Who wouldn’t want 24/7 access to an exclusive clubhouse with screaming-fast wi-fi and free beer?
The Speak Easy is Indianapolis’s first co-working space exclusive to startups. It offers a common area, conference room, library and gaming center, and a massive opportunity to connect and collaborate with others in the startup community. And did I mention they have free beer?
Last night, two hundred tech geeks gathered under the dimmed lights of the gritty warehouse space next to DeveloperTown—all excited to explore Indy’s newest startup space. Entrepreneurs, developers, investors, and designers chatted it up as they munched on soft pretzels and sipped on the cold Triton brew on tap.
The Midwest startup community is an evolving ecosystem and the Speak Easy is an important piece of the puzzle. While kitchen tables and coffee shops will always hold a special place in the hearts of entrepreneurs everywhere, a dedicated space for startup collaboration will only help spark new connections and projects.
As co-founder Kristian Andersen said during the launch event, the Speak Easy seeks to “foster serendipity” in the Indianapolis entrepreneurial community. Indeed, the space looks like the perfect venue where startups and the people who support them can ignite ideas, spark partnerships, or push their projects along.
The new startup space is the brainchild of least three groups of people that includes some usual suspects of the Indianapolis startup community: Kristian Andersen, Jeb Banner, Mark Hill, Chris Baggott, Jim Jay, Eric Tobias, Andy Clark, and David Castor (to name a few). It’s been over a year in the making.
While all eyes peered toward the front bar, Kristian officially introduced the crowd to their new opportunity:
“It’s just a building,” he warned. “In the same way that a church is just a building until it’s full of believers and a hospital is just a building until it’s filled with physicians and lots of sick people… This is just a building until people with passion, heart, generosity and grit show up.”
We’re here, Mr. Andersen. And we’ve been looking for a place like Speak Easy to call home.

Video produced by the Verge media team (Jacob Hyten, Jon Corwin, and Tony Monteleone, and Celeste Baker)
Memberships to the tech-geek clubhouse start at $250 a year, but are being monitored through a manual selection process. You can apply for free online: http://www.speakeasyindy.com/
People will be plopping down laptops and scheduling their startup meetings there as early as next week. Will you be there?