-I’m encouraged to see a growth in shared professional workspaces in Penticton and very excited to see Cowork Penticton move to their new downtown location at 129 Nanaimo Ave West.
Jen and Nick Vincent have really built an incredible Coworking culture in our community. The space sports more private offices, segregated workspaces, meeting rooms, a board room, mailbox rentals, and soon a flexible area that can be used by groups separately from the rest of the workspace. Over the five-plus years Cowork has been open, they’ve had Netflix employees work there while on vacation, drop-in workers from as far away as the West Indies, Germany and Australia and a variety of local workers including graphics designers, web developers, real estate, lawyers, data scientists, writers and fine artists. Several years ago these types of workers would be working from home. Coworking gives them opportunity to communicate, bounce ideas, network, and work together. If you haven’t been I recommend stopping in for a visit! Keep an eye out for their grand opening event, planned for later in September.
When I first looked at expanding my business I looked at the traditional options of looking at long-term leases around Penticton. The struggle I had was that it was hard to predict how big or how fast my company would grow. I was ambitious and was looking at quite a large space that I could sublet to other professionals while I was growing my business. I ended up backing away from this idea because I would have spent valuable time on managing the space and tenants that could be better spent on my business. Recently I’ve moved into a shared professional workspace and I would love to see many more of these types of buildings in Penticton in the coming years. The one I’m in is an open concept space with architects, house designers, marketing consultants and my software consulting and web design business. Within days I had conversations with other business owners where they helped me and I helped them. Owning your own business can be lonely at times and having other entrepreneurs to talk to has been fantastic. My employees appreciate having a nice workspace and other people to talk to. It’s a space full of people working hard but we occasionally take time to play some ping pong, foosball and relax. As my business grows I feel comfortable that we can expand in the space we’re in without having to worry about moving.
Last month I mentioned I’d like to see 30 new tech businesses in Penticton. One of the ways this will happen is promoting the businesses that are already here. I will highlight a few businesses per month in tech in Penticton. These businesses could be considered ‘competitors’ to my company, but I prefer to think of us as ‘collaborators.’ We do similar work and the stronger these and all tech businesses are in Penticton, the stronger our tech community is. There is no need to go to Kelowna or Vancouver for web or software development with these companies being here!
The Fourth Media is a local web design company based in Penticton since 2014 owned by Herman Steuernagel who is currently the President of JCI Penticton a local chapter of a worldwide young professionals organization. They have worked on websites for large and small clients as far away as Calgary, Toronto and the Napa Valley.
Advantcomp Consulting is a custom web software and app development company based out Penticton run by Aqil Samuel, CEO. With much of his team on Vancouver Island, Aqil is able to live here in Penticton where he can coach his teenage son’s baseball team and enjoy everything the South Okanagan has to offer.
Fly Creative is run by Fiona Hughes moved to Penticton recently from Atlanta, GA! Fly Creative offers thoughtful design and strategic marketing solutions to growing small businesses through easy to use yet beautifully crafted WordPress websites.
The next TechBrew is Friday, Aug. 25 from 5:30-8 p.m. at Highway 97 Brewery.
Keith MacIntyre is a tech columnist for the Penticton Western News and the owner of Big Bear Software Inc.
