Hello and welcome back to the RookieOven blog. There's a new look (and a new technology stack, will expand on that soon) but it's been quiet on the blog for almost a year. Apologies for that but I do have two very good reasons. Firstly I've been head down with my startup Add Jam where I work alongside Chris Sloey and make products and take on client projects, such as my work on the Future City Project in Glasgow. Secondly I've been working on opening the fantastic RookieOven Coworking space in Govan.
A home for the community
Last June I wrote a post asking where the heart of the Glasgow tech community is. We see Edinburgh with both Codebase and TechCube doing great things for the startup community over in the east. They serve as a central focal point and offer reliable, repeatable space for meetups and other events. Glasgow was lacking this.
I use the past tense there because there's now a space in Glasgow with flexible and affordable desk space for startups and freelancers, a dedicated space for meetups and the ability to host hackathons. That space is RookieOven.
Yes, RookieOven is now a physical space for startups in Glasgow.
A place of engineering excellence
RookieOven has found a home in the Fairfield Shipyard Offices in Govan. Once one of the largest and most famous shipyard in the world. The Fairfield Shipyard was at the forefront of the industrial revolutions and produced some of the fastest ships in the world.
Engineering excellence was the reason for the fame and accolades. Fairfield was the birth place of new technologies and I think is therefore a fitting place to house the modern innovators and technology companies of our city.
The space has been newly refurbished by Govan Workspace at a cost of almost £6 million. Govan Workspace stripped the interior back, undoing the horrid 'modernisation' of the 1970's to reveal the simply stunning design from 1890.
We're based in the Ship Drawing office. This room was once filled with draftsmen hand drawing plans for the ships constructed on the yard. Therefore there's tonnes of natural light and wonderful tall ceilings. It is without doubt the nicest working environment I've ever worked in.
Work hard. Play Hard.
We've aimed to build on the wonderful architecture and make the space a nice place to be. Somewhere you're happy being in, happy working all hours and someplace you look forward to getting to each day.
The space has two mezzanines which are dedicated for social/break out areas. One serves as a quiet space or library with a big comfy sofa and classic wingback chair. The other is the gaming space, large TV, xbox and a mini fridge.
Then on the ground floor, actually in our events space we have the pub style pool table. At Add Jam we use it daily even although we're not the greatest at playing. We've found it to actually be a great place to go and talk over problems and gab over business.
Fat Friday. Come Join Us.
The whole reason for the space is community. Add Jam gets so much from being surrounded by talented individuals and brilliant young businesses. It makes us up our game and we hope the same is true for others.
The space is available if anyone wants to run events or meetups and we love to meet new people. If you're in town for the day pop in and say hello and if it just so happens to be a Friday you're in luck.
Each week we have #FatFriday. Cakes, pizza, beer and even cookie dough cheesecake have made an appearance on a Friday. We get together, we drink, we stuff our faces and we talk about our week, our hopes for the week ahead or even just informally about our plans for the weekend. We love it when people come join us so if you want to come down one Friday drop me an email - michael@rookieoven.com
