For Cameron Wenaus and the team at Retreat Guru in Nelson, a fairly mundane act of renting out a spare desk in their office was the spark for a runaway wildfire of co-working success.

The concept is all the rage, a growing trend around the globe and has long been thought to be one of the key’s to unlocking the Kootenays creative, tech and knowledge based industry potential. A number of efforts around the Koots have had varying results.

With the new Jam Factory space, run by, and the home of Retreat Guru, Cam and his team have figured out the magic formula to make it work.

Start renting a spare desk in your start-up’s office space, grow your tech company from 4 to 12 people, take over a massive old heritage building in downtown Nelson, renovate it into a successful co-working space and fill it with a mix of energetic and exciting small, largely tech and mindfulness based businesses, all while spawning collaboration and growth in a new industry and maybe even helping launch new start-ups from your space? You Can Do That Here!

This episode was graciously supported by Blaise Enright Human Resources Consulting

About the podcast: The You can do that here! podcast was created and produced by Andrew Zwicker of AZcreative for the Kootenay Association for Science and Technology. The podcast is a weekly series of conversations with some of the most innovative and successful entrepreneurs