How to create a network in a co-working space — advice for co-founders

My company’s office is in a co-working space. It’s a building with many different rooms and a shared kitchen. The building doesn’t have a community manager, so the staff is trying to do the best they can.

Another tenant of this building, a founder and CEO of one of the companies on our floor, introduced a need to have a founders community in the building.

Although I’m an engineer, I’ve founded and managed a few communities in the past years. I wish to summarise my advice for him, split into two recommendation to do on your own, and two recommendations to do with your team:

On Your Own

1. Meet people for lunch. You meet someone interesting in the kitchen? Make sure to schedule lunch and get to know this person — what is their background, problems? How can you help them? How can they help you? What kind of people do they have in their network? What other people from the building they know and recommend you to meet?
2. You have a recent lesson learned? Send a few emails to ask people whether they’re interested in hearing about it, and invite a group of 8 people to hear it. Encourage others to do so as well.
3. Start a podcast. By interviewing another entrepreneur every few weeks you can share your knowledge and learn, become accessible to others and widen your network.
4. Join or form a group of entrepreneurs that are available for one-on-one mentoring meetings, and through that share your knowledge and widen your network.

With Your Team

1. Schedule a “team lunch” with another company, where you host each other and the teams get to know each other, or invite people you know to join a team lunch with you, to expand the network of your team members.
2. Post on the building social media that your team is willing to help with these kinds of questions — it can be in a specific slot in time, or in general.

Do you have other recommendations for connecting with potential colleagues in the building?