For the second installment of Co-Files, we take a closer look at cross-sector collaboration and coworking, through a random sampling of CoCo-workers on an equally random day.  

Pollen: How would you describe what you do?

Matt Decuir: I’m working on a start-up called omgtransit and I’m also working on an event series called Break the Bubble.

Pollen: What is omgtransit?

MD: omgtransit is a transit app. We give you real-time information about the bus, light rail, Car2Go, Nice Ride…sort of all of your transit options under the sun, all in one easy to use interface. With so many emergent transit options coming to the Twin Cities, having real-time information about them all is becoming a bigger problem. We’re working on mobile apps, but now omgtransit is just a web interface. Mobile apps will be available soon—iOS, Android—and from there, when we have an established service and process for Minneapolis, we plan to expand to many other cities.

Pollen: What sparked your interest in creating omgtransit?

MD: We have a hell of a story. We started at a civic hack-a-thon last June called the National Day of Civic Hacking. Going into that day, I had submitted the idea of doing a real-time bus app and walked into that weekend knowing that I would be working with a team that I had never met before. So myself and several other developers sat down and said “we’re going to build this!” and within about six hours we had what was then MSPbus.org. We got it live on the web and from there it’s just been a whirlwind. We went to the White House, we presented at Mini Demo, we got into an incubator program that was sponsored by Intel, we were on stage with the co-founder of Reddit a couple of weeks ago. Recently we won the award for best start-up at Beta.MN. Things are going really well.

Pollen: That sounds very exciting. Can you tell me a little bit more about the event series that you’re organizing?

MD: The whole idea behind Break the Bubble is: how do you make new friends in Minnesota? It’s really hard. I moved here last April and I had many friends in Seattle but I didn’t know anybody here. I was talking to a friend who had the same problem of meeting people here as me, and so we said “let’s solve it.” Naturally, we decided to have an event at a taproom. We’ve had seven events so far and we’re really excited because we’re going to have our next event at Honey on March 14. The format is simple: you show up, slap on a name tag and then we always have some sort of theme or prompt to break the ice. At the next event, the theme will be polarizing topics. For example, cilantro or eating in bed. Love it or hate it? We try to have prompts that will get people talking and let their guard down.

Pollen: Can you tell me a little bit about how you got to this point in your life as far as being at the crossroads of so many different fields?

MR: I was trained as an architect and when I moved to Minneapolis three years ago, I immediately connected with the artist community here. It’s a very strong artist community. My specialty in architecture is digital design and fabrication, so it was a natural gravitation towards the artist community, and I think my practice has evolved because of those circumstances.

Pollen: What are you most passionate about in your work?

MR: That’s hard to say—there are so many things. I love one of my collaborations right now where we look at data and create data spatializations. I’m also really interested in teaching architecture students skills that allow them do other things besides sitting at a nine to five job all day.

Pollen: What does that look like?

MR: Where I specialize in and teach, it’s giving the architect or the designer a hand in fabrication and realizing the work rather than just creating drawings that are then realized by a contractor or a developer. So through digital design and fabrication—which is 3D modeling and then outputting to a CNC router, laser cutter, 3D printer—it gives the designer more control over the project and the process.

Pollen: Would you tell me a bit about your story and what you do?

Justin Cardinal: I didn’t have an elevator speech ready and a friend wrote one intending to be silly but I find it pretty accurate. It’s “I make computers work harder for your business.” So, I am involved with managing IT infrastructure for small businesses and start-ups.

I struck out on my own at the beginning of this year. I was a system admin for six and a half years for a small engineering services company. Because of the size of the company, I essentially had to become a jack of all trades. If it used electricity, that was my responsibility. It forced me to learn a lot of things, which was great. Over that time, I found out which parts I was passionate about and which I was not. Then I came to CoCo when the Downtown location opened because my office was very much engineered for remote work, and people took advantage of that in a good way. But that meant that I would often go to the office and no one would be there. I started at CoCo for the sake of having familiar faces to say good morning to over coffee. Over time, as people got to know me and what I do, people would say, “hey, I know someone who could really use your help. They have a problem that you can solve.” Then I took on a client and another and the demand was there for me to go out on my own and make a business out of it.

