betaworks, the 10-year-old startup studio out of NYC, is today introducing a brand new business in the form of betaworks Studios.
Think of betaworks Studios as a membership club for builders, offering entrepreneurs, artists, enginneers/developers, and creatives the space to work on their projects and get to know one another.
Builders is the word that betaworks uses to describe its core demographic for Studios. The premise for betaworks Studios is to give developers and creative-focused individuals a chance to be a part of the betaworks community, with all that entails.
“I was having a lot of conversations where I was getting asked ‘Could we do a betaworks in our city?'” said CEO and founder John Borthwick. “I always thought ‘that doesn’t make a lot of sense’ because what we do at betaworks is fairly bespoke and heavy lift. But after a number of conversations I realized that maybe I’m answering a different question than they are asking.”
betaworks is responsible for some of the most well-recognized names on the internet, from Digg to Giphy to Dots to bit.ly. The company has three branches: Build, Fund and Camp. The Build branch works on projects internally and brings in EIRs to run those projects. Fund, obviously, is about financing outside companies. And Camp is all about accelerating a small number of companies in a certain vertical. (Thus far, betaworks has run a BotCamp, VisionCamp, and VoiceCamp.)
This framework has allowed entrepreneurs and developers to share knowledge organically on a day to day basis, not to mention the fact that betaworks holds plenty of events and speaker programming to keep the community informed on the latest in tech.
But that community has always been somewhat closed off to just a small number of people.
betaworks Studios, which will be located in betaworks former office in NYC’s Meatpacking district, will be run by betaworks Studios COO and President Daphne Kwon. Builders will apply to be accepted to the club, which will cost $2400/year or $225/month.
This is not your WeWork-style coworking space with set desks, but more like The Wing, letting members stop in and do some work, take a meeting, or attend a discussion with experts.
“Studios is meant to connect the community,” said Kwon. “People have become more isolated. With the gig economy on the rise, where and when people work is becoming fragmented. […] Studios is one of the only places we know where you should level up during the membership, learning the things you need to learn about frontier technologies, which is something that people in the betaworks community right now already get to enjoy.”
Alongside programming, betaworks Studios will also have a live concierge on hand in the space to help connect users with the folks they want to meet based on the areas of knowledge they’d like to explore. Software will also be introduced to help facilitate these connections.
Plus, betaworks’ Camps will be set up downstairs from the Studios building, giving developers and creatives quick access to folks who are building a company based on emerging tech.
betaworks plans to bring this model to other locations, though hasn’t yet disclosed which market will be home to the second betaworks Studios implementation.