#EcosystemsRecover: The Perfect Storm For Innovation
Coworking space owners know all too well the amazing collaborations that can happen when you get entrepreneurs together in one space. In fact, one of the first signs of a budding entrepreneurial ecosystem is when coworking spaces start popping up within a community. Coworking spaces act as an accessible entryway into the community and a place to work and network with others. Many of them run programs to help support the development and growth of entrepreneurs while serving as a place for groups to convene, share big ideas, lend a helping hand, and engage in mentorship. Coworking spaces are essential to the entrepreneurial ecosystem and their founders and generally very active in ecosystem building work.
Unfortunately, coworking spaces are one of the millions of businesses being hit hard right now due to social distancing measures. With many coworking space founders in our network, SCN is paying close attention to how members are pivoting to support their spaces, entrepreneurs, and community.
SCN members Grace Belangia and Eric Parker are the cofounders of The Clubhou.se in Augusta, Georgia, a non-profit coworking space founded 7 years ago. The 7,000 square foot space is situated within the Georgia Cyber Center and is way more than a workspace. The Clubhou.se is also a makerspace, code school, startup accelerator, prototyping lab, mentorship network, think tank, and support resource for organizations in communities across the nation that are working to grow their local innovation economy.
But much of that activity has come to a screeching halt due to COVID-19. Like others, The Clubhou.se has taken their programming and meetups online, their code school students do virtual study halls, and they have a Slack channel for their members.
How they are supporting entrepreneurs now
Grace and Eric have been getting creative with their members to ensure they have the support they need. Outside of offering venting/advice sessions, they offer an e-commerce marketplace on their website as a way to pre-sell their services or products.
They’ve expanded the marketplace beyond members to businesses who have been negatively impacted by COVID-19 and need help getting online. If a business wants to sell products on their e-commerce platform, all they have to do is complete a form.
They’ve also been helping members make connections and find ways to fill gaps in employment or lack of income. They’ve even hired members for other contract positions that need to be filled.
“We’re trying to re-skill some of our members who can do things aside from what they were originally doing because they lost revenue in their business,” explains Grace.
Solving for Community Problems
“When I think of a funnel, that’s the sweet spot of what we do. We connect those kinds of things in our community.” - Grace Belangia
The Clubhou.se has been serving more than entrepreneurs during this crisis. The city of Augusta has a huge population of healthcare workers who work within about a dozen hospitals, the Medical College of Georgia, a plethora of nursing homes, and the Veterans Hospitals that support the military population at Fort Gordon. The Clubhou.se was approached by someone at one of the hospitals about creating a mask from an open-source design and using small-batch manufacturing to support the healthcare community.
“We’ve always worked to support collaboration between entrepreneurs and makers in our community, and were able to move rapidly when we were approached by the Department of Public Health,” says Eric Parker.
This jump-started a collaboration between The Clubhou.se, the maker community, the Georgia Department of Public Health, and Augusta University called InnovationMesh. The team has created an N95 prototype called “The Augusta Mask” that has been tested by a group of doctors and nurses. They’ve even created a filter that is being mass-produced.
“When I think about what we do at The Clubhou.se, InnovationMesh parallels it. It’s kind of like the perfect storm so to speak because it’s what we tell our entrepreneurs to do. Research the market, find your customer, figure out your raw costs, distribution, and marketing… we’re actually going through all of those things right now,” says Grace.
Their initial goal was to make 500 masks but they are learning that this crisis is going to last a lot longer and so the number needs to increase if they want to continue to support the community. As they scale the project, they plan to contract with some of their members who want/need the work.
“If everybody around us isn’t healthy, then we can't even fulfill our mission. So, if we're able to use our expertise as an organization and help use our communities to help solve these problems this is a good way to support innovation," Clubhou.se President, Eric Parker said.