BatchHaüs co-working space provides rent-free refuge for local freelancers

PUBLIC HAÜSING: Coryndon Luxmoore, foreground, works on his laptop at BatchHaüs. On the coach, from left, are: Luke Gedeon, Sean Biehle and Anisa Raoof. /
PUBLIC HAÜSING: Coryndon Luxmoore, foreground, works on his laptop at BatchHaüs. On the coach, from left, are: Luke Gedeon, Sean Biehle and Anisa Raoof. /

Thursdays often find a beehive of activity in BatchBlue’s brightly colored offices at 10 Elmgrove Ave., in Providence’s Wayland Square. Each counter space typically has a laptop on it, but the people flitting from room-to-room are not all employees.
About a half-year ago BatchBlue, Providence-based Web-applications creator, moved to a bigger office space and began opening its doors on Thursdays to the public as a free co-working space. Dubbed “BatchHaüs,” it’s a place for freelancers to branch out from their home office, network, brainstorm, grab a cup of coffee or even just put their feet up.
Since its inception, BatchHaüs has been a refuge for a small number of techies, PR professionals – even a videographer – looking for something beyond the coffee shop experience. Attendees show up sporadically throughout the day, often tweeting about their plans beforehand.
“It’s pretty informal … you’re crashing on a couch. It’s like being in a coffee shop but having the same people show up every week,” said Sean Biehle, a regular attendee of BatchHaüs.
“It’s comfortable, friendly, and I can pick my own level of engagement – sometimes I work and sometimes I want to just hang out with cool people,” said Mel DuPont.
BatchBlue employees, after having worked remotely themselves for the first three years of the firm’s existence, understand the difficulties of finding a stimulating work space and embrace having new faces in their offices every week.
“It’s good for the community and good for us to meet people coming into the community for our own selfish hiring needs,” said Sean Ransom, vice president of technology for BatchBlue, noting that the company hasn’t been in a “hiring mode” since the inception of BatchHaüs but is “keeping tabs” on a few people.
Ransom knows the woes of trying to recruit local programming talent and hopes that the co-working space will contribute to the growing Providence technology scene. He notes that these spaces are particularly essential for professionals in the technology industry who can often work from home but appreciate a social space to fall back on. BatchHaüs’ instant popularity, promoted through word of mouth and Twitter, has caused Ransom to think twice about the space.
“Now, BatchHaüs is actually full, we probably should have gotten a bigger space,” he said, noting that an average of five people attend the sessions. BatchBlue had wanted to open a co-working space for a while, but didn’t have the room. Now, the 4-year-old company aims even higher, hoping that when it expands in the future, it will be able to have BatchHaüs more often, with more people and ideally, be able to provide freelancers with their own desk.
But, expansion plans will always be limited, as BatchBlue is not looking to run the co-working space on a paying basis; “it’s just something we do to give back to the community,” Ransom added.
Up to now, attendees have mostly been “techies,” Ransom noted, with a few participants with backgrounds in public relations. One of the “tech” participants, Luke Gedeon, took a “second look” at BatchBook, BatchBlue’s flagship product, a Web-based, customer-relationship-management software, when he started going to BatchHaüs. Now he recommends the product to his own customers.
From a marketing perspective, the arrangement seems to be a winner for everyone. Both the company and co-workers are able to publicize their products and services. Even a videographer like Mel DuPont lauds the symbiotic relationships that form. She notes that some have used her as a PR resource while she has built up her contact list of Web developers.
“It is valuable for me to bounce ideas off a wide variety of people, especially people outside of my field,” said DuPont. “They come to the table without bias and just tell you what they think. Working with unexpected people shakes you up, takes the blinders off and helps you see your work through the eyes of your audience,” she added.
DuPont, like the other BatchHaüs devotees, previously found herself working out of “noisy” coffee shops. She loves BatchHaüs’ amenities – WiFi, coffee, couch and most of all, the connections – the space offers. “Networking has brought me every client I’ve had,” she said. “Sure, I could – and often do – work from home, but BatchHaüs is a place where I can go, once a week, to refill my ‘social’ meter.”
Gedeon, a freelancer who works with small businesses to relieve the technical burdens of running a company, said the social stimulation is similar to “when mothers look forward to having ‘adult conversation.’ It’s great to have a conversation on that ‘geek level,’ because most of my clients are not [geeks].”
Sean Biehle, director at an advertising firm in Cincinnati, knows how valuable a co-working space can be to building a network. Biehle moved to Rhode Island in September and at the top of his “to do” list was finding a co-working space in Providence.
“I was surprised there wasn’t a place providing a co-working space full time,” said Biehle, suggesting that it would be in high demand. “It’s a different type of work situation, but given the economy, I know many people that have either lost their jobs or are trying to start up something on their own.”
BatchHaüs is not the only co-working space in Rhode Island, attendees note, but there is a distinct lack of these spaces when compared with other “tech” scenes in San Francisco, New York and Austin, Texas, where they have become wildly popular.
Some, like Biehle, jump from co-working space to co-working space depending on the day of the week. Biehle would be willing to pay for a desk at a full-time co-working space, if it maintained the cooperative, informal air found at the one-day-a-week spaces.
“Not an office, where you’d hole yourself up, but in a room with others where you can talk and interact with the people around you,” said Biehle, who also works out of Schwadesign in Pawtucket.
Ransom said he would like to see other companies open their doors up, “even just for an afternoon.”
“It’s important to reach out to the tech scene to build it stronger,” he said. “We don’t have the [thriving] tech scene right now, but we need these [recruits, graduates] to stick around to build it up,” Ransom said. •

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