I don’t remember a lot from Junior High School, but I do remember my 8th-grade history teacher’s favorite phrase was “Tabula Rasa” which is Latin for a blank slate. An absence of preconceived ideas or predetermined goals. Today I walked into my new office. Just like starting a new job, there were new faces, new technology, new things to learn. After searching for a few weeks since leaving my job, I finally landed on
Today I walked into my new office. Just like starting a new job, there were new faces, new environment, and new things to learn. After searching for a few weeks, since leaving my job, I finally landed on MATTER the healthcare co-working space.
Up till now, I had been working from home and in coffee shops. My daily schedule would be as follows: I would wake up, make some breakfast, go exercise then get to work. In the beginning, it seemed like a dream come true! There was no set time I to be at work, no people around to tell me what to do, no set start or end to the day, frankly little structure. I ended up being foolishly mistaken. The life I was living started to take a toll on me. It’s hard to work on your own and even harder if there is no one around you to talk to or interact with all day. Sure, I had phone calls and meetings around the city, but there were no constant people to talk with, bounce ideas or talk about issues off of. You get lonely to the point where you are striking up conversations with anyone you can, like the cashiers at the grocery store or the mailman. Not that its bad to talk to those people, but as a human who thrives on a social connection that is no way to fuel the desire for companionship. After a few weeks of doing this, I learned that if I was going to be successful in my new venture I would need to find a community, a place to land with my own two feet and call home.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had been looking around and exploring the various co-working spaces around Chicago, to see where the best place for me and my company would be. I checked out WeWork, mHub, TechNexus, 1871, the Connectory, and MATTER. In each place I visited, I was very observant about the people working in the community, the companies that resided there, the culture, in addition to the people behind the community (the team who organizes the space). I tried to take a holistic look at the environment, beyond the fact that it was just office space. If I was going to pay for something, I wanted to truly feel apart of something bigger than myself with other people who were working on incredible ventures to change the world.
I also was keenly aware of the challenges of building a healthcare startup as opposed to a traditional startup. Between the changing regulatory environment, the various stakeholders and confusing payment of services, healthcare startups have mountains to climb to reach the peak. While I was at my other job, I had heard of MATTER and attended a few of the events that the community put on. With my hazy understanding of the complexities of healthcare, I gained invaluable insights and knowledge from the events I attended. In addition to the knowledge I gained, I also left each event with new connections in the Chicago Healthcare community. These were not just random people, but people who similar to me had a strong desire to change healthcare or fix a piece of it. The people who attended these events were industry professionals from a variety of companies focused on healthcare, who simply knew their stuff and became great friends after the events. Some of the events I attended included:
- Tales from the Trenches: Timothy P. Walbert of Horizon Pharma
- Virtual Reality and Medical Simulation Showcase
- Healthcare for What’s Next: Data Analytics and Quality Improvement
- What Keeps Healthcare CEOs Up at Night?
For these reasons and more, I choose to land at MATTER. From the moment I walked in for the tour to the moment I left, I felt the chills inside me. You walk in and you feel like you are in an elite club of members all working together to improve peoples lives. Their mission speaks to you as you walk into the space:
We are a community of healthcare innovators who aspire to heroic change.
Who embrace collaboration.
Who believe we can improve life and lives.
We’re here to do something that matters.
It is hard to explain a feeling that you have when you know something is right. Akin to knowing which college is right for you or who you are in love with, but when that feeling comes about you, you have to seize the moment and follow your gut. With MATTER, I felt that it was the right place for me and for my company. I am thrilled to have landed here and can’t wait to get to know all the other companies in the space. It is exciting to go “to work” every day and be surrounded by innovators and entrepreneurs all grinding with you and pushing the world forward.