you’ll learn what steps you can take — either to start a new coworking space from scratch or to breathe some new life into the community you already have built.

To my knowledge, this is the world’s first reverse audiobook. What does THAT mean?

Unlike a typical audiobook, a reverse audiobook starts its life as audio instead of as text to be “read” by a narrator. The result fits somewhere between a well produced podcast like Serial or Startup, and Derek Sivers’ magical reading voice that doesn’t sound like he’s reading.

“The First Ten” book length (unlike a podcast) — roughly 8 hours of audio, and the equivalent word count of a ~260 page book.

It’s structured, researched, and even edited like a book.

But unlike an audiobook, it’s unscripted, so the tone is much more natural (and hopefully fun) to listen to.

And no, I haven’t missed the irony in using this many written words to describe how and why I didn’t write words in the first place.

Most of our beta testers said told us, “The previews alone were so good I had to pause to take notes! Can’t wait to hear the full thing.”

So with that, I’ll pause for a moment & give you a few chapter samples and let them (well, pre-recorded me) do the talking.

TFT CHAPTER 2 — JUST THE TWO OF US

TFT CHAPTER 3 — CREATING OUR FIRST COMMUNITY EVENT

TFT CHAPTER 8 — PARTNERSHIP & PAYOFF

There are 8 more chapter previews (one for each of the 11 chapters!) that you can listen to on our “The First Ten” website — go check ’em out now.

Until July 1st, you can grab a copy of the the full audiobook at an $10 off intro price!

“The First Ten” is delivered instantly as DRM free MP3s. Load ’em into your favorite MP3 player and listen anywhere.

Ready? Start finding your first ten, today.

Thanks.

This project — like basically everything I do — would have been impossible to do without the help of a bunch of people.

Adam Teterus (co-narrator) & Mike Mehalick (editor, producer, music).

Individually and together, you two hold the world record for most time consecutively spent listening to my voice over the last 6 months of working on this project. For that alone, I appreciate you.

Adam, your talent for listening is only matched by your talent for telling a story to connect with an audience. You brought both of these talents to TFT & gave it a depth and dimension that I never would have known how to create. We made this thing, and holy crap, it’s awesome.

Mike, you made Adam and I sound awesome. That, alone, is a feat. But having you also contribute your own original music to back our chapter intros & outros adds a layer of personal & human connection to the “polish.”

Amy & Thomas Fuchs — for lending us your lovely Freckle HQ as a quiet space to record our chapters. I know you chose to move to Philly in part because of the Indy Hall community. That means a lot to me.

Sam Abrams & Sean Martorana — for holding down the fort at Indy Hall while Adam and I dashed up to Freckle HQ to record chapters, but even more for constantly setting and keeping the bar high for each other and our community. We do our best because we do it together.

Geoff DiMasi —for being my co-driver in many things but especially Indy Hall. For sharing your love of Philadelphia & your experiences in community, place-making, business, and life with a knucklehead like me.

Anyone who is or has been a member or supporter of Indy Hall — without you, there are no stories worth telling. It was an absolute trip to recall the stories we captured in this project and it was fun to shout out names that, in some cases, I hadn’t in a long time.

Derek Sivers — for so many moments of inspiration including the ones that brought this project into existence. Oh, and for lunch that one time at PF Chang’s during in Austin, Texas.