Under New Ownership, Makers Workspaces Doubles Down on Community, Supporting Local Entrepreneurs and Coworking in Seattle

by Cat Johnson

Makers Workspaces is one of Seattle’s original coworking spaces. Founded in 2012 by Caitlin Agnew and Lana Morisoli, Makers has grown into a thriving community-focused workspace. Now the Makers community is starting a new chapter.

In August of 2017, Agnew and Morisoli sold Makers to David Letaw, a serial entrepreneur who had recently relocated to Seattle from San Diego, California.I chatted with Letaw and Makers' Operations Director Sharis Kevin about the ownership transition, the focus on community and inclusion at Makers, and the company’s mission to support local entrepreneurs and small businesses. Here are the highlights of our conversation.

Cat Johnson: David, how were introduced to Makers? When Caitlin and Lana were ready to sell the company, how did they find you?

David Letaw: I’m a serial entrepreneur. I’ve worked in real estate, with community development nonprofits, doing business coaching and consulting, and I was heavily involved in the hospitality industry. I was on a year-long sabbatical traveling across the U.S. when I came across Makers. It was my first time seeing a coworking space.

Makers has a really awesome aesthetic, and I was enamored by the thought that there was a community of business owners and leaders all cohabitating in a space and getting their projects done, but still relying on peer support.

It was my first stint in downtown Seattle. Makers is a block from Pike Place Market and I was drinking craft coffee they were making in-house and Sharis, who was the community manager at the time, was very friendly and welcoming. I decided I should spend more time in this community.

I became more and more interested in what coworking meant and what the industry was. After I looked at all the industries I had been part of, coworking was a cross-section, or intersection, of all of those things.

It seems that your past experience set you up perfectly to run a coworking space.

DL: That’s really how I felt. I didn’t have a need for a job at that point—I was just starting to branch out and was in the middle of a career switch. I knew I needed to take care of my mental and emotional health and start thinking about having a family.

I started doing some business coaching in the space and I was helping a friend out with his coffee cart there. A lot of organic conversations and relationships were spearheaded by the coffee cart owner and Sharis. The conversations led to a serendipitous conversation with the owners who were—I didn’t know at the time—preparing for the sale. They found that I was passionate about the community and, coupled with my experience, they asked me to be part of a group of people or groups they were offering the business sale to. It was like Charlie & the Chocolate Factory: one by one, other people fell by the wayside.

Did the other people fall away by their choice or by the owner’s choice?

DL: A combination of both. The owners really didn’t want to just give the business away. It was their first business and they had a really big spot in their heart for the community and didn’t want to see the space just being sold to a broker who didn’t care about the community or would turn it into something completely different.

One thing led to another and, after a six or seven month process, I made the purchase on August 18, 2017, and here we are.

How has it been going since you took over? Has the space changed?

DL: It’s actually going really wonderfully. Since the day of purchase, we wanted to make the transition as amiable as possible. At the five year anniversary of the space we announced the transfer of ownership. There were a few hundred people there and we celebrated the legacy of the owners and the legacy of the historic building we’re part of that houses a lot of family-run businesses.

We really wanted to honor that tradition and express that we’re here, not to change everything, but to figure out how we can best support local and small businesses in Seattle to see them grow to their potential. We also want to take care of the business owners, as people, in a space that is collaborative and supportive and inclusive.

Since that time, revenue-wise and people-wise, we’ve grown over 200 percent. We’ve grown over 120 people in seven months and our revenue has more than doubled. With that, we’ve expanded our staffing and focused on building trust with the community that was already present.I came in with a big Pinterest dream vision of how to adjust the space, but we found that, in order to make a coworking space—or any business—sustainable, I really needed to find time to take care of our staff and current members who were still learning to trust the organization that was housing them. It’s about being consistent in the small things and providing the value they were hoping to have.

What changes did you make with the staff?

DL: I moved Sharis to full-time operations director, we hired a full-time community manager, we’ve also hired an events manager and an operations assistant in the last seven months. That’s to help manage the growth and to set ourselves up for more growth—but not just numbers because we want to maintain a relatively small community.

We’re not a WeWork. Nothing against them, but we don’t have the resources and it’s not in our vision to go up against them. We find a lot of value in community that’s around 400 people. That way there are enough people that you can always meet someone new but not feel overwhelmed. You can build real, authentic, genuine relationships that span across business titles.

There’s a strong community focus at Makers. Even on the website, the community angle is front and center.

DL: It really is what separates us from a property management company. It’s the care and attention and value we can place, but it’s really the people. We need to know everyone’s name here. They’re not just numbers on a data sheet, they’re people. As much as people try to separate business from personal life, they impact one another.

If there’s a way we can live in a healthy tension, understanding that we serve businesses, but we serve the people within these businesses, we can grow a healthy community that can challenge conflict and bring healthy discussions about the evolving workplace. A wonderful community can really be built out of that, but people need to know they can trust the people there and that the value they’re providing is going to good use and is going to come back to them.

Who does Makers attract? Is there a particular group of professionals that gravitate to Makers more than others?

We’re taking time to figure out some of those demographics still. Even though we’ve been here for five years, we’re gathering more metrics and trying to understand the demographics of Seattle. At this point, I’m really happy to say we have an eclectic group of freelancers, solo entrepreneurs and people who need to get out of their house. Then we also have large enterprises and are testing different types of memberships that provide a third space for certain departments or groups to emphasize creative work that happens here in the space

.I like that analogy of a third space for companies. People talk about having satellite locations in a coworking space, but I like the idea of having an off-site place where teams can go do creative work.

DL: I love satellite spaces, but that doesn’t really capture all of what we do. A satellite space describes real estate and we really want to push community. It’s a third space where people can feel comfortable and be in a professional environment. That is key.

Makers has a craftsperson vibe or tradition in the branding. How do you blend the old craft tradition with the future of work and the Makers community?

Sharis Kevin: When Caitlin and Lana founded Makers, they wanted to play on the word “maker.” There are traditional makerspaces that have hands-on tools and crafting, but the idea was to emphasize that all people are makers in the entrepreneurial world. Even if it’s not necessarily something that would be categorized into the arts, they’re still creating something, and making something, and contributing something fresh, whether it’s an idea or a business.

Expanding the idea of a maker is where the name is rooted, and we want to continue that legacy. Even though you walk in and a lot of our members are software developers or marketing firms, we recognize that they’re still contributing something that’s really valuable and we consider them makers.

What are your thoughts on the Seattle Collaborative Space Alliance? Why is this community important and why did you decide to be, not just a member space, but part of the organizing team?

SK: I’ve been super-impressed with Marnee [Chua, from Works Progress] and Susan [Dorsch from Office Nomads] and what so many people have started with the alliance. They’ve put a lot of work into it and are kind of passing the torch. We wanted to honor what they started and be able to contribute in a more in-depth way to the group.

When we’re giving tours, we oftentimes explain that there are a lot of coworking spaces in Seattle and that yes, we are all competitors, but it’s also a really tight-knit community and we value that.

We recognize and respect that every space has something different to offer. We really want to honor that and continue to grow the community. As the coworking industry is growing, and as Seattle is growing, I think the really important part of what’s going to keep the heart of Seattle and coworking alive is the collaboration between spaces and being able to send referrals to other spaces.

DL: The alliance competition doesn’t have to be a death match. It should be a springboard to develop ideas so we can grow in functionality and really provide strong value for people. There’s more than enough room for all these spaces to coexist and really provide local businesses with value.

Makers Workspaces is a member of the Seattle Collaborative Space Alliance. Learn more about joining the community of member spaces.