There are a couple interesting but unconnected conversations in Charleston taking place, and the intersection of both intrigues the hell out of me. Let’s try it! Here’s the rundown:
- A couple weeks ago, Janet Edens posted at xarkGirl, asking what a Lowcountry co-working space would look like, with some incredible comments on the post. This is an idea that’s been kicked around a few times in the past and is gaining momentum. In fact, just today, it was revealed that a Summerville company, KFR Services, will begin providing space and some monetary investment in an ongoing program to aid local startups. This is a start, but the vision of our local creative and technical geeks is bigger (more on that in a little bit).
- Yesterday, a knockout blog post by Kristin B. Walker shed a lot of light on issues people are having trying to establish in Charleston. In it, Kristin insists that “Charleston is not Disneyworld” and that things need to happen in the city to better improve opportunities for local businesses to thrive and, more importantly, survive — especially in the face of business failures up and down King Street. It’s a great, honest read from the trenches, and if you haven’t seen it, read it.
The intersection, of course, is bringing that talent together in an attractive fashion to additional talent, to kick off those businesses — and the co-working space is a great place to architect an escape from Disneyworld.
Altering Perception
One thing that has always bugged me about Charleston is that it seems that nothing besides a lot of relaxation over the summer gets done here. From a tech perspective, our biggest accomplishment so far is that we lost to Craigslist in a lawsuit; otherwise, we don’t get too much of a look here. Reversing these perceptions is one of the motivations of Social Media Club in Charleston — we want to demonstrate to a worldwide audience that Charleston is indeed open for more than the hotel business. In a continually-wavering economy, tourism simply cannot be the only egg in the basket. By demonstrating that Charleston invests in its talent, we become more attractive to the broader community.
We’re immersed in talent here, but for those who aren’t local, it still takes some work to find it. I see it in practice at TheDigitel, which is comprised of pure passion and a willingness to try things to see if they’ll stick, an attribute crucial to a startup culture. I see someone who sees promise in Charleston’s potential for a startup culture in Noah Everett, who recently moved himself and his brainchild, Twitpic, to Charleston a few months ago. I know the people are in place and ready to rock and roll; we crammed them into Dan Conover’s house a week ago for a smashing good time full of beer, soaking rains, and — most importantly — ideas. Those are just a few examples; there’s a whole hell of a lot of smart people here. We need a way to collect that talent in a way that’s attractive to new talent, and provide the tools needed for creating ideas and bringing them to fruition.
A Good Start
KFR Services is doing that with their startup incubator program. It’s a good start to get a surprisingly functional company off the ground, but this creative believes it may be far too structured for my own tastes. Most of what a creative community needs is the opportunity to be spontaneous, to bust into a room and pound out an idea, and give it a shot. The KFR program requires an application process, and they’ll only shepherd about two or three businesses at a time. That’s perfectly fine for someone who’s got an idea and is ready to take it to the next level, but it doesn’t solve the problem of putting the talent together to make ideas reality. A less structured, more free-flow place is needed; the co-working place called for on xarkGirl.
What a Charleston Coworking Space Should Be
A Charleston coworking space:
- should be easily reachable by as many people as possible by as many means of transportation as possible. This is very difficult, because downtown Charleston is not always the easiest-reached place, especially for those of us deep into West Ashley or into North Charleston. However, downtown is also the nexus of a lot of creativity (though I’m seeing positive developments in North Charleston).
- should be first and foremost be about enhancing our community. The space should emphasize helping each other and ideally would have something akin to a “check your ego at the door” policy. While I respect the need for healthy competition to foster business and bolster innovation, I also think that innovation is hindered rather than aided by closed approaches. I very much am in favor of a Creative Commons approach, but I understand that’s not feasible for everybody, either.
- should be nonprofit. This helps emphasize the educational aspect of the space, makes taking tax-deductible donations a realistic idea, and helps ensure that the co-working space stays in the hands of the community and doesn’t allow greed to run the agenda.
