Naval Ravikant, who in his past life co-founded Epinions and Vast, has started HitForge, a San Francisco-based outfit that is a unique twist on the incubator model. Via GigaOM.
HitForge closely follows the record company model, which I discussed with various people at a great party at a co-working type space in Cambridge last Friday. The idea is to develop several concurrent $50k projects, with the most promising get additional resources and support. IdeaLab was successful with this model back in the day, when startup costs were still far higher than they are today.
As for space and proximity to resources, the Cambridge Innovation Center looks like a nice space, as well as various co-working initiatives. Me, IÂ want to get out of my home offfice. After five years I’m ready for a change and would welcome the opportunity to get involved with entrepreneurs in an incubator-style workspace.
SF Gate talks about the new Marxist revolution in San Francisco, where internet startups are working out of coffee houses instead of paying for expensive office space. This is a follow-up to a recent BusinessWeek article about co-working.
Me, I like my 24″ monitor and view out of window, although taking a break to talk with live humans from time to time is a healthy alternative to Twitter.
I’ve been working from home for the majority of the last decade.
I can’t stand trackpads and I’m addicted to my 24“ LCD monitor, and will take working from home solo most any day, at least until recently.
It’s good to know that co-working is on the rise. Co-working is basically independent, internet-age freelancers who are burnt out on working from their homes (cons: too isolating, makes you crazy, no work/life boundaries) and don’t want to just work out of Starbucks (cons: too public, not networking-conducive, laptop theft, rising price of lattes).
Recently I started working at my girlfriend’s place, or her at mine. Contrary to what you would think, I seem to get a lot more done, feel better at the end of the day, and not so isolated that I blab endlessly to the guy behind the counter at the local coffee shop, which is too loud and busy most of the time to get real work done.
Looks like there is a Coworking Boston wiki set up, and the first proposed location is only 5 minutes from my apartment.
Via Boingboing.