On March 13th, we visited one of the coolest co-working spaces so far (in my opinion): the Capital Factory. From inside, there is a beautiful view of the capitol and downtown Austin and 46,000 sq. ft. full of entrepreneurs (on two floors: 16th and 5th floors). There are 3 components to the Capital Factory:
- the Community Center (there are always events going on)
- the Co-working space (part-time and full-time access), and
- Private offices
All members get the same amenities, it is just whether you would like more access to the resources (time-wise). There are about 32,000+ programmers and entrepreneurs in Austin, with the cream of the crop being members of the Capital Factory! [ at least per Josh Baer ]. It is crazy that there is only 20 staff total, but in 2014, they hosted 720 events, and about half of those are free to the public!
While we were there, it was during SXSW, where 5 of the entrepreneurs from Capital Factory get to pitch their idea for Demo Day with national and international investors. We got to meet two of them: Blake Garrett with Aceable and Tony Aguilar with Student Loan Benefits (SLB).
Aceable is a modernized driving education course to get users more engaged on any device wherever they are. They have already raised $1.6 million.
Student Loan Benefits is basically like 401k payments for student loans where employers will match the contributions.
A couple other cool things that we got to see while we were there was the “hidden” conference room; it was a “Harry Potter” style room, hidden by a bookcase. Also, Barack Obama visited the facility back in 2013 and wherever he stood, they placed a Presidential seal.
Josh Baer, the founder, [ and Gordon Daugherty ] loves to say that the Capital Factory is the “entrepreneurial center of gravity.”
