Being collaboratious, is like a ray of light.
When you work at a collaboration space, like at what today exists as a co-workspace, your co-working style is termed “collaborative” since you work not in the venn diagram of your regular organisation. The people you physical are at work is only location-based / co-habitative. Their bottom line does not directly impact yours. And vice versa.
When you are in a group that’s as diverse, and collectively serving the democracy of say, a curated limited number of rotation in the space - there are only a 40-seat limitation, then it is the space’s right to choose the type of entrepreneurs that will exist, thrive, and put in their collaborative genius to the front, for everyone’s benefit.
They pay the minimum effort amount, what is called a membership fee. And the rest build towards their products with the help of the solution-providers/ funders/ magic providers in the curated space. This is what your collaborative space brings you, in a daily proportion to what you put in - the efforts at being social, as well as function-specific towards the end goal of being a better social being, and improving the lives of fellow entrepreneurs in mind as well as body. There was one who was really good at art, so her works were on the walls and brought us happy surrounds, one had the gift of bringing coffee into the space - and he was part owner of the space. One person was actually good at developing people - and made all the other entrepreneurs feel safe, secure, and architect their startups in a way that CEOs in their prime or close-up could never achieve.
Sometimes, when you do not have the right mix, you get people who don’t get along, but when i was there - first edition entrepreneur in the space, i think the people in my cohort were actually the most diverse of them all, and also the most magical (if i do say so myself). The sessions were empowering, the other people’s projects and builds were inspiring, and the people were alive with work-high all day, and shared knowledge, stories, and downtime pots of chili or tea. This made the space a better place - if not a good way to spend 8-9 hours away from home.
Collaboration is lateral relationship, without the pressure of being managed, and that makes relationships relaxed, and defined without the boundaries of coworkers, afraid of being “snitched” to bosses, as well as stealing ideas for a pat in the back or that coveted raise, or that hell-hole we all fall in where someone steals IPs to pawn off and reproduce elsewhere. I think when someone makes the recipe right, the collaboration space is to be thanked for - enriching lives, as well as businesses, as well as being able to fund / handle trust and a functional family-style place where we could get back to and call home. And you officemates/ co-workplacemates, eventually you can call your friends.
The support you give each other, and each others’ businesses are built on trust, and not money on the usual contractual sense, and is unconditional. It’s a building that is understood to be something more than what we set out to do, it is what we seek, and set out to be, as founders.
An ideal collaborative workspace allows people to practise what is their best - put their best foot forward, and become the best at what they do. Also, they become friends offline, and have no hangups about seeing each other after work hours. They are housed in the same sensibility, and camaraderie as in the same line of building the interpersonal relationships, that even after their products are built and are sold off and become unicorns, still linger on, and become friends forever.