Boost your margins: Hector Kolonas’ automation playbook for coworking profitability
Hector Kolonas has spent over a decade in the coworking world—building platforms, advising operators, running This Week in Coworking, and co-founding Syncaroo, the integration engine behind some of the most seamless digital workflows in flexible workspaces today.
He didn’t arrive here by accident.
“I’ve been in the coworking industry since 2013,” Kolonas says. “In that time, I’ve turned suddenly-empty ad agencies into coworking spaces, advised others on how to launch spaces, personally launched one of Europe’s first booking platforms for desks, and helped build a member perks program used by nearly 1,000 spaces.”
That journey eventually brought him to the U.S.
In his journey through the coworking industry, one recurring issue kept surfacing:
Nothing in the essential coworking tech stack talked to anything else.
“I wrote a blog post in 2019 asking why everything was so fragmented,” says Kolonas. “Robert Kropp reached out. A 15-minute call turned into four hours, and a few weeks later, we co-founded Syncaroo—without ever having met in person.”
Today, Kolonas helps coworking operators stop hemorrhaging money on inefficient services by integrating the tools they already use into a system that actually works.
What integrations and automations actually mean in coworking
Integrations and automations aren’t just buzzwords—they’re operational game changers.
At their core, integrations help your systems “talk” to one another. Automations streamline the work that happens between those systems—ideally without human involvement.
When done right, they eliminate busywork, reduce human error, and save hours of team time every single week.
“Operators think they need more tools, but what they really need is for their tools to work together,” Kolonas says. “Integrations aren’t about adding complexity—they’re about removing it. When everything flows automatically, you can focus on growth instead of admin.”
In other words, integrations and automations help you build a coworking space that scales—not one that relies on manual effort to function.
The goal of integrations isn’t just convenience. It’s better unit economics—less wasted time, fewer errors, and higher profit margins.
Good vs. expensive revenue: why some services are silently burning your hard-earned money
“Coworking spaces have multiple sources of revenue,” says Kolonas. “But what people aren’t always clear on is that not all that revenue is equal. There’s great revenue, and then there’s expensive revenue.”
Expensive revenue can hide in plain sight.
It often looks like:
Selling day passes that require staff to manually issue invoices, verify payments, and grant access
Manually setting up digital mailboxes for members and billing for mail actions like scans, shreds, and storage
Taking tours from broker leads who rarely convert, then entering the same info in multiple systems
Offering lockers, IT services, or signage that require manual setup and aren’t priced to cover the time invested
Leasing offices on ultra-flexible terms without understanding the true cost of filling them repeatedly
“You might be sitting at 100% occupancy and still losing money on some services,” Kolonas warns. “For example, if your recurring services aren’t systemized properly, they may be draining your team’s bandwidth and your bottom line.”
Why duct-taped tech stacks are costing you more than you think
Most coworking spaces have a tech stack—a CRM, a booking system, a billing tool, and so on.
Kolonas explains, “Operators throw tech at their problems. Then they throw people at the tech to make it work.”
Instead of focusing just on their tech stack, he urges operators to build an operating stack—a connected system designed around their actual business model.
“Integrations give you an operating stack that helps you go from chaos to consistency, from friction to flow,” he says. “It’s about making your technology and your workflows align with how you make money.”
That’s when revenue stops being a burden and starts scaling.
6 automations that eliminate friction and boost your margins
With so many individual tech tools running in tandem, what should coworking operators look to connect—and automate—to unlock profit and broaden margins?
Kolonas points to six essential automations you should focus on.
1. Automate your access control or keep handing out keys
“You don’t want to be issuing keycards manually or sitting at the front desk letting people in,” Kolonas says. “It’s a waste of your team’s time. Integrated access lets your members get to work without the friction.”
2. Your CRM should segment, not spam
“You need to be talking to different members and prospects in different ways,” Kolonas explains. “A CRM that’s plugged in properly can help you do targeted outreach instead of spraying and praying.”
He emphasizes that a connected CRM also gives operators visibility into churn patterns, upsell opportunities, and lead quality.
3. Turn your services into products with e-commerce
“E-commerce is huge right now,” Kolonas says. “Let people buy services the same way they buy anything else online. If it takes a phone call to book a desk, you’re creating unnecessary barriers.”
