Bosco Soler founded SinOficina, a unique freelancer community for independent contractors and business owners in Spain and Latin America. It has grown into a $5K/month membership company without investing in paid advertising, bringing in $5K per month without paid advertising.
Bosco founded SinOficina, a virtual coworking space for independent contractors and business owners in Spain and Latin America. They plan online gatherings, coliving experiences, and other things. Without investing a single dollar in paid advertising, it has grown into a $5K/month membership company.
Building a Freelancer Community: The Story of SinOficina
I’m Bosco Soler, a 35-year-old architect from Spain, and I founded SinOficina, the first virtual coworking space for the expanding Latin American and Spanish freelancer and entrepreneur communities.
SinOficina, which translates to “Without Office” in Spanish, supports business owners by offering a virtual space for communication, teamwork, and mutual growth.
In addition to various actual gatherings in different Spanish cities, coliving opportunities, and annual community events, we mostly conduct online activities.
What began as a desire to overcome my loneliness as a freelancer two and a half years ago evolved into a subscription-based business that is now my primary source of income, bringing in about $5K per month without a penny (or euro) of paid advertising.
How SinOficina Grew to Over 500 Paid Members
I attended Valencia University to study architecture, but after spending a year working as a web designer and traveling the globe, I realized it was the lifestyle I desired. Even if doing so meant disappointing my grandmother and giving up a future as an architect.
I started exploring for Spanish-speaking online forums for entrepreneurs and freelancers because working as a freelancer may be isolating. I would rather pay a charge and have a vibrant community that is professionally run than use a free service and put up with spam or excessive “noise.”
I couldn’t find any that I was at ease on. Thus, I made it.
How did you go about creating your product?
I started by asking a number of my online-working coworkers if they were experiencing the same issue.
They appeared to have. I then began discussing the idea with my mailing list, which at the time had roughly 800 subscribers.
In the meantime, I built the website using WordPress and a number of plugins for register management and payment processing. A few weeks were needed. Although we just switched to Discord, I also made the decision to use Slack as the virtual environment for communication.
Then, I sent out an invitation to my list for a webinar in which I described how the community and live events would operate. To thank the early adopters and those who had faith in the idea, I issued an offer that was valid for a week.
About 30 individuals showed up. From then, we increased to over 500 paid members today.
The Power of Word: Mouth Marketing
Since the outset, word of mouth has been the dominant distribution method. They were joyful. There is just about 3% churn.
Additionally, word-of-mouth is a fantastic method to weed out toxic individuals because your community is what helps it develop, so they only decided to inform others who will be enhancing it rather than detracting from it.
I’ve been taking part in several events and spreading the word about SinOficina everywhere. People can sense your enthusiasm and relate to the goals and ideals of the initiative.
Growth has largely been linear. We are continuously testing since there hasn’t yet been a channel that has given us exponential growth. Additionally, if your business is a community, exponential growth might not be what you desire. Sometimes a gradual, steady growth is preferable.
Growing Revenue and Subscribers
Currently, our MRR is over 5,000 euros and our lifetime revenue is around 100,000 euros. The mailing list has increased in size to about 4,000 subscribers. I started handing off some of my most time-consuming responsibilities, including running the website and administering the live sessions, so I could concentrate on trying out new channels for member acquisition and new solutions.
Swag and more offline events to meet other members in person are some suggestions for the foreseeable future.
What have you learned the most while beginning SinOficina?
Create trust by being genuine. even before your product or service launches. As a business owner, trust is your most important resource. Start out by telling others about your trip. Begin with a small audience. Share both the good and the negative. Don’t be scared to occasionally display vulnerability. People can connect.
Collaboration is not a sign of a one-person operation. It took me some time to realize that I needed to assign and outsource part of the work I was doing in order to concentrate on what I was good at and what would help SinOficina expand. I currently collaborate with two other independent contractors who are more skilled than I am.
Be in the company of strong individuals. According to a well-known saying, “If you want to go far, go together; if you want to go fast, go alone.” In addition to being something I did to develop SinOficina, it is an excellent incentive to be a member of it. You don’t have to travel the business journey alone just because you have a single project. Other than those who produce books, there is a lot to learn from others.
The Biggest Challenges and the Solutions
The transition from Slack to Discord was the most difficult. A community’s migration is never easy. People don’t like changes to their habits once they become accustomed to something. Though there were uncertainties and a lot of stress at the time, looking back, I can see that it was a wise choice.
One of the errors was not properly explaining the migration (by providing instructions, a suitable re-onboarding process, etc.).
Insights into Running a Successful Online Business
For communities that need a lot of engagement, I adore Discord. Additionally, Airtable and Zapier make it simple for me to run the company.
Oh! Twitter, too. A fantastic resource for networking and knowledge sharing.
Where can we find further information?
I talk about my own experiences and ideas on business on both my personal blog and Twitter.
Of course, you can find out more about SinOficina on its website.
The main pic is from here.
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