Four walls, some desks, free coffee

In startup speak, MVP stands for minimum viable product, or the version of a fledgling idea that can launch, publicly, with the least amount of work.

Time- and cash-strapped entrepreneurs treat their assumptions as just that - educated guesses at best - and work quickly to bring their MVP to market and see what happens.

For three years, some members of the Cedar Rapids startup community had been living with an MVP - a physical space on the fifth floor of the Guaranty Bank Building, 222 Third St. SE, with offices retrofitted into almost every nook and cranny, donated furniture and intermittent climate control.

Now, organizers of Vault Coworking and Collaboration Space, with its new physical home in New Bohemia and new legal structure, hope it is ready to become what it always was intended to be. It will move to the second floor of the new Geonetrics building, 415 12th Ave. SE, in the spring.

'Moving Vault here, starting the Accelerator, being in New Bohemia - now we're going to see everything go to, not just a new level, but 10 to 20 new levels,” said Amanda Styron-West, co-founder and CEO of Seed Here Studio.

Vault officially merged with the not-for-profit that manages the Iowa Startup Accelerator's programming Aug. 1.

'It always felt really weird to me to say that I owned Vault, because Vault is a community of people …

. For that to be under a legal entity that was an LLC was a very awkward thing,” Styron-West said.

'I feel like now the entrepreneurial community has a fitting home for the importance it's going to play in the next generation of Cedar Rapids, and in Iowa and in the world.”

Vault started in August 2011, with free co-working and coffee on Wednesdays. At first, there was no pricing structure.

'There was something happening there, and at the time I don't think we really knew what it was,” said David Tominsky program manager for the Iowa Startup Accelerator. As one of Vault's first members, he spent weeks sitting alone in the corner office, trusting that a community would appear.

'It just seemed like we were waiting for a long time, but we kept plugging away and doing our thing,” he said. 'Then one day we looked up. We had an all-hands meeting, a Vault meeting, and it was like, ‘Where did these 30 people come from?' When you look around, you realize, the tribe is huge.”

The startup community in Eastern Iowa has been lauded by the Kauffman Foundation, which studies entrepreneurship; the Startup America Partnership, the New York Times and many others. Meanwhile, Styron-West and Andy Stoll, co-founders of Vault and Seed Here Studio, have partnered with the likes of Steve Case, former CEO of AOL, for his Rise of the Rest tour; and Brad Feld, who writes about startup communities, for national events.

Timeline

'July 2011

: Seed Here - later renamed Seed Here Studio - is officially launched by Amanda Styron-West and Andy Stoll with the mission 'to cultivate the conditions and community that give entrepreneurs and creatives the best possible chance to thrive.” The company's first event, Cowtown to Boomtown, draws more than 350 people.

'December 2011

: After a few months of inviting creative types to work in the Vault free of charge on Wednesdays, Vault Coworking and Collaboration Space officially opens. Within a year, Vault becomes a stand-alone LLC and two more co-working spaces open in the Corridor, Busy Coworking and the Iowa City CoLab.

'April 2012

: Vault's membership grows to 25, including start-ups, small businesses and not-for-profit members.