He recommends turning on-demand products—like day passes, locker rentals, or event space—into shoppable experiences with automated billing and confirmations.
4. Don’t lose meeting room revenue to bad systems
“All too often, meeting rooms are either underbooked because access is too difficult or overused without proper tracking,” Kolonas says. “With the right stack, members use their credits automatically and book without hassle.”
He’s seen spaces where meeting room credits are ignored entirely because the system is too clunky.
Kolonas adds, “You want to be confident in your meeting room system so that it’s used effectively and larger packages can be sold. Workspaces with systems that are cumbersome or don’t work well will be remembered at contract renewal time.”
5. Systemize digital mail and stop drowning in paperwork
Kolonas points to digital mail as a major opportunity for passive revenue—especially if it’s systemized.
“In an automated world, a person walks in or visits your website, says they want your digital mailbox product, fills in their Form 1583, sets up their billing, and everything just happens automatically,” he says. “They've now got a digital mail account at your space that generates profit each month. That's good revenue. On the other hand, a manual process that requires re-entering information into another system will be more cumbersome and time-consuming.”
6. Scale enterprise services without scaling headaches
“Serving enterprise clients is profitable—if you can automate their provisioning,” Kolonas says. “Things like dedicated bandwidth, secure VLANs, private Wi-Fi networks… those can’t be managed manually at scale.”
If your space is working with larger tenants, Kolonas stresses that these technical services must be productized and systemized from the start, meaning that this is an additional source of revenue at set-up.
How iWorkSpaceMail and Syncaroo turn digital mail into margin
If you want to offer digital mailbox solutions to your members and virtual clients, the right automations can help supercharge your profit.
Kolonas explains, “Any time you can remove manual processes from your digital mailbox service, your margins increase. For one, automation reduces the amount of time your team spends on administrative tasks, meaning they can reallocate that time elsewhere within your business. Beyond that, automation helps ensure you never miss a billable opportunity, like a scan or a shred. When these tasks are billed automatically, you can feel confident that you’re capturing every dollar that’s due to you.”
He adds, “With the right setup, digital mailbox services become nearly passive revenue.”
That’s where iPostal1 and iWorkSpaceMail come into play.
Our digital mail platform integrates with major coworking operating systems like OfficeRnD and Deskworks—via Syncaroo.
“With these integrations in place, when a member signs up for digital mail, they’re automatically provisioned a mailbox,” Kolonas explains. “Every mail action they request—scan, forward, shred—is automatically billed to their main account. No duplicate invoicing. No missed revenue.”
Even cancellations are clean.
Kolonas explains, “If a member leaves or stops paying, you turn them off in one system, and everything else stops too.”
With iPostal1, this integration is free.
“If you’re using iPostal1’s iWorkSpaceMail, you can connect them to your other tools at no additional cost,” Kolonas says. “You don’t even need a paid Syncaroo account to start.”
From busywork to bankable: how better systems create better margins
“Imagine your community manager spends less time performing mail task requests and creating invoices while seamlessly generating more revenue,” Kolonas says. “Now multiply that time savings across every other manual task in your space.”
That’s what integrations and automations unlock: not just efficiency—but the ability to grow your revenue without growing your payroll proportionately.
Kolonas adds, “It might sound small, but every time someone scans or shreds a letter, you should make money. With automations in place, you put that revenue collection on autopilot.”
In high-demand areas with premium postcodes, the volume adds up fast. Automation ensures you’re capturing every dollar—without letting your team get buried in admin.
Ready to sell smarter, not harder?
In coworking, it’s not enough to sell services. You need to sell them efficiently, fulfill them quickly, and bill for them accurately.
That’s what separates spaces that grow from spaces that struggle.
“Automations can help turn expensive-to-serve revenue into great revenue,” Kolonas says. “Having these systems in place can help you scale without burning out your team—or your margins.”
Whether it’s mail, access, meeting rooms, or enterprise provisioning, the tools already exist. You just need to connect them.
Ready to get started with iPostal1? Contact us today to start building a new, seamless, systemized revenue stream for your workspace with digital mailbox solutions.
