Los Angeles may not have the same cachet as Silicon Valley when it comes to startup success, but the city still attracts plenty of entrepreneurs to its doorstep. Launch House, founded by Michael Houck, Jacob Peters, and Brett Goldstein, is fostering growth in LA by pulling people together in the city and giving them the resources and support needed to take their ideas out into the rest of the world. This private community offers entrepreneurs co-living homes and residency programs so they can work out the kinks in their business model before bringing the enterprise to market.
Dynamic Locations
While great ideas can come from anywhere, history tells us again and again that collaboration is where the magic happens. Launch House started in an abode in Mexico when Houck and Goldstein invited more than 15 people to come to live for a month.
“We were hacking together on a different side project,” Houck recalled. “But I ended up booking a co-living house in Tulum in Mexico, and I basically got together, I think it was 19, including myself and Brett, people to come live there for a month. In September of that year, we all went down. It wasn’t a company really at that point; it was more of an experiment.”
There was no hard-and-fast agenda or bylaws on-site when everyone arrived in Mexico. Goldstein and Houck mainly wanted to see what happened. While they had high hopes for the venture, even they were blown away by the results of gathering so many smart people in one place. It was clear that they’d struck a chord with professionals. They were looking for an outlet for their creativity and ideas and they found it (and more) within those four walls.
Today, Launch House still embodies startup culture at its finest. Los Angeles is traditionally known as the entertainment capital of the world, but success stories like Silicon Beach have challenged these tropes. With a population of just under 4 million, professionals from all backgrounds flock to the sun and the sea to seek their fortunes. When the founders got back from Mexico, they rented a house near LA in Beverly Hills to start the experiment all over again.
Changing the Incentives
In Los Angeles, the rents are high and the salaries are (often) low. The discrepancies can make for a cut-throat environment, even for people who would never label themselves as competitive.
Launch House started with the philosophy that relationships are far more valuable than money. As Goldstein put it, “Networking, and the business world more broadly as we know it today, it’s very transactional. And the broad mission and purpose of Launch House is to make business and the technology industry less transactional, more authentic, and person-driven. So that’s why the word networking implies that you’re socializing as a means to generate business opportunities.”
At a co-living facility in Los Angeles, entrepreneurs can expect to join a small group of usually between five and seven fellow entrepreneurs. It’s within these factions that questions and answers arise. When to hire, what platform to fundraise on, whom to market to — practically every issue is specific to the individual entrepreneur.
Living in Launch House is an opportunity to form connections with innovative people. It’s a chance to think more about your products than your profits. LA might be a crowded city, but Launch House has curated small crews bursting with potential. The days in Beverly Hills are long, but they’re also packed with the kinds of discussions that could eventually change the world. In a genuinely productive startup environment, people aren’t asking when they’ll get their raise or whether every moment of work was properly logged. It’s a much looser configuration that emphasizes the discoveries of its team members.
Launch House looks for the outliers among its applicants, the ones who don’t conform to the dog-eat-dog culture that’s so prevalent in the city. The community they’ve built is offered a haven where they can focus on getting things done.
