Denver has its fair share of coworking spaces, with the number in the hundreds and only growing by the day.
But, very few of those spaces are industry focused, and even less cater to cannabis startups and companies.
When Denver cannabis coworking space Cultivated Synergy launched nearly four years ago, co-founders Ryan Tatum and Connor Lux said people were intrigued by the apparent novelty of the space.
What people didn’t realize is, Cultivated Synergy looks like your typical coworking space. There are private offices and reserved desks, conference rooms and open seating areas like you’d find at most spaces.
But, that’s not where the primary value of Cultivated Synergy lies.
Currently 40 companies, ranging from lighting startups to cannabis staffing companies, work out of Cultivated Synergy’s RiNo space. Anyone can work out of the space, but it’s the cannabis companies that see the primary benefits from Cultivated Synergy’s services.
“The goal and the mission of this is to have a community hub and center for the cannabis space, as well as the community around it, and to play a role in making it normal,” Tatum said.
In addition to offering coworking space, Cultivated Synergy has evolved into a cannabis-focused events space on nights and weekends. They offer yoga classes, networking events and private lead-generation meetups that encourage members to interact.
It’s the final component, creating a collaborative cannabis network, that Tatum said differentiates Cultivated Synergy from other coworking spaces.
“The network is a huge component that we’ve been able to build and extend to our members. Meeting the decision makers and the owners in the cannabis industry is extremely difficult. With our business model of the coworking, events and business services, we’ve been able to meet a lot of these people and work regularly with these people. We get to be the middle of the web,” he said.
By sharing that network, Cultivated Synergy has seen a few of its members grow out of the space. Cannabis staffing startup Ms. Mary Staffing moved into Cultivated Synergy with only two employees. They now have 9 full-time staff members and operate a second office space in Lakeside.
“A lot of other coworking spaces are like a gym, you utilize it like you need and get out,” Tatum said. “We do get involved with the members and push to get them in front of people.”
“You can come to one of our meet-ups and make your month,” Lux added.
As they approach four years in business, Cultivated Synergy is deep in talks to expand out of the state. Tatum said they’re looking at California, Nevada, Toronto and Seattle as potential expansion locations to become a nationwide network.
“Having other spaces in Colorado is great for us at some point, but right now our goal is to get into other markets,” he said.
In addition to growing to other markets, Lux said the coworking space would like to cross over and launch an incubator program for cannabis startups.
“We want to move the industry forward and help the industry as a whole grow,” he said.
On a local level, they’ll look to beef up their current location. Private office and private desk memberships are completely sold out, although there is still room for more shared space members.
