Innovation Cafe

Our business model is simple: Innovation Cafe sells membership into collaborative community.

Our members come from a wide variety of industries: software, design, marketing, legal services, architecture, and engineering, just to name a few. Some are lifelong freelancers, while some have been downsized from bigger companies and are just beginning to venture out on their own. Some telecommute to bigger companies on the other side of the country or the other side of the world. Some are starting growth-minded companies with dreams of a big exit, while others are using their skills simply to earn a living.

Innovation Cafe solves two fundamental problems for our members.

1. We provide access to professional infrastructure: cool workspace, internet and utilities, conference rooms, and business services. Working from home or in a coffee shop is fine, but those options lack a sense of professionalism. Put another way, Innovation Cafe gives our members a reason to get out of their jammies in the morning and gives them a professional place to conduct business.

2. Freelancing can be lonely. Without other people to work with and bounce ideas off of, creative professionals can be unproductive or downright unhealthy. Innovation Cafe provides the creative community that so many freelancers and independents are looking for.

Learn More About Membership at www.icafekc.com/membership

Over 15 million Americans are freelancers, independent consultants, or contractors. And most of these potential Innovation Cafe-ers work in the growing knowledge economy. A report by the Pew Research Center in September 2009 found that “self-employed adults are significantly more satisfied with their jobs than other workers.” But self-employed adults also feel significantly more anxiety about their work. Why? Because freelancers lack that social and economic support structure that our society has created around traditional employment. Innovation Cafe to the rescue!

Here’s some history: Dave Teeman founded Innovation Cafe in June 2011. He wanted to find a way to jump-start the local economy. Innovation Cafe, a privately held for-profit company, was his way to bring together the talent, ideas, and capital in Kansas City. Along the way, he realized that Innovation Cafe was on to something much bigger: a revolut