Ed Field has a conundrum familiar to most coworking operators: his most successful tenants keep leaving his space.
"I like to tell people that, if you're successful, you will only be here 18 to 24 months," Field explains. "This is not your endpoint. This is your beginning point."
As President of BioLabs in North Carolina, Field oversees three locations across Durham and Chapel Hill that house some of the Southeast's most promising biotech companies. But unlike traditional coworking spaces where someone might camp out for years perfecting their side hustle, BioLabs operates on an entirely different timeline. Companies arrive with million-dollar ideas and leave with hundred-million-dollar valuations.
"The model is really interesting, because your best customers leave you the fastest," he admits. "But that's also a good thing."
Before discovering Coworks software, Field's team was dealing with operational chaos. They were juggling conference room reservations, lab equipment bookings, resident tracking, company databases, announcements, and information sharing across seven different platforms.
"We were using seven different things to do all those things," Field recalls. "And then we saw this app, and we realized this could be done in one place. We could do it all."
The consolidation helped transform their operations. Today, the team manages three locations—two in Durham totaling 73,000 square feet and one 23,000-square-foot space in Chapel Hill—through a single platform. They track usage of million-dollar lab equipment, monitor conference room availability, and coordinate events across their entire network.
When Field first implemented the Coworks software, he expected the digital directory to revolutionize how companies connected across locations. He was wrong.
"What I found very fascinating about the app is that it actually has not been a way for people to connect like for other people in other companies to connect," he explains. "The way most people connect is a physical connection. They run into each other in the break room. They run into each other in the lab."
Instead, the magic happens at the lab bench. Scientists chat and then collaborate when they're troubleshooting equipment side by side or waiting for experiments to run. "I think a lot of times it's around the science. It's around a piece of equipment where they're sitting there and they need to work on it, and someone else helps them on it."
This isn't unique to BioLabs—it's a truth of coworking spaces everywhere. Programming and events help, but the real connections happen over coffee, during chance encounters, in shared moments of struggle and breakthrough.
If you think managing a traditional coworking space is challenging, try adding $3 million worth of scientific equipment, biological waste disposal, and environmental health and safety regulations to the mix.
"I look at some of the other coworking spaces that are just offices and think, that seems a lot easier to me," Field laughs. "The lab side of things is challenging, to say the least."
Operating a shared lab means navigating unique cleaning requirements, biochemical waste handling, and constant regulatory compliance. There are private labs for companies needing dedicated space and open labs where multiple teams share benches. Equipment ranges from basic centrifuges to sophisticated analytical instruments that can cost more than most people's houses. (And it’s all managed through the Coworks platform.)
"Managing coworking space for a lab is a much more complicated issue than just offices," Field emphasizes. "Our staff spends 90% on the lab side of things and 10% on the office side of things."
While many coworking operators obsess over occupancy metrics and space utilization, Field focuses on different numbers. Equipment usage data proves invaluable when residents complain about access.
"When people note the limited access to things, then we can pull up the data and say, 'Oh yeah. Well, look, it's only booked half the time. I don't know why you're having trouble. Maybe you need to book in the afternoon and not the morning.'"
The platform also tracks conference room usage and event attendance. But Field admits they could make even more of the data’s potential: "I know we can do more with the data generated in Coworks."
Sometimes the most powerful feature isn't the flashiest one. It's the simple ability to pull concrete usage statistics when emotions run high.
Flex labs are not just workspaces — they can be more. But creating a sense of connection doesn’t happen by accident, and it takes more than a sign-up sheet and some coffee to get there.
Marketing a shared lab space requires a fundamentally different approach than attracting freelancers or small businesses. "You don't put up a billboard looking for companies to come into BioLabs," Field explains. "Those companies are very unique, and they typically are spin-outs, directly out of Duke University or UNC or NC State." In the Triangle, as it's known, the university market is both close and productive.
Instead of broad advertising, Field cultivates relationships with university tech transfer offices. These partnerships provide the pipeline of IP-rich companies that make ideal BioLabs residents. About three-quarters of their 150 companies over eight years have emerged directly from local universities.
The strategy works. "We're arguably the largest, most successful coworking lab space in the southeast," Field says. "I would argue we might be top five on the East Coast."
The numbers tell BioLabs' story better than any marketing campaign. Element Genomics sold to European pharmaceutical giant UCB. Septerna just went public on NASDAQ. Tavros was acquired. Tune Therapeutics raised hundreds of millions in funding.
"I think we've arguably had the best and the brightest life science biotech companies focused on therapeutics start in our space," Field reflects proudly.
Each graduation represents both loss and victory. When companies outgrow BioLabs, they've typically raised enough capital to justify their own facilities. The 18-24 month residency window isn't a bug. It's a feature.
"We actually embrace it as a success," Field says. "The hope is that this space cycles through, so that as they graduate, the next great company comes in and takes their place."
For early-stage biotech companies, BioLabs removes massive barriers to entry. Like traditional coworking spaces, instead of spending precious up front funding on equipment, lab setup, permitting, and operational staff, companies can focus entirely on science.
"If you're an early-stage company, you choose not to come in here, I would really question your judgment," Field argues. "As an investor, that's where I want you because it's the most capital efficient and time efficient. It allows you to get to your milestones faster and cheaper."
The math is compelling: why hire operational staff when you're a three-person team? Why buy a $100,000 piece of equipment you'll use twice a week? The shared model turns fixed costs into variable ones, letting companies scale incrementally rather than taking massive financial leaps.
"You can add offices month to month. You can add bench space month to month. You can add cold storage access month to month," Field explains. "So you can incrementally add, instead of taking these huge jumps."
Field's early adoption of Coworks software created an unexpected legacy. Today, multiple BioLabs locations use the platform, including sites in Dallas, Europe, and New York. "I'm really happy that's happened," Field says. "Other people kind of figured it out, which is great."
Sometimes leading by example works better than corporate mandates. Field proved the concept worked, then let results speak louder than presentations.
What makes BioLabs' model scalable isn't just the shared infrastructure—it's the surprising standardization of biotech needs. Field observes that 90-95% of equipment requirements overlap across companies.
"There is a set of equipment and infrastructure that 90% of lab users need," he explains. "So if you're anybody who started a biotech company or have worked in the lab, and you walk into our space, you're like, 'Oh, they'll have their list.' They can literally go down that list and check it off."
This insight transforms how we think about specialization in coworking. Sometimes the most specialized spaces succeed precisely because their users share common foundational needs.
"People don't fully appreciate the fact that a lot of what people need in the lab is pretty consistent from one company to the next," Field notes. "That's why the model works. If everybody needed something different, it would not work."
The lesson extends beyond biotech: successful coworking spaces identify the 90% of needs that unite their community, then excel at delivering those consistently. The remaining 10% becomes manageable when the foundation is solid.
Eight years in, Field has proven that shared lab spaces can thrive outside traditional biotech hubs. With the right software, the right approach to community, and the right understanding of what success actually looks like, even the most specialized coworking models can scale.
The best part? When your most successful companies leave, it just means you're doing something right.
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