Conjunctured

A house before a category.

Conjunctured began in 2007 as a loose collective of freelancers. Dusty Reagan, Cesar Torres, David Walker, and I met through Austin Jelly gatherings and the Social Media Club. We passed projects between one another, subcontracted work, and called the arrangement a “co-company.”

In the spring of 2008, we started looking for a permanent home. We tweeted candidate locations to the people who might join us and eventually found a converted house between a Tex-Mex restaurant and a psychic. We opened that July.

The premise sounded almost trivial: pay for a place to work near other independent people. But the desk was never really the product. The product was knowing who sat at the next desk—and what the two of you might be able to make together.

Part office, part clubhouse.

The space had two main coworking rooms, a quiet room, a lounge, a conference room, a porch, lockers, picnic tables, bike racks, and a shower. Members took turns choosing the shared iTunes playlist. Headphones meant “don’t interrupt.” A mohawked dog named Raelee handled dropped snacks.

Memberships originally ranged from $175 to $425 a month. A day cost $25. Full-time members received six guest passes each month, because an office that discouraged visitors would have defeated the point.

Meetings, workshops, and whiteboards · personal archive

We were early. Then the category arrived.

Conjunctured did not end because nobody wanted coworking. It ended at almost exactly the moment coworking became legible as a large commercial category. East Austin rents were changing. David and Drew wanted to take the social operating system beyond a single house. I had already carried parts of the idea to Asia.

Soon coworking would mean glass towers, venture capital, kombucha taps, and thousands of locations. Conjunctured was smaller and stranger. Its most valuable amenity was the chance that someone would look over your shoulder, understand what you were stuck on, and help.