A Shared Value in Sharing: Our Space

We threw open the doors to a rather special office space this past June, now better known as Hashed Lounge. This is a little introduction to our Hashed Lounge, which has hosted over 20 meetups over the past 6 months and received over 1000 global blockchain visitors, and our shared blockchain office, the Hashed Coworking Space.

The Lounge

When designing our office, we wanted more than a simply well-decorated space: we were looking for an overarching structure that showcased our values, objectives, and philosophy.

The interior of our Hashed Office was overseen by former Naver Space Experience head designer Jae Heon Lee. We wanted our space to be one for sharing and networking, a place where different people could socialize, bounce ideas off of each other, and get inspired. That’s how the Hashed Lounge Space came to be, in the blockchain hub of Teheranno in Gangnam, as a kind of offline platform that brings together global blockchain developers, venture capitalists, crypto funds, accelerators, and media.

The actual Hashed team only uses up a fifth of the near 9000 square feet wide office, freeing up the majority of the place as a shared space that could be used towards building a more robust blockchain ecosystem.

The Coworking Space

You can feel more of our core values of cooperation and networking in the Hashed coworking space, a shared office designed to fit the needs of emerging blockchain entrepreneurs. Each resident project gains access to the cafe, meeting rooms, and the lounge, as well as to any event held in the Hashed Lounge.

What we wanted to provide through the Hashed space was more than just rent-free administrative offices. It was the sense of community and cooperation crucial to the budding entrepreneur. By building a space free of borders or partitions, we created an environment that makes chatting with your neighbors over morning coffee or saying hello in the halls a natural routine. Even different projects in different industries face the same dilemmas and obstacles as early startups. Our communal environment invites these early entrepreneurs to start conversations, and work together to find solutions for these dilemmas.

As the central lounge is located in the way to the conference rooms, projects might find the chance to network with visitors on their way to a meeting. These spontaneous meetings, exchanges, and conversations with various members of the blockchain community are the core of what we feel is real networking.

This benefit doesn’t apply to just between the resident projects. Hashed also gains new perspectives and industry connections through what goes on in our lounge every day. Our Hashed Family Day, an event for the projects to get to know each other, is hosted regularly to boost this networking effect.

The coworking space is currently home to five teams, each of whom are single-mindedly dedicated to their cause in blockchain research and development. We briefly introduce our inaugural members below:

• Decon, providing specialized consulting and solutions for token economies (economic systems within public blockchains)
• Haechi Labs, providing programming solutions to simplify creating smart contract security inspection services and Dapps
• Pluto, aiming to solve fundamental problems within the academic publishing industry, and provide academics with a decentralized scholarship communication system
• Voost, a platform providing cryptocurrency exchange and overall maintenance services for professional investors
• TymX, tokenizing the assets of sports clubs and creating a platform for fans to exchange crypto and actively participate

The Coworking Space: Team’s Stories

The Hashed Coworking space accepts applications from small teams just starting their projects, and provides support during the first six months, which we believe is the minimum time required for new projects to establish themselves. As these 6 months come to an end, we took the time to ask a few of our resident members about their experience working in the Hashed coworking space.

Haechi Labs identifies security weak spots in the code in smart contracts and optimizes code architecture, as well as creating programming solutions for various issues. Their project was started after the many security lapses following the proliferation of ICOs early this year, and after they found out about the lack of a proper inspection agency in Korea. Haechi Labs, a team of only two co-founders when they joined us, says that they’ve grown as both a team and company after they’ve joined us. CEO Jong Ho Kim notes that being able to participate in private Hashed events and networking sessions was one of the biggest perks of being a resident project. While they’re sad to be leaving us, the Haechi Labs team advises future projects to actively reach for what they need, as well as maintaining a proactive attitude for any opportunities they might miss out on.

Decon specializes in token economies (cryptocurrency economic systems within public blockchains). Conducting specialized research into token economies, Decon also acts as consultant for newly started projects, from designing token economies to providing solutions for operative issues. CEO Morgan Lim tells us that their goal was to move out of Hashed because their team had grown too large, and says that our well-equipped environment helped in bringing in valuable personnel. One of his regrets is not communicating with the other resident projects more, and Lim emphasizes the importance of communication in his advice to future projects — reaching out for any special connections you can only make at Hashed.

Pluto wants to solve the problems rife in academic publishing markets, and offer a decentralized scholarship communication system to academics for a more cooperative community. Pluto CEO Junsun Yoo tells us that their monthly users grew fivefold after joining Hashed, and says that he is most thankful for the opportunity to make change, not profit, to pursue dreams instead of numbers. He advises future projects to share their struggles and find a way to work together.

Voost is working on a platform that helps professional crypto investors and investment agencies manage their assets and exchange crypto. CEO Dong Ju Lee says that being able to network seamlessly and getting a wide range of feedback during product development was a major perk during his Hashed experience, as well as seeing how other teams operate their companies and the skills they apply to that task. He added warm words of encouragement, saying that he believes that Hashed’s dedication will help see the Korean blockchain business through this harsh winter.

In Closing

For us, building the lounge and coworking space was a new venture. With not a few hiccups along the way, we were able to learn a lot through the different crowds that passed through our space. This is because, as we’ve mentioned, Hashed’s goal was to share the benefits of a new industry network rather than merely provide support for neophyte projects.

Our CEO Seojoon Kim says of the philosophy that opened this Hashed lounge: we needed a kind of hub that facilitated efficient networking between our many global projects and investor contacts and the blockchain developers in our space.

Though it’s matured significantly in many parts, the blockchain ecosystem and industry is still in its early stages. As an investor collaborating with various parties, Hashed understands the importance of a virtuous cycle in a burgeoning ecosystem, and that we need communities and networks to achieve this, along with our role to contribute.

We hope that this small space is the first step towards turning Seoul into the center of global blockchain innovations, and remind our audience that the Hashed space is open for all participants of the industry who wish to come together and grow.

Korean article written by Brian Dongnyung Choi,
English translation by Eunsoo Kim (eunsoo@hashed.com)