When Jordan Bergren decided to quit his day job and start his own business, he quickly realized that working from home wasn’t for him.
“I would get wrapped up in everything, just working all the time with no delineation between work mode and home mode or family mode,” he says. “It was super inefficient, and I wasn’t taking care of myself. So after six months of that, I made the decision to start checking out coworking spots.”
One of the first places he looked at was Vault Coworking Space in Cedar Rapids’ Geonetric Building. Right away, he knew he’d found the right fit.
“Having a place like Vault, you show up and you have your brain kind of turn on, like ‘Okay, I’m going to work now,’” he says. “I just like being around other people. It kind of gives you that energy, hearing other conversations going on.”
Building a community
Jourdan isn’t alone. According to John Foster, the community manager at Vault Coworking Space, the advantage of being part of a community – even when you are your own boss – is what makes people stay.
“There are a lot of people who don’t particularly care for working from home, and feel like they need to figure something out,” Foster says. “Maybe they’re looking for an office, or maybe they just need to be around people and be part of a community.
“People imagine that working in the same space as a lot of other people will make it tough to concentrate,” he adds. “But it really is a great working environment, with a lot of opportunities for collaboration.”
Making connections
For Raine Hayden, the people who work around her at Vault have become her “unofficial co-workers.”
“I first joined Vault because I needed to get out of the house, but now, I come because I enjoy seeing the people,” she says. “We all have different jobs and goals, but we’re all supportive of each other. The other members are people I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise, but now I consider them my friends and coworkers.”
One of those “co-workers,” Jessica Abdoney of NewBoCo, became friends with Hayden through having nearby desks at Vault. After going to a few Whiskey Friday events together after work, Abdoney mentioned that she was going to Scotland in the fall of 2023. Hayden says she jokingly asked if she could come along.
“She said “yes!” and the joke started to become a real plan,” Hayden says. “Jessica went over before me and spent a month in Edinburgh on her own, and I joined her on her last week. We spent a week exploring Scotland together and from there, flew to Italy.”
The two say they’ve become good friends as a result.
“I love that I have ‘coworkers’ who aren’t coworkers, and sharing a space with people who have skills in other areas, have different expertises, and have different views,” Abdoney says. “It’s fun to be able to make friends in a working space, while not requiring a coworker relationship, which can strain friendships. I love getting to come in, and see new and familiar faces.”
Four years on from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Foster believes Vault has fully bounced back to being the vibrant community that it was before 2020.
“During the pandemic, Vault was empty,” he says. “But then slowly and surely, we started getting those people who want to try it out, just like back when we started in 2015. And they’re saying ‘Hey, this works for me.’ Today we’ve got a good collection of people, and it’s a great community again.”
How to join
There are multiple ways to join that community:
- Day Passes are ideal for occasional users or visitors to a limited set of amenities.
- A Community Membership is an annual membership for users who need access a few days a month.
- A Resident Membership provides a full array of services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Vault Community and Resident members have the ability to upgrade their membership with private offices.
Features of the space include:
- Up to 10gbps blazing fast fiber internet
- Meeting spaces and conference rooms
- Private phone rooms
- Cafe and kitchen access
- Complimentary beverages & snacks
- Complimentary off-street parking
- Indoor bike parking
- Showers
NewBoCo also offers first-time users the opportunity to try a day at Vault for free John Foster can answer any questions about memberships, specific space availability, and more. To learn more, visit https://newbo.co/vault-coworking/
Listen Up
John Foster and Jordan Bergren talk more about the experience of Vault Coworking on this episode of the Iowa Innovation podcast: https://newbo.co/episode-44-vaulting-forward-together-ft-john-foster-and-jordan-bergren/