For some reason my photos aren't uploading correctly. Bear with me as I try to fix them!

The second coworking space I visited, and the only other well known space in Lima, is called Stars Camp.

I'll preface this article by saying that I didn't spend nearly as much time here as I did at Comunal, which I wrote about in a previous article. I spent three days at Comunal, whereas I got a quick tour at Stars Camp and later only spent a half day working there after trying to set up a workshop.

My overall impression is that Stars Camp has a different community and work environment compared to Comunal. It seems much more familial- which makes sense, as the three cofounders are all older women, and it's located in Lince, which is a more residential part of Lima. Where Comunal tries (and succeeds, in my experience) to be a fun, exciting place to be, Stars Camp's focus is on highlighting the startups in their space and trying to connect them with resources and expertise. The founders of both spaces recognize that they seek to serve somewhat distinct demographics- not to mention they're decently far away from each other in the city- so they have a jovial relationship.

Arriving at Stars Camp meant either taking a taxi, or using one of the buses that runs along Avenue Javier Prado. Though it's on a quieter residential street, it's perhaps a three minute walk from this main throughway. And 2 blocks away there's a supermarket.

Walking inside, you're greeted by the receptionist. The first thing she had me do was read Stars Camp's motto on the wall. Comunal had their tongue-in-cheek rules, and I suppose most any space like this will have a similar motto or credo that attempts to capture the spirit of the community within. I translated part of it below.

As a Stars Camp employee showed me around the space, they told me about some of the tenants. Many seemed to be software startups, more so than at Comunal. The recent success they're most proud of is a traffic app that helps drivers navigate through Lima more efficiently that was just beginning to get some traction.

As I said in the article on Comunal, next time I'd like to spend more time talking to the founders and tenants about the space. Regardless, I like that Stars Camp seems committed to the success of the entrepreneurs in its space. As an entrepreneur, I can say that it is appealing to feel surrounded by the resources and support of people who want to see you succeed. It's a cozy space where Comunal is fun and energetic. Which one you might want to work in depends on the type of business you have, your personality, and of course where you're located in Lima.

Until the next coworking space I visit!

Dillon Dakota Carroll
Prague, Oklahoma

Hello there! I hope you are all preparing for a wonderful holiday season with family and friends. If for whatever reason, you cannot be with either family or friends, I wish you a wonderful solitude that clears your mind and soul.

I would be remiss if, having returned from my trip to Peru, I didn't report on the results of my two principal experiments. In essence, I'm applying the Lean Startup cycle (Hypothesis, Test, Results, Insights) I teach in my workshops to my own life. To recap, I was testing these two hypotheses:

Hypothesis and Outcomes
Hypothesis #1: I can work remotely on my Levate to-dos effectively, efficiently, and without interruption in the amount or quality of work I can do.
Hypothesis #2: I can give entrepreneurship workshops abroad and get paid to do so.

Note that these hypotheses are in the form of yes/no statements. This lack of ambiguity is crucial- if I passed both tests, I wanted the outcome to be very clear (namely, that I would try a longer remote work arrangement in 2015). Likewise, I wanted the outcome to be clear if I failed one or both of the tests- that I would try giving workshops closer to home, or delay future travels until I had a way to work effectively on my startup.

The final question is, how I would decide if I had answered the questions one way or another.

Hypothesis #2: Test and Results
The second hypothesis is pretty clear: I had to earn income from a workshop that I organized and delivered while in Peru.

I'm happy to say that I did, indeed, validate this hypothesis. I gave two workshops while I was in Peru: the first was free, to begin to establish my network of contacts in Peru. This paid off, as it led to the second workshop, which I organized with Comunal Coworking in Barranco District. I did in fact earn income from the 15 entrepreneurs that enrolled in this workshop. I was pretty pleased about this- I validated the hypothesis, earned my first income in months, and developed a method for organizing workshops that I feel confident I could repeat in just about any part of the world. Huge shout-out to my friend Eric Morrow for getting me started on this path and giving me constant guidance!

