Awesome Inc - Lexington, Kentucky

Simcha H.

I interned for Awesome Inc this past semester and really enjoyed my experience. The people at Awesome Inc try hard to make the space a great environment for everyone who comes through the door. I feel fortunate to have met everyone on the team and to have had the experience of working there the last few months. I had a lot of fun learning new skills to help build my future career.

Justin P.

Awesome Inc is truly Awesome. I have used that term to describe a lot of awesome things in my life, but this place is as advertised. The energy, connections, resources, vibe, location, look... all of it. My only regret currently is not having enough time to enjoy our amazing office (also a good thing). If you're an entrepreneur, or want to be one (wantrepreneur as I call them) and live anywhere close to this place.. REACH OUT AND ENGAGE. You only get out of life what you put into it.

Luke W.

Awesome Inc has been a blessing and is one of my favorite spaces to be in Lexington! Not only does our company office operate from the shared workspace- but it’s a place that truly feels like family. Relationship…Connections…AWESOMENESS is what they do best! They exist to create and grow high tech startups and do so by hosting community events, leading technology education courses, and offering a shared workspace environment. If any of these things ping your interest- stop by the space and you will be welcomed and invited into the Awesome Family… come be part of some amazing!

Olayemi E. O.

I first came across Awesome Inc in February 2023, when I was invited by a good friend to attend the 5 Across Pitch Competition. It seemed like a useful and needed org for the area.

In August 2023, I joined an company that rents an office at the Awesome Inc HQ.

It was during this initial month that I got an in-depth look into what Awesome truly provides local founders and businesses. Not to mention the coding classes for youth and adults.

The sheer level of support and encouragement offered could easily turn this review into a 5 page essay.

That said, I am excited to be around such wonderful people, and a great organization like Awesome Inc.

Nathan F.

I interned at Awesome Inc several years ago. It was such a positive, growing experience. This year, I've found myself lucky enough to return to their offices as a member of their shared office space service with the startup company I work for.

Awesome Inc does excellent work in all realms of their organization. My personal favorite has always been their value of fostering a positive, vibrant working community. As an intern, I enjoyed that and now as a member of their space, I'm lucky to get to experience it again!

Awesome Inc is just a great place to work at and partner with. Their passion for a thriving community and emboldened entrepreneurship is inspiring to be a part of!

Elizabeth R.

I have worked in the co-working space for several years, and it is a wonderful place be. The people are so welcoming, kind, and fun! I always enjoy the days that I am working in the space.

Awesome Inc does so much for the Lexington, and encourages entrepreneurship in the community. They are active investors in the people that live in the city!

Nick G.

Awesome Inc is a great place to dive into the tech and entrepreneurship world in Kentucky. It's so cool to see the innovation and thinking going on inside. The Co-Working space is top notch, and really encourages critical thinking and problem solving with peers. If you're looking for a place to network, and grow your business, Awesome Inc is the place to be!

Paul O.

I rented a desk at the co-working space at Awesome Inc for a little over a week. I'm a web developer and work remotely. I was looking for a place to get work done and also connect and talk shop with other engineers.

The people at Awesome Inc are nice and they do their best, but I ultimately came to the conclusion that the co-working space there would not fit my needs. Their focus on being a "fun startup" is good on paper, but on several occasions it did prove distracting. One time I had just logged into a call that I really only needed to listen in on, but the second I connected, an Awesome Inc employee shouted, "YOU THERE, PEASANT BOY!" to one of his coworkers before I could mute my mic. So I then had to apologize to MY coworkers and explain that I was trying out a new co-working space. On another occasion, I wasn't even at the co-working space, but at my house, because I really needed to focus that day and the kids were elsewhere. Lo and behold, an Awesome Inc employee decided everyone on their slack really needed to see a basketball highlights reel from a player who was big in the early 2000s and decided to send a ping to every member of their default #random channel. In my professional experience, pinging everyone in a channel is really only something you should do if there is a dire emergency that requires all hands on deck..obviously not the case here. When I raised concerns about this behavior, I was led to believe that this is a fairly common occurrence at Awesome Inc. and I would need to mute or leave their slack if it bothered me.

As far as networking goes, I didn't stay around long enough to get a feel for everything, but my general impression is that they are more of a marketing company than a tech company. The bootcamp is a cool concept, and I've known people to get jobs out of there in the past, but seeing the Demo Day projects firsthand didn't give me absolute confidence that I would necessarily want to hire someone out of it. Some of the projects weren't even completed and/or didn't function as described. But there were also one or two decent ones. The salaries advertised also seemed low for an engineer, but that might be how they are able to guarantee jobs, I'm not sure what the market in Central Kentucky is like for someone without experience.

Anyway, the co-working space didn't offer the working environment or the networking opportunities I was hoping for, so for me personally it didn't work out. However, I'll stop short of saying I don't recommend it for everyone, because different strokes for different folks. The thing that kind of stinks is they don't offer any sort of trial period or punch card to try it out first. You have to sign a lease right off the bat and give 30 days notice to quit. It's $275 per month if you want to park, 200 for a desk and 75 for a parking pass.

I truly hope Awesome Inc gets better. They have potential to be a good thing, but from my perspective they need to work more on instilling professionalism in their folks. They have an 89 page culture book, but comparing what they wrote there to my experience makes me question how much of their public image is honest and how much is the pursuit of appearances.