An interview with Dusty Reagan

August 14th, 2008 · Posted by Spike Gillespie

Dusty Reagan founded Austin’s Jelly community in 2007. Last month, he and three partners opened Conjuctured, a coworking space in Austin that so far has seen members coming from across many disciplines including: developers, writers, social media consultants, and designers. LaunchPad Coworking is a big fan of Dusty and all the work he’s done to shine a light on coworking in general, and specifically here in Austin. He was a great resource at the recent Innovation Camp. Conjunctured is hosting and all-day Jelly meet-up on August 19th. I caught up with him to ask about the new endeavor.

Spike Gillespie: Your involvement with coworking began with Jelly, right? How did you hear about Jelly, what prompted you to get involved with it, and how did
that work out for you?
Dusty Reagan: I found out about Coworking through an article on Freelance Switch about Independents Hall, a coworking space in Philadelphia. I had been freelancing for about seven months and when I read that coworking article I realized I wanted coworking in Austin immediately.

I started reading everything I could find on coworking and through that process I learned about Jelly. Jelly was a way for me to start coworking and building a community immediately. It requires no funding, no lease, no amenities, just the desire to meet other independents. Jelly in Austin has been extremely successful. We meet every Friday at Cafe Caffeine and have anywhere from 10-30 people per week. Occasionally we even have people hosting Jelly in other parts of Austin. I’ve met tons of interesting people and made some great friends as a result of starting the event in Austin.

Spike: Tell me about Conjunctured — how did it come to happen? Is it a business you own (i.e. Is your name on the lease?)
Dusty: Conjunctured’s model, what we’ve coined as a co-company, was conceived by Cesar Torres, David Walker, John Metcalf, Matt Revelle, and me during an early Austin Jelly. We were pondering the idea of an agency model that shares the culture of an open source development team, and is built on top of a coworking space. Six months later Conjunctured was born. Conjunctured, LLC is co-owned by Cesar, David, John, and me. Our names are on the lease. :)

Spike: What’s your model?
Dusty: Our model is based on monthly memberships and daily walk-ins. We try to provide coworking at the lowest cost possible while making our profits from agency work and special events held in the coworking space. Our coworking rates range from $425 for full-time access to $25 for the day.

We aim to use our brand to attract agency projects that our members can benefit from. The idea is that as a project comes in the door, we can dynamically create a team of independents who opt in to the gig. When the project is over our team disperses until the next project. This will provide a means of income and a small amount of security for our members in order to help them continue working on their passion projects. Further, we hope that this arrangement will provide our agency clients with work developed from some of the most creative and passionate people in their field.

Spike: Tell me about your space — how did you find it, how big is it, how did you furnish it?
Dusty: Conjunctured is located in a historic house built in 1918 on 1309 E. 7th St. We found the space with the help of Jesse Lunsford, a commercial tenant agent recommend to us by Julie Gomoll of Launchpad Coworking. The house is just over 1,500 square feet, with a kitchenette, large front porch, small front yard, parking lot for 6-8 cars in the back, and five rooms dedicated to different aspects of work.

We were able to get in the space and furnish it through the help of our friends, family and early adopters. They were willing to put up a few months membership to help us get going. They also helped us by donating furniture, with labor, and making small investments in our endeavor. There’s no way we could have done it without our members, family, and friends. Thanks everyone!

Spike: When did you open and so far how’s it going — are you filling up?
Dusty: We opened our doors on July 1st for a “soft launch.” During our soft launch we worked on gathering furniture and making improvements to the space such as painting. We also had several early adopter members and visitors. August 4th was our 1st official day. We still have plenty of room, so please come by and see us!

Spike: Launchpad Coworking will be opening soon, which means there will be two official coworking spaces in Austin. What do you think about that? How is Conjunctured different from LPC? Is there room for overlap/cooperation?
Dusty: We’re huge fans of Launchpad Coworking here at Conjunctured. Julie and Launchpad were incredibly supportive of our efforts to start Conjunctured. There are many great opportunities for cooperation and cross promotions. Plus we’re eagerly looking forward to seeing Launchpad’s beautiful plans become a reality.

Conjunctured’s market and profit model are quite a bit different from Launchpad’s. We’re looking to attract entrepreneurs, inventors, creatives, and independents in an effort to catalyze innovation and small business. We consider ourselves as an incubator for independents creating a start-up or growing into small business.

Spike: Besides running the space, what do you do for work? Do you think that eventually running the space will interfere/replace the other work you do?
Dusty: I’m a freelance web developer. Running Conjunctured has been extremely time intensive, even with four partners we’re stretched pretty thin. We consider and treat Conjunctured as a typical business start-up and as such we expect the hard work and risks involved. I consider running Conjunctured as my full time job these days. My lovely wife has been incredibly supportive!