Pollen: It sounds like it’s been a very organic process.

JC: I am actually a very risk adverse person. The thought of leaving a predictable paycheck to go start my own thing — that was something that was hard for me. But the opportunity was too good. The consistency of the requests made it seem like a good decision and so far it has been.

Pollen: Can you talk a little bit about how you spend your time at CoCo?

Irina Vishnevskaya: What I do is three-pronged. I recently moved back to the Twin Cities after working in Hungary for five years. In Hungary, I helped launch a new brewpub concept that is both a restaurant and brewery in one. I’m part owner and I still manage aspects of the restaurant from here. The other thing that I work on is that I represent a brewery manufacturing company in America. My pet project, and the one that I love the most, is getting a brewpub started here. 

Pollen: What do you love about that project?

IV: I strongly believe that beer wasn’t the same after Prohibition. In America, we are raised on lagers and beers that have no taste. We are taught that good beer is a beer that doesn’t have an aftertaste…obviously the craft brewing revolution has changed all of that. Right now you have brewers who are creating really great beer but food is sort of an afterthought. But any chef will tell you that it is much more fun and there are much more possibilities when you cook to pair food with beer as opposed to wine. But in our heads, wine is the drink that you have with a nice dinner—that is the more elite drink and beer is the poor man’s drink. That is slowly beginning to change, but what I’d like to do is marry really great, affordable food with amazing beer. That’s not something that I normally see because brewers are just brewers. They’re really good at what they do and that’s awesome, but I am someone with experience in both and I want to marry them. That’s my thing.

Pollen: Favorite local beer?

IV: The best beer is Fulton’s Sweet Child of Vine. As far as having a full palate of taste, it’s a really great beer.

Pollen: What do you do, Lindsi?

Lindsi Gish: I am an owner of a small consulting businesses called gish&co., since January 1st. I left full time PR work to start my own digital, web, marketing, social, wordpress—all the things on the web—business.

Pollen: How is your new business going? Has working from CoCo helped?

LG: It is really empowering and surprising how well the transition went. The CoCo community has been so important. I was at home on Monday, and I can’t function working from home—especially at the beginning of the week—because I am used to having so much energy around. Even if you don’t work directly with anyone at CoCO, it feels good to have a community around you.

Pollen: If CoCo were a band…

LG: Currently, I would be stage manager, working behind the scenes. I’d be helping to facilitate the creativity of the community. Eventually, I would like to be the woman with the refreshments. Yeah! I don’t know if there is a name for that person, but I want to make sure everyone is pumped up. I’d come in with the beer and get everyone excited. I once saw JLo’s waver. Everything had to be white. I wouldn’t want to manage JLo, but I’d definitely work with the CoCo band.

Pollen: How Did you get your start at Spider Suite?

Mike Linton: I have spent most of my time within the technology field. I have also started a few businesses. Currently I am cofounder of a company that builds solutions within commercial real estate. Ever since highschool I have worked within general IT and software. SpiderSuite is an inspection management system that we started two years ago. Our team was all working together at a technology company in Minneapolis. We saw an opportunity within commercial real estate when the mortgage industry ran into so many problems, and so we found technology solutions that could help.

We offer a cloud platform for people that are inspecting properties throughout the nation, to upload and share information, as well as run analytics and generally have a better understanding of properties.

Pollen: CoCo is known for providing lots and lots of free coffee. What is your fuel when you are not here?

ML: Sometimes it is a 5 Hour Energy drink. But the biggest fuel is travel. Just a few days ago I bought tickets to Seattle on a whim. A big motivation for me is travel. And I work when I travel… but that is a big bonus of COCO, I can work from coworking spaces around the country.

I live for travel.