As 1871's niche initiative continues to spawn new focused incubators, there's one sector that their space and resources cannot support - manufacturing.
Enter Catalyze Chicago, a collaborative shared-space in the city that caters to entrepreneurs building physical products. The company provides an environment for hardware startups to help get their prototype and beta-run out to the field; the space offers access to expensive tools, materials, suppliers, and mentors.
Whereas 1871's aesthetic mirrors the digital space that it serves - sleek, modern, open, well-funded - Catalyze shares DNA with its occupants. It's exciting, evolving, fast-growing, and all of the furniture is handmade by members. Also, everyone in the space - including the team running the operations - are builders.
"We approached the creation of something like Catalyze as manufacturers" said co-founder Bill Fienup. "We ran it through the product development process and built a prototype of the space that we could bring to market."
After Catalyze launched in the West Loop in February, the business was sustainable in 6 weeks. In early July, the company completed an expansion that doubled its existing space to 6,500 square feet. They've also already slated the next expansion - growing to 8k square feet - for September. Right now, they have 32 members and plan to add 40 full time members and 75 shop members by October. And Catalyze is thinking even bigger.
"Our goal is to accommodate 375 members by 2017 and build a 42,000 square foot facility," said Fienup.
Outside of functioning purely as a building for builders, Catalyze is focused on becoming a network and resource for Midwest manufacturers. The company will help connect its members to local suppliers so that emerging hardware entrepreneurs can leverage existing supply chains to avoid long development cycles.
Explained Fienup, "Catalyze serves as a hub for making the kinds of cross sector connections essential to helping product startups flourish."
With the city's deep manufacturing history, it was a surprise that a community like Catalyze didn't exist. But the space's growth certainly reflects the need that was here and the company's ability to fill it and fill it quickly.
Reinforced Deputy Mayor of Chicago Steve Koch at the Advisory Council for Chicagoland Manufacturers, "if Catalyze didn’t exist, we’d be sitting here talking about how to make it happen."