Hypothesis #1: Test and Results
The first hypothesis is trickier to measure. The metrics I decided to use would be to self-evaluate myself as a remote worker. I'd then compare my results to the evaluation my business partner Ethan gave my performance.

In this case, we agreed that, for the most part, the remote work arrangement went very smoothly. If I did it again, I'd want to get a skype number so that I can take phone calls from my skype account. I might also look into some kind of portable wi-fi solution that runs off of mobile networks.

The issue we both identified was my inability to participate fully in face-to-face meetings. We agreed that calling in would be a decent substitute, but that there are some meetings that are best handled face to face, namely with potential investors. Thankfully, no meetings like this came up while I was in Peru. We both agreed that I would want to be in the OKC area for the beginning of 2014 for this reason, as we'll be spending a goodly portion of our time at the turn of the new year trying to finish out our first investment round.

Insights
What I loved about this trip is that it was so unique! I had a chance to be a tourist, and see some amazing parts of Cusco and Lima. I also was able to have the experience of living and working in Lima for 3 weeks, living out of a small backpack.

My first insight is that I really, really enjoyed the whole experience and that I want to do it again! It was the right mix of work, play, and really cool people.

Second, now that I've developed the workshop material in Spanish and practiced my delivery, I can give the same workshop all across Latin America and Spain. Each new workshop will take less time to set up, as the materials will already be developed, I'll get better at delivering it in Spanish, and I'll have more contacts which will facilitate setting up workshops more easily.

Speaking of which, I'm fairly certain I could ask my new contacts in Peru to introduce me to their colleagues in coworking spaces across Latin America. I have a leg up in setting up workshops in other parts of the continent, especially in Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay.

Have a Merry Christmas!
I hope to post a write-up about my family's adventures on the Inca Trail soon, so that you can see the other side of the work/play equation while I was in Peru!

Light kindles light,
Dillon Dakota Carroll
Norman, Oklahoma

Comunal Coworking is the first of my series on coworking spaces. It lies in the Barranco District of Lima, which is the hip part of town according to my sources.

I spent three days working from Comunal as I prepared for the Lean Startup workshop I gave there. Overall, I'll say that I enjoyed my time there. It's a bright, fun, and energetic space, and everyone I met there seemed like great people.

Ernesto, one of the three founders of Comunal, told me that the coworking space was born when the three of them realized that there wasn't a single coworking space available in Lima. At some point they visited some of the more famous coworking spaces in the United States to get an idea of how they could craft their own in Lima. They launched about the same time the other big coworking space in Lima launched, Stars Camp. I'll be writing about Stars Camp in another post.

Let's take a look at the individual components of Comunal.

Space
I must say I was quite impressed by Comunal. It feels cool, modern, and unique. There's a clean yellow, black and white aesthetic in the interior design and in the logo. When you walk in you see the reception desk and a small meeting room.

To the right, there's two stories of "flex space". More on that below.

There are typically two membership plans in a coworking space, from what I understand. You can pay a higher monthly sum to have your own desk (about $320 at Comunal), where you can leave your things and you know you can always come work any day and that desk will be yours. Or, you can pay a lower amount to use the flex space, where you don't have a set desk and you just grab a space that's open. These plans are more flexible too in that you can buy a part time membership, say, 20 hours a week, which saves money if you know you're not going to be there all the time. In Comunal's case, they offer 15 hours of flex space per week for $60. I imagine flex plans are good for the coworking spaces as well because they can capture a wider variety of customers.

I like how there are a lot of nooks and crannies in Comunal's flex space, along with a couple big desks.

2) the community kitchen. Comunal provides soda, coffee, and beer as part of the membership package.

and 3) the community living room and outdoor patio.

