For a while, graduate student, budding architect and single dad Christopher Reinhart worked from home, with the occasional trip to a coffee shop.
But for the last five months he's been working in a different kind of place – one made for people like him who find themselves in the strange space between having an idea for a business and actually being able to afford an office.
"Before I ever started working here, when I would just come to the Chocolate Moose with my son or something, I saw the space and I was always intrigued by the space, but I had no idea what happened here," Reinhart says.
Coworking spaces are catching on across the country. These non-traditional, shared work places have been popular in big cities for a few years, but now they're spreading across small towns, including in Indiana.
Columbus, Kokomo and Terre Haute are some of the latest communities to see cowork spaces open up.
I was working at coffee shops, or the library, and that really doesn't work well. It just doesn't feel like it's work space, you know?
The easiest way to describe coworking is to think of a coffee shop. A lot of people working on laptops, sometimes for hours on end. Some people are buried in their own work, while others might be talking and working on projects together.
But Reinhart learned that despite the never ending supply of caffeine and snacks, there are problems with using a coffee shop as your personal office space.
"I needed an in-town workspace, because before that I was working at coffee shops, or the library, and that really doesn't work well," Reinhart says. "It just doesn't feel like it's work space, you know?"
Goofy Homemade Desks
Coworks give people a kind of ‘safe space' to work, while still providing amenities such as coffee, a kitchen, conference room use and, as the founder of the space in Bloomington says, the most important amenity – other people.
"When we first thought about this we tried to compare it a little bit to school. You know, you have classes with all of your friends, but you don't necessarily make your friends in class, you make your friends at lunch, and at recess," says Tyler Henke, who co-founded Cowork, the name of the only cowork business in Bloomington.
We try to create opportunities for people to meet, both digitally and in person, so they can understand each other's strengths.
"So we try to create opportunities for people to meet, both digitally and in person, so they can understand each other's strengths and can collaborate at work," Henke says.
Henke and his friends thought of starting a cowork after they realized they needed a place to work together, away from the distractions they had to deal with at home. So they made it, and it slowly grew into the 78-member community they have today.
"We have a lot of really really smart people, really well-paid people, doing really awesome stuff out of these goofy homemade desks in Bloomington, Indiana," Henke says.
Cowork offers a variety of membership plans – all the way from a private office for $395 a month to a two-day a month pass for $16 dollars.
Reinhart says once he found out what Cowork was, he was drawn to that flexibility.
"I switch plans, actually, quite a bit," Reinhart says. "So when I started out I was a designated desker, because I thought I really needed to have all my stuff set up at my desk. After a couple months of that I realized I didn't really need to have all my stuff set up, and I wasn't using the space after hours at all. So I bumped it down to just full-time."
According to a report last year from Emergent Research, a consulting firm that specializes in small businesses, the number of cowork spaces globally grew from about 600 in 2010 to more than 3,000 in 2013 – attracting over 160,000 members.
Retaining Talent
Cowork spaces are especially appealing to young professionals. Henke says their members represent a wide range of ages, but that most are in their 30s. Because of advances in technology, many people today can work from virtually anywhere.
And Henke says that could really benefit small towns like Bloomington.
"The quality of life here, we think it's unparalleled. But it's not always easy to find a job here. So I think the more members we have the stronger our community becomes, and the more likely we're going to be able to be to recruit and retain those people," Henke says.
Bloomington's economic development director Danise Alano-Martin says it's too early to tell for sure, but she expects the trend will have a positive effect.
"I think a lot of young entrepreneurs, or people who graduated from Indiana University with a business idea, might not immediately know what's available to them," Alano-Martin says. "Getting familiar through coworking space is an informal way to do it and a great way to realize what really is available."
Researchers from Harvard Business Review found that people who belong to a cowork reported levels of thriving that approach an average of 6 on a 7-point scale-at least one point higher than employees who work in traditional offices.
New Coworking Spaces
The majority of cowork spaces are privately run, but some cities are starting to recognize their potential economic benefits. The Chamber of Commerce in Columbus decided to start their own.
It's called The Fishtank, and it resides in the back of the Chamber of Commerce's office downtown. The area used to be a conference room, but it was rarely used.
Fishtank Director and Chamber President Cindy Frey says they tested the waters with focus groups before raising funds and converting the space.
Innovation comes through an iterative process of one idea building on another idea. When you have smart people working together in a space, they benefit."
"One of the things we know about innovation is that it doesn't really result from that light bulb effect we see in movies and cartoons, that the light bulb goes off and you've discovered something great. That isn't really how innovation works," Frey says.
"Innovation comes through an iterative process of one idea building on another idea," she says. "When you have smart people working together in a space, they benefit because each brings something different to that puzzle."
With only a handful of members, The Fishtank is just getting started.
But Frey says it's a perfect fit for Columbus, a town full of engineers and freelancers, some of them looking to kickstart their careers together.
