The The Company Lab (CO.LAB), based in 105 East Main #105 Chattanooga TN 37408, is a co-working space and an incubator / accelerator / lab. It can inspire other space creators who want to boost co-creation of ideas or biz models, entrepreneurial skills & behavior.
http://www.colab.is♥ Thanks to Charles Sanford (charles@thegigtank.com) for adding this space
CO.LAB originally began as a project of CreateHere. Its original purpose, as a part of CreateHere’s mission, was to make Chattanooga a more creative and vibrant city that would attract and retain creatives and entrepreneurs alike. To initiate growth in the local creative economy, CreateHere launched a business planning course called SpringBoard.
In March of 2008, SpringBoard’s first class launched with 20 participants ranging from potters to furniture makers to hammered dulcimer players. While the first two classes were filled with entrepreneurs exclusively from the creative sector, it is common to find artists sitting next to developers working on a mobile app or restaurateurs. We have now taught over 25 rounds of SpringBoard consisting of more than 350 entrepreneurs!
The evolution of SpringBoard continued as word spread about the creative spin it was providing to the small business and start-up community. We began to see new kinds of entrepreneurs approaching us for help as well. These start-up hopefuls were trying to build industry changing innovations and were trying to figure out how to raise Angel or Venture Capital. They had no idea where to turn…and at that point, we weren’t exactly sure either.
After months of talking with successful entrepreneurs about their road to success and looking at other models for supporting high-growth start-ups, certain themes began to emerge: the importance of mentorship, access to capital for all stages of growth, access to talented specialists among others.
CO.LAB was finally launched in September 2010 to take the entrepreneurial programs from CreateHere and combine them with a mentorship-driven startup accelerator – CO.LAB Accelerator.
In May 2012, CO.LAB launched the entrepreneur track of the summer program GigTank, a 14-week entrepreneur accelerator program focused on utilizing Chattanooga’s 1 Gigabit/second internet grid.
We have come a long way since April of 2008, which has been driven by entrepreneurial thinking. We must think like entrepreneurs if we are going to be helping them! This is a hallmark of our brand and we hope to continue making Chattanooga and Southeast Tennessee the most robust and dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem in the South.