Products + Spaces
This collaborative house was an idea born in the depths of covid. After months of lockdowns and most industries at a stand still, business owners were screaming for solutions to stop bleeding money and citizens were crying out for connection. Jackson was given the keys to the old hostel he worked at a decade earlier. After a career in tech startups, sales management, growth hacking, marketing strategy and being a part of / leading a string of community based projects, his idea was to take a bit of a break from all that and basically throw as much human connection under one roof as humanly possible. CoCasa was launched with the mantra of saying yes to whoever wanted to collaborate and by this way of working help elevate each other out of the dust of that time. It became the pulse of the neighbourhood and one of the few places you could go at that post lockdown time 'where the doors always felt open and there was always something happening'. There was a cowork, a cafe, a plant based, popup restaurant where differnet chefs could trial and acclerate their offerings, a plant shop in the garage, a micro kombucha brewery in the basment, a vintage fashion shop, a recycling facility, yoga of the rooftop and live music in the lounge by the fire. There was something new most days an nights from yoga or massage to life drawing, art exhibtions, markets and educational sessions. In one year a team of 12 was built (in tough economical times), as well as turning around a 6,000€ monthly loss to a 200,000€ revenue buisness. The project was on fire. But... It was always only temporary until covid stopped and tourism came back. The lessons of CoCasa are: - Embrace temporary existence - Community and commercial scale can coexist - The best incubators can be grass roots community hubs - The best accelerators can be networks that do not need space - This story hasn't ended (at least 25 projects were born under this roof, 10 of them are now physical shops, business and spaces of their own, as well as events, festivals, collectives, bands, etc) - Never underestimate the power of people who align
Scruffy Joes was a creation born from a high end salon owner and revolutionary educator named Craig Withers and Jackson. They cooked up this idea to do something different. Something really for the people looking to get more than a haircut. It was a place with the customer exerience design at the heart of the salon design and the business plan. With the aim to use technology not to automate (as it so often can be mistakenly used for), but to enhance the human experience. All while actually removing he need for a manger. This sounds like an oxymoron, and just traditional automation to reomve staff, however, what this did was empower the 6 barbers all to be their own managers. How did we achieve this? Each work station of two barbers and two chairs, had one desk wih one ipad mounted with one payment terminal on the back of it. Couple with using the best salon / barber software at the time and integrating the payment gateway we removed the need for even a receptionist and a reception desk. We successfully created the first cashless, deskless, paperless, manager-less, receptionist-less salon in Australia, along with increasing rebookings and retail upsells way above average for the barber industry (who are traditionally ad hoc walk ins only). Ontop of this, it became a place very centre around concious conversations in the chair and being mindful of the power the cutter has to positively influence the mental health of the guest in the chair, by mastering the arts of listening and compassion.