I gave my workshop in this living area. I love this space, even if it wasn't the most practical arrangement for what I was doing. It's hard to get up and squeeze past everyone else, and not the best for breakout sessions and taking notes. The advantage is that about 18 people can fit in the stadium style seating. And who doesn't like bean bags?

The "rules" painted on the wall are worth translating:

That takes care of the main part of the coworking space.

Comunal is even bigger than this, though. They have several of the top floors in the same building that they rent out to larger groups. For example, there's an entire office for about 20 people rented out to a marketing firm that's doing consulting work for Coca-Cola in Peru.

I get the feeling that Comunal doesn't host a lot of events, because the staff member I worked with to organize my workshop told me that they were only just beginning to make regular programming a priority. At least my event was timely if nothing else!

And what of the people of Comunal? Here is where I wish I could have spent more time meeting tenants and learning about them and their business. Still, from the people I did meet, there was quite a variety, all very friendly.

• A group of 6 working on providing a water-free toilet to low-income parts of Lima, including an industrial designer and two Germans
• A Frenchwoman working for an international artichoke supplier
• A finance writer, and friend of one of the founders, who was helping them create an investment fund to expand Comunal to other locations
• A graphic designer from the marketing firm I mentioned before, working for Coca-Cola

This kind of variety is one of the cool parts of a coworking space: you find people from all over the world, in all kinds of fields.

Next time I visit a coworking space, I want to really achieve a greater knowledge of how the tenants and founders use and view the space. Still, I'm very happy about my time at Comunal. From what I've seen, the community lives up to the happy-go-lucky rules they've codified on their walls. Everyone I saw working there was enjoying themselves, and didn't hesitate to say hi and smile. Successfully capturing the essence of coworking is paying off: they're at 90% occupancy (in the absence of other data I'll assume that's very good for a coworking space) and are looking at creating branches all across Lima.

It's hard to draw too many conclusions, as this is one of the first coworking spaces I've ever been in. But for what it's worth, I'd happily return to Comunal and work there!

Stay tuned for an article on the other major coworking space in Lima, Stars Camp!

Dillon Dakota Carroll
Norman, Oklahoma

As a child, I was a bit socially awkward. OK, really socially awkward. I got better, really.

However, even today, I find myself often unsure of what to do in new and unfamiliar social situations. The wonderful thing about traveling is that you're almost always in an unfamiliar social situation. Especially when you frequently find yourself a guest in the home of another, as I did in my recent month-long stay in Peru.

Being a guest is a wonderful opportunity, though! A chance to meet new people, see new lifestyles and values in action, and understand a people, culture, and city from a deeper, wider perspective compared to staying in a hotel or youth hostel. Or, it could simply mean a chance to reconnect with an old friend you haven't seen in ages. And now that I'm older and wiser (don't laugh), I love the idea of being a great guest, too. A guest that enriches the lives of their hosts, whose presence is a present.

The act of being a guest in another's home gives us a unique view not only into how they live their lives, but into how we can live ours. George Steiner has a wonderful essay on Jewish Identity (Zion and Jewish Identity, from My Unwritten Books) that is worth quoting:

For the curious guest, each new host is also a beginning, and an opportunity to learn, create, and enrich.

To return to how to be a good guest. I'm a great fan of simple rules of thumb. In light of my oft-lacking social skills, I decided to develop my own rules of thumb for the fine art of being a good guest. Some of these, most of them probably, will be obvious. Sometimes we forget to do the obvious, though- perhaps you'll find it useful, as I have, to have them written down and crystallized. I know I've had my share of embarrassing moments with hosts that I'd rather not repeat.

In the end, I think they can be summed up as: How can I leave my host's home as a good friend, or as a better friend than before? The principles of doing this are basic (clean up after yourself, share moments and give gifts, and over-communicate), though the application is particular. Let us commence.

