Last Friday was the bitter-sweet going-away parting party for the co-working community at General Assembly in New York. We danced. We drank. We hugged. We said good-bye to a place that we called our home for years. General Assembly first opened its doors on 902 Broadway on the 4th floor three years ago as a campus and workspace for the New York technology community. There were startups, classes, weekend events, fireside chats and the always-beloved weekly happy hour. I personally became a member a year after they opened. You had to write an application letter and go through a round of interviews before being selected as a member. (I liked this a lot, because the focus was on creating a valuable and curated community. It’s good to have a barrier to entry I think.) A month or so after my interviews I got my thumbs up and moved in, becoming one of the roughly 50 community members who worked out of the spacious light filled lounge, the quiet library and the longest shared table I had ever seen. 902 Broadway was beautifully designed. Lots of open space, lots of natural light, all furniture designed and sponsored by Vitra. There was a kitchen, four meeting rooms, two telephone booths and two large sections for dedicated members (as opposed to community members) where teams of 2 or more could set up shop permanently. For me the community membership plan was perfect. Coming in at only $300 ($300 in New York!) per month with 24/7 access and with a perfectly brief commute from my Brooklyn apartment. Hard to beat the quality, location, amenities and community at this price. A fantastic deal. The most important factor of course were the people I started to meet. Fellow entrepreneurs, designers, engineers and marketeers. Lovely people. Smart, driven and interesting. And most of them very, very intelligent. At least two of the people I met on my first day have become dear and close friends. And I have been actively keeping in touch with many more that would join over the next two years. A typical day for me at General Assembly would by to come in early. Then, get creative and cognitive work done before lunch time. Grab a friend for lunch down the street to get sushi at Ennju in the summer, a burrito bowl with guacamole from Chipotle in fall or a tomato soup from Hale and Hearty during winter. After, head back and continue working, hacking, designing, planning and making money for the rest of the afternoon until around 7 p.m. when things started to relax and people began to hang out. Granted, all those sprawling couches helped a bunch to feel comfortable. Maybe take a quick afternoon nap once in a while (Remember, this is all happening in the heart of New York City, just above Union Square. Possibly one of the most crowded and intense spots I know of) or just kick back after an intense coding session. Time went by really, really quickly. In fact, today I’m amazed it’s been two years since I joined and that as of today I’m moved into my new workspace community. At General Assembly I saw many people come and go. Businesses being born, nurtured and out-grow the space. Ideas being born, nurtured and let go of. I saw people people being decent, obnoxious, friendly, aggressive, creative, confused, happy, and sad. During this time I worked on many different consulting projects. For a transit network, a university, two worldwide best-selling authors and an New York based agency. Most of these projects were really just for the money and I don’t really have any interesting to say about them besides that they helped me pay rent in New York. At the same time I was exposed to the trajectory of some of my friends who took their vision and created profitable businesses over the course of 2 years or less. Naturally it makes me want to do the same and since about 1 year I’ve been focussing on learning everything I can about how to most intelligently start my own business. (Granted, I did my first startup back in 1999 here in New York and have been trying to create a successful startup business ever since. If you want to talk about persistence, talk to me.) This has taken me a bit longer than I expected but the learning process of going from “I’m an engineer, I can build stuff and once I’ve built it, users will just magically flock to it and throw money at me.” to “I’m not going to build anything before I know that there is a real pain-point being solved and money to be made.”. After one too many pet web/mobile projects that didn’t go anywhere (about which I’ll happily write another day) my expectations for myself have grown. General Assembly has certainly been the environment where I safely could admit my mistakes to myself and find better, more efficient solutions to creating success. In fact, without General Assembly I would never have learned to learn again. It gave me the space and environment to challenge myself continuously and grow as a person, engineer, teacher and entrepreneur. Most importantly though, General Assembly allowed me to meet great people every day and make lifelong friends.