In-person startup hubs can provide more than just office space for founders

When David Cummings purchased a vacant building in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood in 2012, he wasn’t setting out to build just another coworking space. Instead he was betting on one thing: community.

That bet became Atlanta Tech Village (ATV), a startup hub designed to put founders, investors, and other members of Atlanta’s tech community under one roof. Membership starts at $300 per month for basic access, with higher tiers available for reserved desks or private offices.

“Human connection, tribes, being around each other—both the high highs and low lows are just so much better to experience when you have colleagues,” said Cummings.

More than a decade later, remote work has made it possible to build a company from almost anywhere. Online communities can connect founders with investors, employees, and advisors without requiring them to share an office. What does a physical startup hub offer that a Slack channel or Teams call can’t?

Founder Brew visited Atlanta Tech Village’s campuses in Buckhead and South Downtown Atlanta to talk with founders about who benefits from a startup community—and who might be better off without one.

Going it alone, together

Kylinn Askew, founder of Groundwork Health, a health tech platform for community-based care, has been building the company for about a year. She says the Village has helped her break out of the isolation that comes with building a company on her own.

“Even if you’re not directly inspired by another human being, you could just read random stuff that comes up on the walls, and then that prompts a Google search that leads you down this rabbit hole,” she said. “If I wasn’t in that environment, I think it’s really easy to get siloed into your own way of thinking.”

One of Askew’s connections inside the hub eventually turned into a business relationship: The founder of another healthcare company became her pilot partner and later served as a use case in a pitch at InvestFest, where Askew recently won a $125,000 top prize.

“I would not have ever met her unless I was a part of Atlanta Tech Village,” Askew said.

For Luis Andino, founder of debt relief platform Ditch, the value of ATV has evolved as his company, which launched in May 2024, has grown. He expects the company will soon “graduate” from the Village.

“There’s a point at which the office space physically just doesn’t fit you,” said Andino. “We’re making a few more hires this year that will probably tip us to the point where we’ll probably need to find a bigger space or maybe something that we own.”

But outgrowing the space doesn’t necessarily mean outgrowing the community. ATV celebrates companies when they leave, according to Andino. “You become part of the ecosystem forever,” he told Founder Brew.

Finding a space that fits

For Atlanta-based serial entrepreneur Daryl Lu, community isn’t the only measure of a startup space’s value. There has to be what he describes as a “culture fit.”

Lu had worked out of several startup and coworking spaces and left ATV in 2018 after selling his marketing engagement platform, Burner Rocket, with a point of comparison: In his view, ATV was better at creating community, while other spaces brought more potential customers.

“ATV brings folks to kind of experience ATV, ” Lu said.

In contrast, at Georgia Tech incubator ATDC, Lu said companies and organizations would specifically come looking for startups to work with. One of Lu’s companies eventually landed Southern Company as a customer through these connections.

“We just wanted to get work done,” he said. “We didn’t feel like we needed the same type of energy and chutzpah that ATV provided.”

Today, Lu works on his latest AI startup, LCOE.ai, out of Switchyards, a coworking space that gives his largely distributed team a place to come together without requiring them to be there full time.

ATV’s David Cummings knows not every founder is looking for the kind of community he brings—and not every founder is necessarily a fit for the Village.

“We’ve had to kick some founders out,” he said. Cummings says people have come in appearing eager to be part of the community, only to reveal that they’re primarily interested in selling to other members.

“We want people that want to grow and learn and pay it forward, and are committed to achieving their dreams and helping each other achieve their dreams as well,” said Cummings.

As for Lu, he says founders should try different spaces and pay attention to whether they connect with the people inside them.

“You can feel whether or not that’s the kind of energy that you’re also emanating,” he said. “People should try them out and figure out…where’s your tribe?”