Google announced Wednesday morning, Feb. 20, that it will partner with CoCo, a St. Paul-based co-working operation, on a two-year program of events aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship in the Twin Cities.
The program will be housed at CoCo’s location in the Minneapolis Grain Exchange building and will include day or weekend conferences quarterly and more-frequent educational seminars for independent professionals and small-business owners.
“We believe entrepreneurship drives innovation and economic growth,” Google entrepreneurship manager John Lyman said in a statement. “We see that happening in Minnesota and particularly at CoCo.”
CoCo is part of the so-called co-working movement, in which a shared working space and resources are provided to independent businesses, typically startups.
Google announced the partnership during its Entrepreneurs Day event at CoCo’s Grain Exchange space in downtown Minneapolis.
Daniel Shand, owner of Azure, a Minneapolis-based furniture business, has been a CoCo client for about a year.
Shand attended Entrepreneurs Day and was pleased to hear that Google would be making regular appearances in the Twin Cities.
He said he’s looking forward to taking advantage of the product tutorials Google is planning to offer as part of the program.
“While they have great tools, it’s always a little tough to figure out how exactly to implement them in your business,” Shand said.
CoCo and Google have a history together. In November 2011, as CoCo was starting up in Minneapolis, then-Google chairman Eric Schmidt visited.
Mary Grove, Google’s director of global entrepreneurship outreach, acknowledges that Google’s glut of products can overwhelm business owners. That’s one thing the company plans to address with the events at CoCo, she said.
Google will not maintain a staff at the site, but its employees will use online Google+ hangouts to teleconference with Twin Cities entrepreneurs during events. For larger events, Grove said, Google hopes to have members of its staff on site.
The planned Twin Cities Google Developer Group’s monthly meet-up Wednesday evening was the program’s first official event.
Launched in September, Google for Entrepreneurs is designed to connect the company with business owners around the world and familiarize them with resources they might be missing out on.
Google for Entrepreneurs has held similar events in several other U.S. cities, including Detroit, New Orleans and Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Grove said the programs vary widely based on each location. Although Google is primarily a tech-focused company, the offerings at CoCo are meant to be useful to businesses of all kinds.
CoCo’s locations — one in Minneapolis and one in St. Paul — serve primarily independent professionals, freelancers and small businesses who prefer not to rent office space or work out of their homes. CoCo’s workspaces are rented monthly and are structured much like time-shares.
Nick Woltman can be reached at 651-228-5189. Follow him on Twitter at @nickwoltman.
Online
Google for Entrepreneurs: www.google.com/entrepreneurs/
CoCo Announcement: cocomsp.com/2013/01/google-to-host-entrepreneur-day-at-coco/
