I haven't added a lot to the blog this summer, but I'm happy to say it's because I was too busy working, and not because I didn't have anything to post. More on the work later, but I spent the summer down in my hometown of Springfield, Mo. where my girlfriend (and now fiancée) Christina had an internship. I didn't feel like the place we were staying was great for a home office so I went looking for some coworking locations in town, and that brought me to Originate.
I've never used a coworking space before, and there are a lot of great things I could talk about with this one, located in Missouri State's tech incubator, the eFactory. The free coffee from Brick and Mortar, the great security for my computer and hard drives, the monthly barbecues, the friendly atmosphere and not spending the day sitting alone in my grandma's old house. So many things.
Originate offers all those coworking benefits, but goes a lot further by plugging you into Springfield's entrepreneurial tech scene in a real and immediate way. It may seem crazy to talk about Springfield's tech/startup scene, but it's there, it's growing and there are people working really hard to build it up. Many of them are at Originate, or working next door in the eFactory, or passing through for a meeting, or swinging by on Wednesday morning for 1 Million Cups or for the monthly IdeaWakeup. There is a lot going on.
I was only at Originate for two months and I'm super terrible at networking, so I didn't take advantage of half the benefits that came with working there. But joining up definitely felt like I was part of something very real and active in town and I'm going to miss it.
Jeremy Adams runs Originate and works there with the team from his other company, Verv.
Chad Boyd working on his startup, Txt2Give.
A meeting of the minds in the eFactory lounge. Free coffee on the right.
Eric Chambers, left, and Nick Wilczewski with Torrent Consulting.