Lafayette coworking space marks 10 years with new leadership
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Lafayette-based MatchBOX Studios is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month, and a new leader has taken the reins.
Amanda Findlay was named executive director of the coworking and acceleration space earlier this month, succeeding co-founder Jason Tennenhouse, who stepped down to pursue new ventures.
Findlay is the longest-tenured staff member at MatchBOX and most recently served as managing director. She told Inside INdiana Business she’s excited for her new role.
“I’ll get the opportunity to go a lot deeper with our relationships with our partners,” Findlay said. “We have a really supportive community. So I’m looking forward to working more closely and more deeply with a lot of our community partners, sponsors, members, etc. And we get to expand our team a little bit.”
The not-for-profit studio was founded in 2014, and Findlay, who has been the studio for nine years, said a lot has changed over the last decade as coworking spaces have become a greater part of the ecosystem.
“I used to have to explain what we do here so often. So it’s really nice, 10 years in, with coworking as more of a norm and a greater percentage of the workforce working remotely, to not have to explain the purpose of coworking quite so often anymore,” she said. “But we also get to offer things that we didn’t offer 10 years ago that we didn’t know our community needed.”
She said MatchBOX opened its doors as a 12,000-square-foot coworking space, but over the course of 10 years, has built in programming to help founders in the area get access to resources to grow their ideas and businesses.
“We started exploring the idea of more organized acceleration around five years ago,” Findlay said. “We were doing a lot of like one-off, one-on-one conversations, some very informal coaching. So, the ability to gather up all of the resources that we had on our team and to put it into something structured that we can deliver that’s scalable and repeatable to reach as many entrepreneurs as possible has been really cool for us.”
During her time as managing director, Findlay helped build and lead MatchBOX’s free startup accelerator program. The studio just last month announced plans to expand the program to Indianapolis, Kokomo and Vincennes.
She said they also plan to hire a programs and acceleration manager for the first time.
“We love the accelerator model; we don’t love how exclusive exclusive they can sometimes be. Access is really important to us as a 501(c)(3). So building a program that helps people start and grow businesses of all types, all sectors, really anywhere, early stage, has been kind of a game changer for our community.”
In a news release announcing the leadership transition, Tennenhouse said he was grateful for the opportunity to contribute to MatchBOX’s journey.
“MatchBOX was built to raise up new leaders in our community and create new opportunities for growth,” Tennenhouse said. “I am immensely proud of the progress we’ve made over the past decade, and I believe now, as we celebrate our 10th year of our coworking studio being open, is a good time to personally practice what we’ve taught thousands over the years about starting and spinning things out and making room for some new leadership.”
Findlay said the state of MatchBOX is very positive, and looking ahead, she plans to continue meeting with entrepreneurs at the local, regional and statewide level to figure out how the studio can be more helpful.
“The growth that we’ve seen in this community, we’re now at around 350. members and partners. It’s bustling in here every day. The vibe is good. Folks are showing up. They’re connecting with each other. We want more of that, but more impact, more collaboration,” she said. “We’re pretty big fans of Greater Lafayette, and we have a lot of partners in this area, and we’re looking forward to continuing to work alongside them.”