- should provide high-quality tools, services, and infrastructure necessary for creativity. Recently, talking with Ken Hawkins and Chrys Rynearson, we had the idea of having cameras available for people to go on photowalks around town. They could upload the results to a Flickr pool, mash them up, or do whatever else they wanted with them. There are people with good ideas here who might not have access to the tools; empower them with the tools and we might be amazed at what results.
If Charleston can demonstrate that it is willing to invest in its talent, I suspect we can put an end to the brain drain that plagues our area and heavily invest in our community, both in business and in education. The endgame is that we all should benefit, and that’s something worth working hard toward.
Discussion of Escape from Disneyworld is now closed
Architecting an escape from @chasinsideout’s Disneyworld by way of a co-working space in #CHS: http://bit.ly/pNuXC
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Deep in West Ashley, huh? Try Moncks Corner.
What I’m saying though is the pool of creatives is going to come from more than just the nexus. There are those of us out in the hinterlands who will put in the time and effort to work with others.
Agreed, hence why I’m not convinced downtown is the source for it. Our meetups are living proof that people do come from far and wide, so that must be taken into account when picking a location.
Reading @jaredwsmith’s Escape from Disneyworld: http://bit.ly/NlOTf More talk on the potential of a coworking creative space. Read it #CHS
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http://tr.im/rth6 This blog post shows just how much awesomer @jaredwsmith is than I am.
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I tried to get some interest in a Charleston coworking space a while ago. Then the Minx (http://www.facebook.com/people/Svetlana-Minx/1080963120) even almost got as far as signing on a space downtown, but things fell through. We weren’t able to get enough interest to make a space viable.
Who knows, though – there might be enough independent professionals out there willing to pay for a space now. You should contact Svetlana Minx – she’s got at least 10 names / email addys for folk who were interested.
Fascinating, Brian! I suspect with the recent discussions about a space around the Charleston blogosphere we can get this ball rolling again. I’ll definitely be in touch with her.
Great post Jared! I hope folks manage to get some traction for a space this time. Just the other day while waiting for a seat at EVO, I was looking across the street at the closed coffee shop and thinking how that space might be nice for coworking. To add to the list of “what the space should be”, availability for groups(Bloggers, LUG’s, TUG’s, art groups, etc) to have meetings/presentations would be wonderful.
btw, since I have a bit of room(not much) to breath now that http://collecta.com/ is launched, I may try to rejoin the blog/twit/tech/etc community around here.
Agreed, Matthew. That’s one of the goals of the space — a central place to have those meetings, presentations, classes — a place we can build a community around.
Congratulations on your hard work with Collecta, and we look forward to seeing you around the meetups again soon
#coworking Escape from Disneyworld / the world according to Jared W. Smith http://bit.ly/NVLYM
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Escape from Disneyworld – http://bit.ly/14kA2q
#chs
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Escape from Disneyworld – http://bit.ly/14kA2q
#chs
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
I do think downtown is a great place. As is West Ashley and North Charleston. We need lots of these spaces, because what we are really talking about here is community-driven creativity (i stole that phrase from Chad Norman.) It’s much more than cheap office space, as we’ve all pointed out. Getting creative people from multiple disciplines together will make a whole greater than the sum of its parts. It becomes what Kristin talks about, a way to make our geographical place more livable and vibrant for EVERYbody.
Thanks, Jared, for this post and to all those who have joined the discussion. It is nothing short of amazing what this online community has been able to do so far. I believe we can make this happen in one form or another.
