From coworking to content: WeWork launches its own entrepreneur-focused blog

Since launching in 2010, WeWork has made its name as one of the most well-known coworking spaces around. Now it’s trying to bring that notoriety into the digital world.

WeWork officially launched today FullStart, an in-house entrepreneur-focused publication aimed at inspiring and educating entrepreneurs.

The idea of a coworking space shifting to content production might seem a bit odd, but it actually makes its own kind of sense for a company like WeWork.

“So far, WeWork has focused largely on building communities around physical space. Now, we’re exploring this idea digitally,” FullStart editorial director (and former The Next Web features editor) Harrison Weber told VentureBeat in an email.

In other words, WeWork is trying to create a brand around the very idea of entrepreneurship, not just coworking.

To get a sense of how this content strategy will look, just consider some of the sites early posts, which offer headlines like “The secret to staying motivated: Do what you love” and “Five things startups should know about PR.” If Weber is right, that’s the kind of content that the average startup founder will be highly interested in.

But what about all the other publications (including this one) that focus on that same audience? How does FullStart set itself apart?

Weber points to one major advantage: The sites writers don’t have to worry about page views. “We don’t see traditional publications as the competition, because page views and ad dollar metrics don’t apply. Our value is determined by what entrepreneurs think of our content,” Weber writes.

That, in theory, means that FullStart will be able to write content solely for the sake of readers — not advertisers. It’s a smart move, and the sort of thing that very few companies can pull off. We’ll see if WeWork is one of them.