Building Coco Space - #11 - New Name New Trouble

A new name, a new big challenge, why I like over-engineering, and an exciting upcoming event.

Branding

Who just gave up? I did 🙋🏽‍♂️😬
I knew Cococo was a tongue-twister, but I found it a cool name. But everyone kept calling it Coco Space and got confused with Cococo. So here we go, you won. I changed all the assets, bought a new domain, and we will be Coco Space.

That also meant adjusting the logo, the website, getting some SEO damage, and updating all the assets, but I'm already trained.

Electrical Trouble

I was informed last week that I am not getting connected to the electric grid this September as promised and that it will happen sometime next year.

I plan on opening on February 1st, so that sucks, yeah. Working hard now on researching how to do it with the right generator. It will be a big challenge (financially and technically), especially because the space is fully air-conditioned.

Construction

Some quick construction updates:

• The swimming pool is almost there
• We started with woodwork
• We are finishing the electrical and plumbing lines
• We started painting the Mezzanine with the first coat
• The Septic tank is ready
• Spiral stairs look good

Community

Members only

Based on last month's issue, I am already working on the "closed community" of Coco Space. I was lucky to spend last week in Siargao with Ramon and Sole of the Mapmelon app, which I've followed for a while.

Even though I see a difference between the Coliving scene in Europe and the Coworking spaces in tourist destinations like Siargao or Bali, I got some great ideas for creating and managing a community of digital nomads.

Over-engeenirig

This month I had more time, so I obviously spent it on engineering things that are not necessary but are fun to make. I built an automation to send our nomads' dinner attendees a personal calendar invite via Email/WhatsApp.

A good way to warm up our email domain and for me to have a feeling of success doing what I'm good at 😅

The next project is the onboarding system of the space, which will be way more fun, including custom profile avatars and things that are too much but I think nomads will appreciate.

Anniversary dinner

This month we will celebrate one year since I started organizing digital nomad dinners, and we will celebrate it with a nice event for the community. We didn't miss even one week since the beginning!

And these as well

• I want Coco Space to be eventually a Second and Third Place.
• Surf season is coming to Siargao 😛. It will be hard to stay very productive, but there are priorities.
• Goodbye Live Workspace - I stopped sharing the Notion Live Workspace with all the building and operation assets, even though I got good feedback from people who duplicated templates I've made. Keeping it updated and relevant while working with sensitive data was a challenge that I decided wasn't worth it.

What's next month?

• Figuring out where tf I get electricity from or how to make it financially stable to run the space with a generator
• Finishing the floor
• Building the space operations' assets so we are ready ahead of time

Here's a rainbow from our rooftop 🌈.

Thanks for reading :)
See you on the next one.