Adam Brackbill & Adam Porter
It began as one of those “classic napkin moments,” Adam Porter explained.
He and friend Adam Brackbill were searching for a way to bring more community to the work environment. They had both experienced the quiet, sterile, cubicle-style offices and were left wanting.
Instead, they decided to create a place where professionals could gather to work, but also to interact and form friendships. Out of the napkin moment came a coworking space in Harrisburg called StartUp in 2013.
Ten years later and the business has changed locations and changed names, but has also grown significantly. After a decade, Porter feels that their company, now called Pursuit Coworking, is needed more than ever.
“We’ve realized, despite how connected we are, we are still really disconnected,” he said. “The biggest problem coworking, not just Pursuit, but any coworking space solves is loneliness.”
In a society forever altered by the pandemic, that need for connection is great, Porter believes.
People have started to realize that working from home isn’t as comfortable as it may have once seemed, despite the casual dress code. Additionally, more companies are selling offices as employees utilize a more hybrid or completely virtual work environment. Porter describes this emerging phenomenon as the “fractionalization of work.”
Pursuit’s business reflects that change, as the demand for memberships has significantly increased. And Porter doesn’t see the trend stopping anytime soon, but actually accelerating.
“Work is now not just a place you go, so how can we meet that demand?” he said.
Since 2016, the co-working company has operated in a grand, historic building at N. 3rd and Boas streets in Midtown Harrisburg. But recently it has also expanded into a building on N. Front Street and into space on the corner of N. 2nd and State streets.
As quickly as the Pursuit team can list office space, they’re renting it. In the early days of the company, they would have around 20 to 30 members, but now there are close to 200 professionals who use their office space.
Video Production company Cap Collective has been a member of Pursuit from the start. Owners Christian and Krista Imbesi remember the days of running their small, blossoming company out of the coworking venture’s previous office a few blocks up the street from the current location.
“We had just started, so everything was too big and too expensive,” Christian said. “They came with a built-in company culture. Having that, especially in a small business, was great.”
As Pursuit has grown, Cap Collective has also made strides. But rather than leave to find their own office, the production company has stuck around and now occupies one of Pursuit’s largest office spaces.
“We were excited to stay here,” Christian said. “We like the people here. It was important to us to have the extra networking, the extra events and also the location.”
That sense of community is one of the major reasons people choose coworking, according to Porter. At Pursuit, they attempt to foster that through the open layout of the building and through events. They regularly hold happy hours, potlucks, group walks and other get-togethers. But many members also plan social gatherings themselves. The owners of Cap Collective host a regular whiskey tasting event and often get lunch at the Broad Street Market with others on Fridays.
“The challenge we’ve solved for people isn’t Wi-Fi; it isn’t coffee,” Porter said. “But it’s meeting other people you wouldn’t otherwise have gotten to know.”
When the company switched names and refreshed its branding a year ago, the team was hoping to better reflect where they were headed. With the new name, Pursuit, Porter said that they wanted to make it known that their space wasn’t just for tech startups, which was a common misconception, but for any professional.
On any given day, there are professionals in finance, engineering, healthcare and nonprofit work, among other fields, in the office. Members continue to diversify even more, Porter said, as people realize their need for community in the current “fractionalized” world of work.
“You spend roughly half your waking hours working,” Porter said. “We think it’s important that you’re happy with what you do. And if we can help in that pursuit, all the better.”
Pursuit Coworking’s flagship location is at 922 N. 3rd St., Harrisburg. For more information, visit www.pursuitcoworking.com.
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