A agree with you Jared that a coworking/start-up space needs to be less structured that what is currently available. Having come from the economic development world of the Chamber, SC Launch!, The Digital Corridor etc…all of whom have the ‘incubation of technology and creativity’ as their missions, I can say that a space can’t be offered up by an agency such as theirs. There is too much red tape, rules, applications etc… It has to be created by the people and for the people. I am not sure if you know BeliefNetworks or not, but they are an amazing tech startup in town, who has rejected the standard model of local fundraising, and is committed to cultivation of local talent, creativity, knowledge etc…And they are really frickin cool. They have tons of extra office space in West Ashley next door the Glass Onion, and have been jonesing for exactly what you and xarkgirl describe – a place for people to spontaneously get together and bang it out and thrive on each other’s ideas. So there you have it. A space, a great location, an energy, a desire, the people – what can possible stop this?
Enjoying this conversation. And I’d really like to see something like this happen, so consider TheDigitel as someone who’s willing to put a little elbow grease into transforming vision to reality.
I feel like I’m coming late to this party but Ted and I have been up in NYC on customer visits. That said, it’s awesome to see this conversation happening and thanks for the props Kristin. She’s right, Ted and I have been talking about this since we stood up BeliefNetworks in WA. We’ve both worked in the crazy, open atmosphere of the west coast and know the impact a space like this could have on Charleston. We did a round table over at the Glass Onion (G.O.) with local startups with this exact idea in mind. We have an open space next to us, wired with cat5, white boards and a back yard/banana tree/grill that’s perfect for 2-3 startups to share. But it costs, not much though–3 companies could split it for $650/company/month–the Starbucks bill for one company in the Valley. We could do this tomorrow, today even. Send me a DR. If you call now you could get 3 Ginsu knives. Couldn’t help that last one–I am serious, get in touch. Let’s do it. For some viewpoints on startups from my CTO take a look at this: http://www.idea2bank.com/ Hope to see you in the WA soon. @beliefnetworks, @jaxsoncreole, @l_maki
Lisa, that’s awesome — and honestly, I don’t see what could hold us back at this point. Let us know what we in the community can do to get this launched and we’ll do it.
All we need are 2-3 small start ups or people in the process of forming start ups (the space can hold 7 comfortably, 9-10 if you’re willing to sacrifice the “conference room”) who can put together $1975 in rent a month total (that’s $1/square foot). There are two bathrooms and a good sized kitchen in addition to a great back garden with picnic table, grill, and furniture (our donation if we can share the garden and grill with you).
One more thing, I think we may need to move on this but I can coordinate with the landlord and help get the lease signed if we have the people/startups ready to commit–they will agree to a year lease which is unusual around here and important for startups who expect to grow.
Think of the shockwave…
That would be fantastic. Now, just to get the word out to the startup community that this is also available. Let’s talk very, very soon Lisa
Wierd I just went to disneyworld AND we have a space to rent…. Wow.
It would be the birth of the INFORMATION SAVANNAH HIGHWAY. Apologies couldn’t resist that one…. Someone get together and do this! Mt P is too expensive!
“The Information Savannah Highway” would be incredibly symbolic of an economy in transition, seeing how the auto industry dominates it now. Very nice, Ted
The birth of the INFORMATION SAVANNAH HIGHWAY will not be realized unless we move on the space now. I just spoke with the landlord and they are talking to prospective tennants…
Tweet me today if you’re interested @l_maki
Doing a bit of comparison pricing and $1975 seems expensive for a space that fits 7. A spot at most coworking/cohab range from $100-$250 in large cities.
Matthew, I am not sure what commercial space goes for in large cities, but I can tell you traditional cowork spaces are most likely subsidized, either by the city or by economic development agencies or by companies who have extra space but who hope that you’ll become their client. $1975 or $1/sq ft is CHEAP for Charleston. Spaces Downtown will run you $20-40/sq ft and then you’ll find $10-20/sq ft in the outlying areas. While BN is a for-profit company, there’s no profit to them in renting their space to others – they just want to cover their cost and get that energy/creativity in there. Plus it’s ready to go. No fuss no muss – just walk in and turn the lights on.
I am not trying to push the BN space – just wanted to clarify a few things! Regardless of where everyone chooses to go-it’s exciting to have the drive for this space and collaborative thinking.