My (by no means original) Rules to the Art of Being a Guest:

1. Have 20 minute conversation before you arrive on expectations and rules. When do your hosts go to bed and get up? What are their work schedules? Are you invited to family meals? What dietary restrictions are involved? What is their ideal guest? How will you be spending your time at their home and in their city? What expectations do they have of the time they'll spend with you? It's best to answer these questions now, because the quickest source of frustration for any party involved is when an unchallenged assumption about the home, the relationship, or your time there turns out, at the last minute, to be wrong. In fact, I'm thinking it may be useful to develop a standard "interview guide" of basic questions to ask your host before you arrive.. edit: you can check out the interview guide I developed here.
2. Bring a housewarming gift, and probably a goodbye gift too. They can be simple things, as long as they're thoughtful. It's good manners and a great way to start off the guest relationship. Plus, I personally love giving gifts- that may make me a bit biased. A goodbye gift shows your gratefulness, and gives you the opportunity to give a really well thought out gift, too, after having seen firsthand the habits and preferences of your hosts. You can leave it with your thank-you note, even. What makes good gifts? I'm a fan of consumables, especially for someone you don't know well yet. Who doesn't appreciate a nice dessert or bottle of alcohol? Ok, sure, you want to make sure your hosts aren't teetotalers, but that's where you've got to do your research (see rule 1)! A great gift would also be treating your hosts to dinner at a restaurant, or at a fun event or concert.
3. Communicate on a daily basis your plans, and your host's plans. I can't stress how important communication is. At my previous job at OU Economic Development, we talked about how to apply the principle of "over-communication". After all, nearly every misunderstanding, argument, or bad blood can be traced back to a lack of communication. That's certainly been my experience as a guest. Having a quick 15 minute chat each night about the plans for the next day have proven to be an effective prescription for the maladies of miscommunication. You could probably even work it into the dinner conversation, if you're dining with your hosts. Just as important as what you're up to, is what they're up to. For example: Are they accompanying you? Do you need to work around the fact that they'll be going to bed early, or leaving early the next day?
4. Always clean any mess you make, and try to clean the messes you didn't make too. The first is obvious, and should be done as soon as you can.  I also think that it pays to make the extra effort, and look for the opportunity to clean up or help out with normal cleaning, when it's appropriate. You should always take your cues from your host. For example, at one apartment I stayed in, the hosts insisted that I not help do the dishes as the maid would be in the next day to do them. Though at least your hosts will appreciate the offer. With one family I stayed with, I knew the mom would never accept my offer of washing dishing. I eventually started doing them on my own, without telling her, once I felt more comfortable with the family dynamics.
5. Share what you can: laughter, stories, conversation, food. What can you share that will enrich and add value to your hosts? Meals are the easy, surefire way to do this. There's something timeless about sharing a good meal, after all- there's a reason the communion ceremony in Christian religions typically involves breaking bread. I enjoy cooking, and try and cook for my hosts. They appreciate the effort, we all get a great meal, and they get to keep the leftover ingredients I buy for the meal. Great conversation is another simple, perhaps overlooked method to creating shared value. Bust out all your charms. Look for opportunities- where appropriate, as always- to have deep conversations with your hosts and get to know them more than superficially- especially important if you didn't know them well before.
6. Leave a handwritten thank-you note when you leave. I like the idea of leaving a handwritten note at the end of your stay, others advise mailing one. I think both are fine. But do one of the two. It doesn't have to be fancy- just leave a few words, in your handwriting, thanking the hosts and commenting on the particulars of how and why your stay with them was special. The thank-you note is also a perfect opportunity to reinforce your offer for reciprocity, which is rule number 7.
7. Reciprocity: extend the offer to help how you can. Ah yes, reciprocity: the desire for which, makes nearly all human dealings possible. This goes right along with how you can offer value to your hosts. Use your imagination here. It can be as basic as extending the offer to host them or show them around your home when and if they visit, all the way to arrangements very particular to your relationship with your hosts. For example, I offered to help one of my hosts in Lima learn English by skyping with them, sending them some language learning materials, and connecting them with friends of mine interested in doing a language exchange. It's a win-win-win: I add reciprocal value to them, I get to keep in touch with a new friend, and other friends of mine get to meet someone new as well.

