12 radelaide.me Let’s do some quick Distillery introductions first: who are you, guys, and what are your backgrounds? Michael: currently earning a living doing accounting work. Haven’t always done so. Studied art. Loved painting but doesn’t pay the bills. Always fascinated by computers. Been trying to teach myself to code on and off for last couple of years. Chhai: programmer from way back. Worked at a variety of startup Internet Service Providers and web development agencies. Why the Majoran Distillery? What does it aim to do? How does it work? And what’s a coworking space all about? Why? We wanted a great place to hang out with a bunch of really interesting people. What? Aims to get people interested in the same stuff togeth- er and become a homebase for activity around those interests. How? We have a space. People swing by. We hang out. People can be members and rent a desk for a period. Then we get to hang out more with them. Coworking? Coworking is about community. Developing a com- munity of like-minded people who are usually in business for them- In between painting the walls and sanding the floors of their new premises, they gave us the lowdown on how things are changing for tech startups in the city. We recently caught up with Michael and Chhai, the brains trust behind the Majoran Distillery, one of Adelaide’s coworking spaces for the technology startup community.
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The Majoran Distillery, Adelaide's coworking space for tech startups
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12 radelaide.me
Let’s do some quick Distillery introductions first: who are you, guys, and what are your backgrounds?
Michael: currently earning a living doing accounting work. Haven’t
always done so. Studied art. Loved painting but doesn’t pay the bills.
Always fascinated by computers. Been trying to teach myself to code
on and off for last couple of years.
Chhai: programmer from way back. Worked at a variety of startup
Internet Service Providers and web development agencies.
Why the Majoran Distillery? What does it aim to do? How does it work?
And what’s a coworking space all about?
Why? We wanted a great place to hang out with a bunch of really
interesting people.
What? Aims to get people interested in the same stuff togeth-
er and become a homebase for activity around
those interests.
How? We have a space. People swing by. We
hang out. People can be members and rent a
desk for a period. Then we get to hang out
more with them.
Coworking? Coworking is about community. Developing a com-
munity of like-minded people who are usually in business for them-
In between painting the walls and sanding the floors of their new premises, they gave
us the lowdown on how things are changing for tech startups in the city.
We recently caught up with Michael and Chhai,the brains trust behind the Majoran Distillery, one of
Adelaide’s coworking spaces for the technology startup community.
13radelaide.me
In between painting the walls and sanding the floors of their new premises, they gave
us the lowdown on how things are changing for tech startups in the city.
selves and who want to get amongst other people and stay in touch
with what’s happening. We become a surrogate office for them. But
also, we hold events and opportunities for the members to get to
network and share stuff.
What first started you down the track towards setting up the Majoran Distillery?
We wanted a space for us to get serious about us doing some proj-
ects we’ve been working on for a while. We thought ‘let’s get serious
about this, because working from home doesn’t work’. The oppor-
tunity to actually do it when Chhai was talking to a friend and was
offered the use of a space to test the idea out, our previous, much
smaller space on Pulteney Street. We talked to a bunch of people
about the idea, got a few takers, and decided ‘let’s just jump in’.
And it took off. Once we had a space, people could see what it was
about in reality, and they just got on board.
What do you think is unique about Adelaide in terms of what you’re trying to do?
Adelaide has a good DIY culture. You want something done, folks
here tend to do-it-yourself. And it’s not actually that hard to do.
There is a lot of cool stuff happening at the moment in Adelaide
pushing that DIY concept - local artist-run spaces like FELT and Tooth
and Nail, for instance. I dig that and it’s encouraging for us.
Interest in the Distillery is coming from outside Adelaide as well, isn’t it?
Yep, we’ve had people in Sydney and Melbourne reaching out.
When Chhai and I visited Sydney recently we met with people from
Ninefold, Fishburners, BlueChilli and ATP and they were all keen-as
to help out. Peter James from Ninefold is particularly helpful.
And Chhai got a call from the UK the other day that spun us out a
bit. Someone from a Government agency over there called, basically
saying ‘we’ve noticed, and keep up the good work’.
What have been the challenges in getting a tech startup community established?
Were they challenges or opportunities?
I think the challenge is getting people together. There are lots of