appealed to Plymouth Ventures because it was built from scratch by engineers to fit the needs of smaller companies. “It’s easy to integrate into existing platforms, it’s intuitive and easy to understand, and it’s affordable. A lot of CRM is complicated and very expensive. With Nutshell, you can download it and start using it in five minutes.”
From day one, Ufer has felt that Plymouth Ventures is entering into a genuine partnership with Nutshell. “We believe in the same thing: building a great business and keeping it in Ann Arbor,” he said.
That sensibility is something that Malcoun and Suter also share. As they got to know each other, they bonded over what they agreed was going well in Ann Arbor’s startup community, and what wasn’t.
There were a number of things that needed to happen before Ann Arbor could become a haven for startups the way Boulder, CO, and Austin, TX, have, so they made a list of what’s missing. At the top was a “center of gravity,” a physical location that could serve as the nerve center of the ecosystem.
The other problem? Ann Arbor is a thriving, relatively affluent city. As a result, downtown office space costs a fortune. “If you want to create density, you have to be downtown, but almost nobody can afford the space,” Suter said. “There is no place where startups can create density, no clear path. We spent months talking to people until one day we realized, why are we trying to get other people to do it? Why don’t we just do it ourselves?”
Suter, Malcoun, Berry, and Snider decided to pool their resources, and they found neighboring buildings for sale on Huron Street between Fourth and Fifth. Soon, they began the process of buying them. Cabrio Properties will manage the endeavor, and Breighner’s Coolhouse Labs will be an anchor tenant, as will Nutshell and Notion. One they tear down the walls separating the individual buildings, they’ll have a massive, 24,000-square-foot space complete with room to hold events, a rooftop deck, and a coffee shop on the ground floor.
“It’s very high-end, inspired tech office space,” Malcoun said. “It’s all-inclusive; we’re not renting it out by the square foot. Plus, our tenants will be mixed up with different companies with varying levels of success.”
As for who will get a spot in the new building, Malcoun said they want to be “careful with curation—we want there to be some alignment among the companies.” Roughly 200 desks total will be available for non-anchor tenants, and the goal is to complete renovations by Spring. They plan to call the space Coolhouse.
Malcoun’s and Suter’s plans don’t end with Coolhouse’s construction. They want to formalize relationships with Dan Gilbert’s Madison Building in Detroit and Rick DeVos’s Start Garden in Grand Rapids to increase collaboration and cross-pollination.
“We know if we connect these places, we have the chance to build a solid network,” Malcoun said. “It’s actually a terrible idea to tie up a bunch of our capital in a real estate deal, but we’re doing it because we have to—there’s no billionaire wanting to do cool things in Ann Arbor—and you can’t build great companies without a great community to support them.”
Ufer, for one, is a fan of Coolhouse and all it might do to enrich Ann Arbor’s startup ecosystem. “I think it’s a wonderful project,” he said. “We’re big supporters of their efforts, even though we’re not involved financially. It’s a very neat thing to buy much-needed space that young companies can afford, and where they can scale.”