I’m not sure if the space in other cities is subsidized or not, and that price may be fine for funded “startup space”, but it would be just about impossible to make a go of it as a coworking space at that price. Even at $250 a spot, which I think you’d be very hard pressed to fine people willing to pay in Charleston, you would only make $1750 a month. It would be risky to think you could fill in enough non-monthly subscribers to meet the rent.
For comparison, monthly memberships…
The Hat Factory, San Francisco, $170-$200 a month.
Locomotivity, Asheville, $100-$260 a month.
Cool – I like Locomotivity’s set up with various different memberships. Here it is for those who don’t feel like googling.
Daily Coworker
Daily coworkers can sit anywhere there’s a public seat available – couches, chairs, shared desks, front porch, etc. You get a relaxed but professional place to work within walking distance to food and coffee. If you ride a bike, you can get to downtown in about 4 minutes. As a daily member, you don’t have to commit to anything more than a single day, but you get all the amenities of a Part-Timer. Not sure if coworking is your thing? Give it a try with very little up front cost. In fact your first day is free. Cost: $15/day
Multi-Pass Card
Save money when you buy in bulk. You can get a 10-pass Daily Coworker and pay $50 less than if you bought paid one at a time daily. Like working with us, but not sure you can make it more than a few times a month? The Multi-pass card is good for 3 months and probably right for you.Cost: $100
Part Time Members
As a part timer you can come in any time M-F from 10-6. You can sit anywhere there’s a seat available – couches, chairs, shared desks and unused conference rooms all see regular traffic. You get a relaxed but professional place to work within walking distance to food and coffee. If you ride a bike, you can get to downtown in about 4 minutes. If you’ve been here a few times and your multi-pass card is getting frayed, maybe part-timing it is right for you. Cost: $150/monthly – no long-term commitment
Full Time Membership
Full time members get 24/7 access, your own desk, secure storage (coming soon!), 12 hours of conference room time, a parking space, wifi, coffee, kitchen, good company and a productive place to GTD. There’s no monthly commitment – you pay month to month. Get all the benefits of being a partner with none of the long-term commitment. Cost: $300 / month.
Partner Membership
Save money by becoming a partner. With just a 6 month commitment, you get all of the perks of a full time member, and you save $40 per month.
Conference Room
Partners and full time members get 12 hours of conference room time per month. But it’s available for others too. The conference room can be rented by the day or half day. Contact us if you are interested. If you’re a part time member and the conference room is not in use, it’s a great place to sit and get some work done too.
Hey peps! It’s Stella aka SM. I have relocated to Charlotte, and although this will not solve long term problems for people in the creative industry (charleston, elsewhere), there is a @CLTJelly group here that meets weekly a local coffee shops and restaurants. There they record a podcast with local biz owners, while peps co-work.
Back to Chs, yes I had an amazing space on upper King Street where Zappos Pizza is. If someone is willing to manage the project and hassle the city (biggest obstacle!!), I would be more than happy to share the information, my struggles, and contact information. I was able to arrange about $150/mo for shared coworking space and $350/mo for closed door office space in this space. Offices and office space and conference room/table already set up. I had a lot of interest, but the project stalled when it came to approval and permits and fire codes, although everything was legit. This is the perfect space to set up a bike rack, too, for everyone to bike to the office – although there is plenty of parking available.
You can email me here: stella.french@gmail.com
Coworking is GOING to happen in Chs. We all have to moonlight to support ourselves. : )
I am more than happy to help and offer insight!
Stella, this is awesome. I’m definitely aware of all the cool stuff going on in Charlotte. Keep an eye on guys like Lyell Petersen (@93octane) if you’re not already. He’s doing cool stuff up there.
I’m fascinated with this, greatly. If we can get some of the skilled political wranglers in our court on this, I think we can still make the Zappos space a reality. I’m liking what’s happening on upper King and I think this would be really cool.