Susan, Thanks for your interest!! I'll attempt to answer all your questions.
Yes, it will be sponsored by the university (I work there with the title Director of Strategic Partnerships and maintain a side legal practice mostly helping start-ups). It may become a separate entity (for-profit or non-profit), but it will begin essentially as a university program. It will be staffed by myself (lawyer), a gentleman named Jim Porter (former VC, ran a number of companies, holds title of Entrepreneur in Residence), and an admin/office manager person. The university is providing everything, although we'll be under a VERY tight budget and will be on a time-table to become self-sustaining, secure donors or corporate sponsors, etc. Anyone can access it. We hope to marry the concepts of coworking and traditional business incubation in the same space, the space is open to all comers, but it is likely that our actual incubation projects will involve students, faculty, staff, or alumni. However, we're very aggressive and generally tend to think outside the box (we launched a for-profit software testing company 2 years ago and now have 150 employees, last fall we deployed iPhones to our entire freshman class and we've developed about a dozen corporate partnerships to develop apps, etc.). Lessons learned in small metro? Honestly...I haven't learned them yet...talk to me in three months. Space? That has been a big issue. We're not launching it in our College of Business b/c we want the entire campus to know that entrepreneurship isn't just for business students. We think we're moving into a large house adjacent to campus that was being used for university offices. It's plenty big and plenty nice, but it doesn't have large spaces that are ideal to communal working. Think Conjunctured in Austin with 5 offices added on as an addition and no cool front porch. We may co-locate our iPhone Sandbox, which is a purpose-built lab for students to develop iPhone apps. Reaching potential market? I've been developing a plan (Jelly's, etc.) based on ideas I've learned here. We haven't done much marketing yet b/ c we've been waiting on securing the space and getting university approval (lots of academics apparently are uncomfortable with the concept of "profit" and helping others achieve it). So far we've done word of mouth, some presentations around town, but we'll ramp that up soon. We do have a business plan competition called Springboard, and we'll probably have our launch associated with that event in April which is already well known in the community. Our university has been pursuing the incubator concept for some time. I've introduced coworking as a better model thanks to the thought leadership and the virtual mentorship of this group. I've visited Big in Japan, Caroline Collective, and KatyDock...and will likely hit several more before we really get moving. Kevin [email protected] On Feb 1, 1:32 pm, "Susan Mann" <[email protected]> wrote: > Kevin > > Read your post with lots of interest. We're in Ithaca, NY - so Cornell > University is the big-daddy in the area. Ithaca metro area is 50,000, > 100,000 if you go to county area - so even smaller than you - but because of > the university and nature of things in Ithaca, there are more independent > consultants, works, telecommuters etc than might otherwise be the case. > Cornell has 2 business incubators and 1 business park - the business > incubators are strictly for Cornell students and the business park is on the > pricey side and I'm not sure in the location we want. > > So is your coworking space actually being sponsored by the university? If > so, under what terms. What are they providing vs. you paying? Will anyone be > able to access it? What have been your lessons learned in trying to do this > in a smaller metro area? What kind of space are you using and where is it > located. How have you gone about reaching out/finding the potential market? > > Yes, lots of questions! > > We're starting very casually at the moment - first trying to get some > coworking days organized amongst the small initial group of us, probably at > the local library which rooms we can use for that. And then, if we find that > it works for us, try and find a space and turn it into a coworking space. > > Another colleague of mine is also interested in starting a non-University > based business incubator and we're talking about co-locating them and > providing cross services. Could be a neat idea. > > Regards > > Susan > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > Susan Mann > Home: +1.607.273.1671 > Fax: +1.607.697.0513 > Cell: +607.592.3241 > Yahoo Messenger: tlali01a > Skype: ramphele01 > Address: 232 Haller Blvd, Ithaca, NY 14850 > > "Stability breeds instability" - Hyman Minsk > "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell" - Edward > Abbey > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > > Behalf Of KC > Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 3:47 PM > To: 'Coworking' > Subject: [Coworking]WestTexasCoworking > > Hello all, I introduced myself about a month ago and can now > officially call myself a Space Catalyst. > > I'm in the process of launching a coworking space in conjunction with > Abilene Christian University, a mid-size liberal arts university way > out here inWestTexas. Abilene is a metro of about 125,000 > people...so we're small, but not that small, and we've got a fairly > vibrant entrepreneurial community (if you want details I'll be happy > to share...just send me an email or respond to this...for one thing, > our immediate region is the national leader in the expansion of wind > energy). > > Also, our university sends grads out all over the world and we would > love to instill the coworking-ethic in those that are entrepreneurial > so that they will seek out other coworking sites wherever they land > after graduation. > > The the program is approved and we've begun plans for the space. This > discussion group has been VERY helpful in our orientation. > > If any of you have worked in conjunction with universities before with > your coworking space, or if you're operating in a smaller metro area, > I'd very much appreciate your sharing some "lessons learned." > > KC > > Kevin Christian, JD > 325-280-8680 > [email protected] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