Finally: Modify or omit any of these rules based on the particularities of each host you're staying with and your history with them.
These rules of thumb are not hard and fast. To quote Orwell, "Break any of these rules sooner than say [or do] anything outright barbarous".

Are there any you would add?

Dillon Dakota Carroll
Norman, Oklahoma

Ah, what am I doing here, you ask?

Lots of things.

It started as a family vacation to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. In fact, I'm in Cusco now with some of my family. In two days we'll take a bus to the trailhead and hike some 25 or more miles over 4 days to the famous fortress in the Andes Mountains.

To get a better deal on the rewards ticket to Lima (I think my roundtrip ticket cost about 50k miles and $75 in taxes), I was going to have to stay in Peru longer than my family anyway. So, I decided to make a longer trip out of it and test a couple of personal hypotheses I have.

Hypothesis #1: I can work remotely on my Levate to-dos effectively, efficiently, and without interruption in the amount or quality of work I can do.
Hypothesis #2: I can give entrepreneurship workshops abroad and get paid to do so.

I'll talk more about each of this later. But first, I can hear you ask, I thought you were trying to save money?!? Something doesn't jive, amigo!

Yes, you are right, I recently ran a month-long experiment where I took great pains to limit my expenses. And yet, here I am in a foreign country, and the only thing that's truly expensive about it is the fact that I'm paying $459 in rent for an entire month that I'm not at home. The flight cost me $75, the tours and trip to Machu Picchu were already paid for by my very generous father (who I am lucky to have- Love ya, Dad!), I'm using couchsurfing to stay with new friends in Lima instead of paying for a hostel or hotel, and food (particularly in grocery stores) is inexpensive here. So using the same frugalness I used in October, my $1,000 a month goes much further in Peru than in the US.

With all of my moving around, I also took great pains to pack as light as possible. Everything I brought fits into a standard size backpack and a satchel. In case you're interested in my packing list, you can find it here.

So, into the hypotheses I was testing for this trip. I wanted to treat this trip, or rather the part of it where my family isn't here, like an experiment. If the experiments went well, well, the idea is to try and do the same thing on a more permanent basis. In other words, move out of my apartment and spend a few months in different places around the world, giving entrepreneurship workshops and working remotely on my startup with my business partner Ethan.

So first, let me talk about what it's been like working remotely. I needed to make sure I had reliable access to decent wifi, and a way to make phone calls to the US.

I figured the phone call part out pretty easily. With a netbook, smartphone, headset with mic, and skype subscription, I can basically call anyone I want. Skype has a plan where you pay $15 a month and you get unlimited calls from your skype account to landlines and cell phones around the world. Even cooler, the first month is free. I can reach out to anyone I ordinarily would in the US, just routed through a wifi connection and connected to their phone line.

The complicated part is that no one can call me, unless they're using my skype account. If or when I do this again, I may look into purchasing a Skype phone number. Like a regular phone number, if someone calls that number, I can answer it anywhere I'm connected to my Skype account. Pretty slick, and from what I remember it is reasonably priced. I could even have my cell phone number route to my hypothetical Skype number, I imagine.

What I'm missing out on here is the face to face interaction with my connections and especially with my team. A phone call or video call can never compare to sitting across a table from someone or shaking their hands. That's ultimately part of the price one pays for working remotely. And I do hate leaving my partner, Ethan, to take care of in-person meetings on his own.

Thankfully, there's only an hour time change between Oklahoma and Peru. I do have to be careful about keeping track of that hour time change, but I can only imagine that it would be much more complicated to coordinate meetings and such as the time difference gets bigger.

So far the wi-fi situation has been a mixed bag. In the hostel (I stayed in one for the first two nights) and homes I've been staying in, the wifi has been consistently good. That makes working from wherever I'm lodged quite convenient.

