Just curious if I’m the only one here who owns a coworking space part-time, to give myself a place to work on my true passion, and extend use of the office to the surrounding community!
In addition to owning EverWorks in Olympia WA, my “real job” is making video games! I’m part of a tiny remote team - my two co-developers work from Germany and Minnesota - and we’ve released one game so far (soon to be two next week), and are working on a sequel to the first. You can find details on our game Hypnospace Outlaw, the one that pays my bills and the reason I was able to open my coworking office, here: www.hypnospace.net . Our second game is a spin-off of Hypnospace, a purposefully WAY over the top old-school style shooter, which in the fiction of our universe was created by a character you met in Hypnospace… just go with it Presenting Slayers X: Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer on Steam
How about you! What else do you do in addition to owning/operating a coworking office?
Love this conversation starter, and your games sound SUPER cool! Sharing them with our community cuz I know we have lots of indie game lovers.
While I don’t exactly think of Indy Hall as “part time” it is just one of the businesses I run I’ve always thought that as long as Indy Hall is sustainable, it’s the platform for me to do anything else I want to do and boy howdy has it provided!
I have my fingers in a few things:
I co-own and operate an [education business](https://stackingthebricks.com] that helps creative people shift from employment and services into launching products, mostly (but not entirely) online. We’ve got a range of digital products and courses but in 2020 I wrote and published my first print book, The Tiny MBA
At the intersection of Indy Hall and Stacking the Bricks, I have a new-ish org called the 10k Independents Project that’s doing economic development in Philadelphia by focusing on the Independent workforce (including but not limited to freelancers, solopreneurs, and other forms of sole proprietorship)
And because that’s not enough, I’m a partner in a soon-to-launch premium wine club and community called GoodSomm, which only makes sense if you know my background in business and that my best friend of nearly 20 years is a world renowned sommelier.
During any given season, Indy Hall gets more or less of my time, but in all cases it gives me access to the kinds of people I want to be around while I’m working and an opportunity to get to know potential collaborators long before I ever need anything from them!
Thank you so much!! Let them know I’m happy to hear from them if anyone wants to reach out about my games, my contact info is on my personal site www.michaellasch.com - it’s very basic but does the job.
Those are some great resources for small biz owners, good work!! And I know nothing about wine but congrats and good luck on the launch
Maybe you’d be into doing a Show and Tell with our community? We do it as a weekly series, entirely online so we can have remote guests. It’s more of a ‘share what you’re working on’ and ‘teach what you know’ type event. Feels like a cool way to connect our communities a bit
That sounds lovely but I’m going to be honest I get awful stage fright and freeze up when doing anything like that, especially when it comes to my art. I’ve been paying the bills with video game work for four years and still can’t shake that imposter syndrome, hahah. Are these events pretty casual? E.g. could I just do a short intro on what I do and what the game is, then jump in to more a casual Q&A type thing?
Yup super casual. No slides or anything needed, the short intro + discussion is exactly what it’s designed for! More about the conversation and connections, which is what people come for anyway
Presenting Slayers X: Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer on Steam
I’ve always thought that as long as Indy Hall is sustainable, it’s the platform for me to do anything else I want to do and boy howdy has it provided!
