New to Catapult? Welcome to the family! We’re so glad you’re here. Our story starts back in 2014. Established by the Lakeland Economic Development Council, Catapult started in the basement of downtown Lakeland’s Bank of America building. Its purpose was to foster the growth of startups and answer questions like: Are there entrepreneurs in Lakeland? Do they need a place to work? Can they impact our local economy?
The answer was a resounding “Yes.”
We ended the first year with 80 entrepreneurs calling Catapult home. After five years in the basement, we moved into our own state-of-the-art facility on the shores of Lake Mirror in 2020. Catapult is now more than a coworking space. We serve over 265 members across our three incubators programs: the Workspace, Kitchen, and Makerspace.
Designed from the ground up, Catapult was created with Lakeland’s entrepreneurs at the center. The three incubators provide resources, programing, and funding opportunities for founders to scale their businesses. The Workspace spans two floors with coworking tables, desks, offices, and meeting rooms. The Kitchen incubator houses walk-in coolers, storage, a cookline, industrial mixers, and more. The 10,000 SF Catapult Makerspace is a hub for manufacturing and engineering. This houses micro factories, a wood shop, metal shop, 3D printers, a textile room, and more.
To fully embrace the new incubator model and voice, we decided to do a total rebrand and launch a new website to compliment it. Thanks to the Catapult community, the vision came to life.
The work began with a rebrand by former member Gordon Choate of Noble Goat Design Co., and Tim Cox, Catapult’s branding expert in residence. We wanted to refresh our brand, while still paying homage to the original logo (designed by Fred Koehler of Ready Chapter 1) and branding.
Another important part of the rebranding process was creating individual identities for the Kitchen, Makerspace, and Workspace incubators. As we continue to shift toward providing specific resources for each incubator, we wanted a way to distinguish the three spaces while keeping in line with our overall brand identity. To read more about the rebrand, check out Noble Goat’s case study.
After updating our branding and voice, we quickly realized that our website needed to reflect this, which meant a complete redesign. Workspace member JD Arbuckle, founder of the web design firm Smart Inbound, spearheaded the project. JD helped our web design and messaging to align with our updated branding. To help accomplish this, we also enlisted Workspace member Blake Loughery, founder of ABL3. His updated video work helped to showcase the vibrant community here at Catapult and was a finishing touch as we finalized the project.
Additionally, to showcase the incubator programs and their many resources, we wanted to focus on a resource-forward mindset.
Catapult wouldn’t exist without the continued support of the Lakeland community. As a non-profit, we are funded by a variety of private donors and Community Partners who still believe in the original goal of helping support Lakeland’s entrepreneurs. From humble beginnings in 2014, Catapult has grown in so many ways. We are continuing to refine who we are and build programing to serve founders. As we flip the page on this chapter in Catapult’s story, we couldn’t be more excited about everything we have learned along the way and where we are headed next.
