By James Feichtner
Tired of working out of your home? Looking for a productive environment that’s locally based and offers co-working space and fosters entrepreneurial growth? Coming to Zionsville this spring, zWORKS is nonprofit organization that’s dedicated to furthering anyone’s work experience and moving businesses or start-ups in the right direction.
Founded by Zionsville residents, zWORKS is designed to be what is called a coworking space
“One of the most important things that were trying to make sure comes through with what we’re doing is really about economic development but it’s sort of underpinned with co-working space,” said co-founder Dan Moyers. “But also business acceleration and support for start-ups so that they would start here, grow here and stay here. So if you’re starting a new business through this we would provide a sort of education around key aspects of starting to move your business forward. Maybe its mentorship from another successful entrepreneur that understands the world that you’re going into; access to resources. Maybe its angel investors or investor groups with the idea of ‘how do we help nurture these new entrepreneurs’ in a way that they want us to start their business here and when they get their business going they don’t want to leave.”
With the organization being founded by residents of the Zionsville, zWORKS is dedicated to perpetuating local growth.
“The real opportunity is the space will bring people that aren’t normally going to be [in town,]” Moyers said. “It’s kind of like a small to medium sized business of 15 to 25 people settling, connecting to downtown. They can come [to Bites]for a cup of coffee or Greek’s for pizza. Maybe stop by the jewelry shop or the wine store. None of our founding members are doing this to make money. We’re all either from here and work here, or we live here. We’re all committed to the community long-term so there’s no outside focus for the founding team. We’ve been pretty adamant about that.”
The membership-based program will offer member amenities such as hi-speed internet, whiteboards, printers, scanners, copy and fax machines, beverages and snacks as well as access to several work zones like solo workshops, collaboration areas, private conference rooms and casual meeting rooms, all with 24/7 secure access using member distributed key fobs. There is even talk of offering premium services such as permanent desks, mailboxes and lockers.
A location is still being finalized, but Moyers guarantees the location will be Zionsville based.
“We’ll absolutely be in Zionsville,” he said. “It will be on or near Main Street so we’re very committed to being right in the downtown area of Zionsville.”
For more information on zWORKS visit their website at, zworks.org.
