Northern Greats: Central Working

Co-working has become something of a buzzword the last couple of years; we've seen lots of concepts popping up, from makeshift rooms with free tea and biscuits (but shonky WiFi) to cafes where you pay only for your time, in the hope you can avoid the guilt of having bought one flapjack in four hours.

Enter Central Working, a co-working space that aims to create a sense of community while also providing top-notch facilities. Founded in London, its first site outside the capital is a colourful, airy environment in the Great Northern Warehouse on Deansgate in Manchester.

Working in partnership with Barclays-supported facility The Escalator, it provides three free-to-use meeting rooms as well as an auditorium, which hosts free events covering everything from how to build apps to adapting your website for mobile devices, and a dynamic collaborative space with all you'd need from a regular office environment plus the opportunity to network (and fuel up at Grindsmith coffee, which is next door). The Deansgate location only launched in January but has already been so popular with entrepreneurs looking to hone their ideas that it'll be expanding threefold later this year.

We caught up with Kirsty Devlin from Central Working to find out why creatives find this environment so appealing.

The Skinny: Hi Kirsty! Please introduce us to Central Working and The Escalator – what are your aims?
Kirsty Devlin: “We help startup businesses and entrepreneurs thrive. We've created a really cool space designed for them to be as successful as possible.”

Why is this kind of space important?
“It's important because it's affordable and the creative minds that are inside the building are just phenomenal. At the moment we've got some international photographers, Comer, they work for Nike, Adidas, they've done Manchester United shoots... they're just really amazing guys from Manchester and they use this as a space where they get their admin done! They might be two weeks in Vegas or New York doing a shoot and they'll need to come back here to approach new businesses or tie up loose ends.

“Most people are from Manchester, it's a really good atmosphere. You know how the music scene in Manchester has always been from an earnest and vibrant place; there's a really cool startup community that's got that something special. It's like a little family. You motivate each other. If someone's having a bad day, you go buy them a coffee. And you use each other's services: if someone's a really good accountant and someone else is really good at marketing, you swap your skills.”

You must get an interesting variety of startups coming through your doors.
“There's one individual who wanted to make personalised cycling wear; for artists to do limited prints on cycle jerseys, which is something that doesn't exist right now so that's one of the cool ideas! We've an accountant who basically quit his job and just started a football gaming app – you get all walks of life.”

Does it tend to be mostly digital startups?
“Mostly digital, but anything innovative. We've also got four clubs in London and we've had some success stories from there: Angry Birds was part of one of those clubs! We've got quite a few big companies as well, like Microsoft and Ernst & Young."

So as a startup, you could get advice from big, established companies?
“It's all about collaboration. We've created an environment where you could bump into the CEO of Skyscanner.”

That must be refreshing for the bigger companies, too – to have lots of enthusiastic new blood working alongside them...
“Definitely, it brings fresh ideas, a different perspective, and people grow faster as a result.”

Why did Manchester seem like the place to go after London?
“I think it's because we've got a huge community of students here; there are 100 thousand students in Manchester alone. It isn't all about London! And there's a lot of investment going into Manchester, if you look at things like MediaCity, and there's a lot of focus now on [government-supported tech hub] TechNorth and the north being a powerhouse. It makes sense to move up north.”