Building a Company Culture in a Coworking Space

When your startup operates out of a coworking space, building company culture requires intentionality. You can’t rely on the default behaviors that emerge in a traditional office. But that’s actually an advantage—it forces you to be deliberate about the culture you’re creating.

Culture is What You Do, Not Where You Do It

The biggest misconception about company culture is that it requires a dedicated space. It doesn’t. Culture is the sum of your rituals, values, and daily practices. A team that meets at the same table every morning, has weekly retrospectives, and celebrates wins together will develop a stronger culture than one scattered across a fancy office without shared practices.

Rituals That Work in Shared Spaces

The Daily Standup

Same time, same place, every day. Even if “place” is just a corner of the common area. Consistency creates belonging.

Weekly Team Lunches

Block out a conference room or claim a long table. The shared meal is one of humanity’s oldest bonding rituals. Don’t underestimate it.

Quarterly Offsites

Since you don’t have a “home base,” create one temporarily. Book an event space for planning sessions, workshops, and team building.

Leveraging the Coworking Advantage

Here’s what most people miss: coworking spaces offer cultural benefits that traditional offices can’t match.

Exposure to diverse working styles. Your team sees how other companies operate. They absorb best practices and avoid bad habits through osmosis.

Built-in networking. The connections your team makes become part of your company’s extended network. That’s an asset.

Flexibility during growth. Culture often breaks during rapid scaling because the physical environment can’t keep up. In a coworking space, you scale seamlessly.

The Artifacts of Culture

Create tangible markers of your team’s identity:

• Team swag. Simple things like matching water bottles or laptop stickers signal belonging.
• Shared tools. A team Notion workspace, a Slack instance with inside jokes, a shared Spotify playlist.
• Documentation. Write down your values, your ways of working, your decision-making principles.

Handling the Challenges

Privacy for sensitive conversations. Book phone booths or meeting rooms for performance reviews, salary discussions, and strategic planning.

Onboarding new team members. Create a thorough onboarding document. Assign a buddy. Over-communicate for the first month.

Maintaining boundaries. Just because you’re in a social environment doesn’t mean you’re always available. Establish focus time norms.

The Culture Check

Ask yourself these questions quarterly:

1. Can new hires describe our values after one week?
2. Do team members voluntarily spend time together?
3. Are our rituals happening consistently?
4. Do people feel comfortable giving feedback?
5. Is there psychological safety?

If you’re answering “no” to any of these, it’s not a space problem—it’s a practice problem.

The Bottom Line

Company culture isn’t about ping pong tables and beer fridges. It’s about shared purpose, consistent practices, and genuine connection. You can build all of that in a coworking space. In some ways, it’s easier—because you can’t hide behind the trappings of a traditional office.

Focus on what matters: how you treat each other, how you make decisions, and how you celebrate together. The space will take care of itself.