On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be consistent wi-fi access in cafes like in the USA. Some public places, such as parks or shopping centers have free public wi-fi, but the quality is spotty at best and they all seem to require you to log back in after 15 minutes of using it.

I have been visiting a couple coworking spaces in Lima, trying to set up workshops (more on that later), and one invited me to use their space while I'm in Lima. Their wi-fi was excellent. This makes me wonder if I could hop from coworking space to coworking space, giving workshops and using the spaces to work remotely for a couple weeks at a time before moving on to a new coworking space. Because of the camaraderie among startups and entrepreneurs, I imagine most spaces wouldn't mind. Especially if I'm already giving workshops there for their occupants.

So far, I've given one workshop here on the Lean Startup validation cycle, and I have a workshop on Agile methodologies lined up for when I get back from the Inca trail and Machu Picchu. I'm doing both of these free of charge. Getting paid for them would have been nice, but it seemed most important at the beginning to build experience as well as a network first. I'm trying to arrange paid workshops with two coworking spaces, Comunal and Stars Camp.

The first workshop I gave went well. You may be interested in how it came to be. Well, I knew no one in the Lima entrepreneurship community before this workshop. I spent a few days sending around a ton of cold-emails to organizations I found online. One of my emails got forwarded to the director of EmprendeAhora (Innovate Now in English). As it turns out, November is Lima's entrepreneurship month, and the Director, Romina, wanted me to do a Lean Startup workshop for some of the old graduates of the program. After setting up this workshop, I asked her if she could connect me to anyone else she thought might be interested in having me put on a workshop. She connected me with Arturo, which led to the Agile workshop I'll be putting on, as well as the connections with the two coworking spaces I mentioned.

By the way, I was very impressed with the state of the business my students had. All of them had paying customers, which is awesome! That is typically the hardest part for anyone starting their own business.

These workshops I'm giving are all in Spanish. I'm pretty confident about my Spanish skills, but there is definitely a world of difference between shooting the breeze with friends and teaching a workshop. So while my Spanish was shaky for this first workshop, I hope to continue improving on my ability to deliver the content and lead the exercises in a foreign language.

So far, the feedback has been assuringly positive from the workshop, including in the anonymous survey I sent out after the workshop ended. I did discover a lot of things I could have done better personally, which coincided with the constructive criticism I've received from the students and Romina, the organizer. For example, I did not do a good enough job explaining and framing the mock interview exercises, and several of the students were confused by it as a result.

I'm feeling very positive about my chances to get at least 1 paid workshop set up with one of the coworking spaces. By the way, some of the next posts I want to do will be about the coworking spaces I visited. They were both quite interesting places, with what seemed to be quite successful and functioning communities. As I travel more, it will be interesting to compare notes on the different coworking spaces.

What else is there to say right now, as we wait to go hiking to Machu Picchu?

Well, the food's amazing. Really fresh seafood, and a wonderful spin on food adopted from other cultures. Peruvians have incorporated their unique flavors into fusion Peruvian-Chinese (called "Chifa" in Peru) and Peruvia-Japanese food, and have even given a Peruvian spin to dishes like sandwiches and burgers.

Despite how crazy the drivers are in the crowded Lima streets, I have been quite pleased to have connected with a ton of open, fun, and amazing people while I've been here; both through the workshops I'm giving and through Couchsurfers. In fact, I went with some of my new friends to take surf lessons on the beach in a town about 45 kilometers to the North of Lima, called San Bartolo. We paid $15 each for lessons that lasted almost 2 hours in total. It was the first time I'd been surfing, and it was a blast. We finished the day eating seafood on a terrace overlooking the beach, laughing and chatting until the sun went down.

The past week and a half in Peru have felt formative, to say the least. Now I'm off to hike the Inca Trail.

Until next time,
Dillon Dakota Carroll