The Biz Venue "Our Place iz 4 Your Small Biz!"

The Biz Venue is an entirely new concept in affordable office space for home-based business owners, independent salespeople, and anyone who needs a place to work flexibly in a professional environment. At last, you have a cost-effective option to meet clients, making phone calls, and catching up on paperwork in a coffee shop!

Our "gym membership for businesses" concept means that business professionals can use our facility for a fraction of the cost of a tradition office space rental.

The Biz Venue includes a flexible, common meeting area and semi-private work cubicles. These areas are open to all members for UNLIMITED USE, and include free Wifi and high speed internet access, plus access to printing, faxing, and concessions at affordable prices. The facility will also include a conference room, presentation room and private interview rooms that can be rented hourly or by the day. In addition, the The Biz Venue will have longer term, "anchor" positions available for lease that will include access to all member benefits. By being on site full time, these anchor businesses will have the opportunity to interact with hundreds of small business owners and other professionals on a daily basis.

Until we launch our 6,000 sq. ft. Biz Venue this fall, take advantage of our Mini Biz Venue for ONLY $25 A MONTH! This prototype includes 8 semi-private work cubicles, plus an open seating area for up to 8 people.

The Mini Biz Venue is located in the Safeway Plaza in West Olympia at the corner of Harrison Ave. and Cooper Point Road.

Find out more information on our website on The Biz Venue website or on our Facebook Fan Page.

The idea of a business venue or shared office space has been replicated around the country in many different ways. However, there are none quite like The Biz Venue, a whole new work environment soon to open in West Olympia, a suburb of Seattle. 

This will be a work community that networks together on a daily basis to assist each other and their small business in many facets. The goal of Visionary in Chief, Russ Alman, is to help small businesses realize the benefits they deserve to make their businesses thrive and prosper. 

The Biz Venue offers marketing through social media, printing, "anchor" businesses that can help your small business, and a network of professionals who are plugged into the online business venue. 

There are other shared office concepts in the Pacific Northwest. In Redmond, WA, there is a shared office space called thinkspace,which is a community of entrepreneurs, high-tech star tups, non-profits, and small businesses. They offer the usual private office, desk and chairs, internet access, coffee, fully furnished lobby and conference rooms. However, they charge $200 per month for two days a week in your own private office.

Another local business venue that is in Tacoma, Suite133, shares an office with telecommuters and "anyone that craves the creative energy from working alongside other people". They offer natural light, wood floors, and a loft-style interior in a historic building. Derek Young is one of the co-founders of Suite133, who originally built the website Exit133.com which is a Tacoma forum and blog about Real Estate, Politics, the Arts and Urban Development.

In old town and downtown Portland, OR, are NedSpace locations. NedSpace holds true to the Portland culture by offering bike parking for its members who are technology savvy and environmentally friendly. One company that uses NedSpace is a water delivery company that delivers 5 gallons of water to local offices via bike. Their tagline is, "Drink the change you want to see in the world". An online marketing consultant, web and iPhone application developer, a web designer and graphic designer also occupy the brick building, making NedSpace a great place for a small business to find help to achieve an online presence. 

Sharing the similar interest is The Biz Venue that provides a number of unique products and services to create a small business ecosystem designed to catalyze the growth of small businesses. With a bookkeeping firm, a computer support company and a marketing agency, any small business that works in The Biz Venue will undoubtedly enhance their business. At an affordable rate, The Biz Venue not only offers meeting space, work space, a coffee shop and presentation room among other things, but also a hand up in business services that large corporations take advantage of having.

Very exciting news.... we have our brand new site online!

Next time you visit www.biz-venue.net, you'll see an entirely new interface.  This is much more than a cosmetic upgrade.  We have moved our site to a new, more modern social media platform on the Spruz network.  This move will provide us with a wide range of new functions, including the ability to schedule paid events, better message writing tools, complete control over advertising on our site, and special members-only areas of the site for the upcoming Biz Venue location.  We will even have an online store so people can sign up for their Biz Venue membership online.  Thanks to the hard-working people at Spruz, we have been able to migrate your existing user accounts to the new website, including your pictures and posts.  The only thing you will need to do on your first visit is to create a new password.

We are hard at work preparing to open the first physical Biz Venue in West Olympia!  Next time you drive up Cooper Point Road, look at the building at the corner of Limited Lane, just south of the Capital High School sign.  We have a tentative agreement to lease the entire bottom floor of the building.  This location is virtually move-in ready and features a card swipe system, so we will be able to offer 24 hour member access from the get-go.  It's a 6,000 sq. ft. space with a conference room, presentation room that will hold 50 people, and a large common area that all members will have unlimited access to.  Heck, it even has a shower for those of you that ride your bicycles!  We still intend to make our membership only $50 a month if you sign up for a year contract.  Month-to-month memberships and day passes will alsobe available.

We are actively looking for interested businesses to hold our anchor positions.  The plan is to have 5 anchors, in addition to my business (Alternative Marketing Connections).  The anchors will have full-time offices on site, and also have access to all of the Biz Venue facilities.  As our membership grows, these anchor businesses will see a stream of new potential customers every day.  At the same time, as the anchors meet with their clients in the Biz Venue, they will help introduce more businesses to the Biz Venue facility.  We believe this facility is large enough to support a membership of 400-500 total members -- not at the same time, of course, but remember that our "gym membership" model means that lots of small business people, independent salespeople, and commuters will be able to use our facility flexibly for a very affordable price.

We're still seeking to secure funding to get this location (just a small detail!!), but we're planning to put our business plan and financial projections in front of banks by next week.  If everything continues on schedule, we will be able to open sometime in September or October.

In the meantime, please check out our Mini Biz Venue located inside the AIM Mail Center in the Safeway Plaza at the corner of Cooper Point and Harrison.  If you sign up for a membership now, we will give you a special, reduced rate of only $25 per month until we move to the full-sized Biz Venue.  We have 6 semi-private work cubicles where you can set up your laptop, connect to Wifi, and use our printers.  We also have a small commons area with seating for up to 8 people. 

Come by and check us out, and your first visit is FREE!

Please take the time to visit the new website today.  I'd love your feedback on the new design.  Keep in mind that the dust is still settling and I still have some reorganization to do, but I think you'll love the new interface.

If you know of any small businesses or salespeople looking for a place to work during the day or hold a quiet meeting with a client, please tell them about the Mini Biz Venue and the upcoming Biz Venue project.  It's critical that we start signing up members and anchors right away.  This will prove to the building owners and the bank that we have a viable concept worth investing in.  Even if you are not yet ready to join, if you plan to join once we open the full Biz Venue, we would greatly appreciate you signing a Letter of Intent showing your intentions.  We will have a letter of intent for both members and anchors online shortly and will let you know by email, on the Biz Venue website and on our Facebook Fan Page when it's available.  Our goal  is to have 100 members already signed up by the time we open, so we need to get cracking!

Help us make the Biz Venue a reality as a community meeting and workplace for the small business community of greater Olympia!

Thank you,

Russ Alman

Founder of The Biz Venue

CEO, Alternative Marketing Connections