I personally would not join something like this - I've seen communities like Indie Worldwide (acq. by Ramen Club) do virtual co-working sessions, and I've attended some here and there, but never consistently.

For me, it was a little bit of an extra barrier in terms of "flow". For example, if I'm already working and focused, breaking my flow because I have something else scheduled is distracting. Same thing if I'm in the session and there's a notification for the session to end and small discussion at the end of the hour -- breaks the focus.

Some people like those sessions, but not sure to what extent. If you were to do this, I could consider:

• Commit to your sessions weekly, as opposed to monthly. LunchClub (different product) does this very well, in which they ask their users to submit the time slots at the beggining of the week, every week. That way you have the flexibility to choose which weeks you participate, and what times.

• Instead of 1h sessions, consider doing 90 minute sessions

I think there are alot of these coworking sessions around. It doesn't have to be something official. Some do it on Twitch, Discord, and even X's Spaces. I have mine every Friday, with only 4 of us. I was in Indie Worldwide, PublicLab, and a bunch more before. Nowadays I prefer smaller similar-position group of people that I befriended from Twitter.😄

I just started doing this on a x space and is nice, the option to having to pay sounds good because that would force people to actually stick to it.
I think it would be important to have some sort of progress tracker or goal setting or something a long those line where people can see and share that they actually achieved something and not just attended the sessions but at the end was just to avoid paying 😄

I'm actually already involved in something like this (and I also run virtual coworking communities, specifically for people pitching -- cold emails, proposals, guest posts, etc.)

So with Caveday, they have their regular sprints over Zoom where we all check in with what we're doing, work for about 45-50 mins, then check out to stay accountable.

Where the money part comes in is an optional activity called Cave Squad where we all have access to a shared Google spreadsheet, publicly declare our tasks for the month, set an amount to pay if we don't finish it by when we said (we can do $0 but base is $1/task and I've set it up as high as $500 for one task), we check in the forum 2x a week, then pay whatever we didn't do.

The monthly cost of participating in Caveday (access to the full forum + Zoom sprints) is $40/month, regardless if someone participates in Cave Squad, which is extra.

All money collected during the Cave Squad is donated to whatever cause we vote on as a community that month, so Caveday isn't profiting off it.

Okay, so my thoughts on your actual idea.

Do you have a specific audience in mind for this? And do you know them well?

For example, people with ADHD (who often overcommit or struggle with time blindness and other things) would be VERY attracted to this kind of offer because it, quite frankly, sounds like a Hail Mary for us to finally get our shit together.

However, it'd probably just end up being one more thing to shame ourselves over and really screw up our/their financial situation. (You just have to look at Reddit talking about ADHD apps to see how that audience feels about their exploitative nature.)

Plus, you have to look at your own ethical compass and what you're okay with. Do you want to monetize people failing their commitments to themselves?

I don't know about you, but I'd feel guilty about that after a while, even though, yes, they're choosing to sign up and commit so they should be accountable to themselves. I just know for a LOT of people in creative spaces (neurospicy folks are attracted to that), there's a very real barrier to that that makes it more challenging for us than others.

There's a way you CAN do this, but it'd be something to tread lightly with and be mindful about.

Also, you said if they attend all the sessions they committed to at the start of the month, they don't have to pay.

Which is okay, BUT do you make exceptions for when life punches someone in the face? And if you do, where's the line?

(For ex: In Cave Squad, we have a section of the spreadsheet where we can predict exceptions for why we couldn't do things, like being hospitalized or grieving a death.)

I'm a BIG believer in operationalizing our core values, and this is a time when that comes into play.

If you value hustle culture and work over everything else in life, including health, then YES -- this would be aligned with your brand values, and it's acceptable to do this.

If you don't and you start creating content that talks about balance, self-care, mindful work, rest, etc., then it's NOT in alignment, and there's a pretty big conflict.

Again, this work is something a lot of people want to skip because who tf wants to spend time thinking about their brand values and beliefs, but it's actually really important since it informs how we operate our business and the messages we share with our audience/clients.

As far as would I join -- probably not (but probably yes if it was positioned & ran in a specific way), not only because I already have something similar but because I've noticed that even with Caveday, my focus is fractured when sprints end and it's time to check out. (It's the same with FocusMate, which I also have.)

I tend to like 3-hour silent sprints where I can get DEEP in the flow and get real work done, but nobody offers 3-hour-straight sprints without taking breaks every hour. FocusMate comes close with 75 minutes, though!

(I also tend to like the one-on-one sessions of FocusMate sometimes, but other times, I want to just disappear in a community. Not sure how other people feel about this, though.)

Here are my suggestions that could make this idea better (that's actually backed up by neuropsychology research on mirror neurons and flow states):

1.) If you offered various work session lengths based on what works best for people. Some people might like the 50-minute sprint and do well with that; others are like me and crave 3 hours in one go. Sometimes different work requires different session lengths.

For ex: high-level creativity tasks demand longer session lengths to get in flow. Admin tasks can be done with shorter sessions.

2.) If you tailored your sessions based on what people are working on. This is trickier because it's a "learn as you go" thing based on what people want/need. Neuropsychology research has shown that when people are working on the SAME type of task in a live accountability capacity, they do better, more focused work, as opposed to a group of people all working on different things.

This is where mirror neurons come into play. Yes, it's body doubling, which helps, BUT it's also knowing someone else is doing the same thing as you, which gives you an extra boost.

(Ex: Having separate sessions for writers, coders, editors, creative brainstorming, etc.)

This would make the execution more complex since you're accounting for different tasks, but the research is definitive on this that if you're looking for external accountability that actually makes a huge difference, work with people doing the same thing as you.

(Mirror neurons on their own are simply fascinating.)

3.) Switching it up to instead of monthly (which is really hard to predict) to daily or weekly accountability. You'll have more engaged people, likely a higher retention rate over time, plus they'll be able to learn + adjust MUCH quicker. "Fail often and fail fast."

4.) If you did an all-day work session, I'd join that in a HEARTBEAT. I've literally NEVER seen any offer that does this where it's just one session all day.

I do my own version of this and call them Sacred Flow days where I go off the grid for an entire day and structure my work in five 3-hour sessions then check in with myself at the end of the day, but it'd be amazing to have a community.

Caveday has something similar called On the Hook days where it's 8 hours, but we're still joining the regular 1-hour sprints during that time, which isn't ideal since it disrupts flow pretty aggressively.

My original product idea is the Sacred Flow days where it'd be 12 hours (instead of 15 because I don't want to scare people away lol), and it'd be specifically for my membership communities (freelancers/service providers pitching + online creators building a brand) and the bulk of the offer is actually preparing for the Sacred Flow Day like a marathon.

Feel free to implement that idea into yours if you want!

5.) If you added a journal feature where we can share public or private logs about our progress, what we've learned, and how we're going to adjust/shift, I'd join that!

Yes, there's a forum option with Caveday (and with my offer as well), but that's very different from having a dedicated space for just us that we can choose to share with the community or keep private.

Think: @jasonleow LifeLog but specifically related to our work so we can track what times are best to do certain work, how we get in/out of flow, what we learn about ourselves and our work, and whatever other reflective thoughts we have.