This commentary is by Greg Cash, the founder of Slope Space, a coworking community at the base of Killington Mountain in Vermont.
We are nearing the end of our second ski season at Slope Space, and honestly, things could not feel better. Spring is coming, and we are already excited about what summer and fall will bring to Killington. The mountain does not stop when the snow melts, and neither do we.
A few months ago, in the middle of all that momentum, we got a call from a very large company. They run coworking spaces all over the world. Thousands of locations. They wanted to talk about working together.
It felt significant. We took the meeting.
By the end of it, we knew we were going to say no.
The deal was simple from their side. Slope Space would use their name, follow their rules and charge their prices. In return, we would get access to their marketing and their global brand. What they did not say out loud was what we would actually be giving up.
Our name. Our identity. And based on what we knew about our members, about 80% of the community we had spent two seasons building. Most of our members would not have followed us into a new price structure set by a corporation based somewhere else. They came to Slope Space for a reason. A different name with different prices is not the same thing.
That was enough for me. We said no.
The people who come here are not random office workers looking for a desk. They are real people with real stories. Some drive up from New York City or Albany on Wednesday night. They spend Thursday at Slope Space, knocking out a full day of work and calls. Then they have a real three-day weekend on the mountain. That trip used to start on Friday night. Now it starts Thursday morning because they have somewhere serious to work when they arrive.
Some are families. One parent works remotely. The kids are in ski school all day. Instead of rushing home on Sunday, they stay for a whole week. The parent gets work done at a real desk with fast internet and a quiet phone booth for calls. The family has dinner together every night. Nobody had to choose between work and being there.
Some are skiers, snowboarders, golfers and mountain bikers who decided to stop just visiting and actually put down roots here. They rent a ski house or bought a condo. They show up to Slope Space, get their work done, and spend the rest of their time doing what they love. Slope Space is what makes that life possible.
A big corporate rebrand would not have kept these people. They are here because of what we are, not because of a global name.
Vermont has always been good at protecting what makes it special. We see it with local farms, local shops and local businesses of all kinds. People here understand that when an outside company comes in and takes over something local, it usually no longer is what it was.
Coworking is no different. Big coworking companies are built for cities. They need lots of people nearby to keep their spaces full. Our model is different. Our members drive hours to get here because Killington is where they want to be. You cannot treat that person the same way you treat someone who walks in off a city street. If you try, you lose them.
We kept our name. We kept our prices. We kept our people.
Two seasons in, Slope Space has grown to over 200 members and holds a 5-star rating on Google. We are the only dedicated coworking space at a Vermont ski resort. We are growing because the people who find us like what they find, and they tell their friends. None of that would have survived a corporate takeover.
The meeting with that global company taught me something worth sharing. Sometimes the best decision you make as a business owner is the deal you walk away from. Growth that costs you the thing that makes you worth growing is not really growth at all.
We said no, and we have not looked back. Now we are looking ahead to spring, summer and fall in Killington, and we could not be more excited about what is coming next.
