On the first anniversary of Cork’s Republic of Work, Daniel Heaslip sat down with DC Cahalane, its founder and CEO to discuss innovation, startups, funding, the future of work and expansion plans.
The vision
The vision for this space began eight years ago, and many things influenced its design.
My dad was an architect, so I was always interested in space. When you looked at boring offices, boring things happened in them. If you compare a Google or Facebook office with a typical Irish corporate office, they are worlds apart. US tech firms drive huge productivity, and a lot of it is influenced by the work environment.
“We are industry agnostic and stage agnostic.”
I came home to Cork and had an idea to open a co-working space. I met Pat Phelan and joined Trustev and then went into Teamwork. At the same time, I was travelling a lot and engaging with tech startups around the world. I saw the spaces they were working in, and it reinforced my beliefs that a great workspace encourages innovation and productivity.
When we built Republic of Work, it was never a space just for technology companies, and it was never a place just for startups. We are industry agnostic and stage agnostic. We have everything from architects to food companies to health and beauty businesses. This space is less about scaling and more about innovating.
The importance of community
It is everything; it is the very core of how we market ourselves. Cork is not short on office space; if you are a business you have options, and you have the traditional providers.
We sell you the community first. It is easy to suspend your laptop off the floor or work from your kitchen table, but it is far more important to be around like-minded people. We never let anyone sign up
