My business partner, Jeff Milone, Maui social media man, Erik Blair, and myself are in the early stages of starting a coworking, workation, incubation, education space on Maui.

In case you’re in the dark about any of those things, I’ll provide some clarity:

Coworking is a style of work that involves a shared working environment, often an office, and independent activity. Unlike in a typical office environment, those coworking are usually not employed by the same organization. Typically it is attractive to work-at-home professionals, independent contractors, or people who travel frequently who end up working in relative isolation. —Wikipedia

Workations involve traveling to a vacation destination to partake in both work and play. It’s appealing as a tax write-off and work incentive for business owners, freelancers and independent contractors looking for a change of environment. Workations are becoming popular with smaller businesses in which the owners and/or employees work independently from different locations around the world.

Business incubators are programs designed to support the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services, developed and orchestrated by incubator management and offered both in the incubator and through its network of contacts. —Wikipedia

Education would be offered in the form of paid workshops and coaching. The focus would be on tech related ways to build and promote your business — website development, branding, social media, marketing, etc.

Jeff and I have been enjoying the natural benefits of Maui for years. We started and continue operating our successful online tech company in Maui. However, our business is global. It doesn’t rely on the local economy. This creates a huge lack of interaction between us and other local business owners. In short — it’s lonely.

We believe there are more like us on the island — talented business owners, contractors and freelancers working in isolation. Maui is a small community that breeds entrepreneurs seeking to comfortably afford and enjoy the benefits of life in paradise. This isolated environment requires ingenuity, hard work and bootstrapping to survive. Maui doesn’t leave much room for failure. There is a high turnover rate. If you don’t succeed, you get ejected back to the mainland.

Maui provides the ability to balance work and play like nowhere else. Our space will make it possible to go from a productive work environment to sipping a Mai Tai, catching a wave, or diving with sea turtles in a matter of minutes. The atmosphere will be fun and laid back, but the goal will be to create successful businesses and spark collaborative interaction.

The dream is for Maui to be recognized as a tropical oasis for the tech community. A place that attracts talented entrepreneurs for more than the natural beauty of the island, but as a place for them to both work and play.

Like most startups in the islands, our space will have humble beginnings — probably not much more than some desks, lightning fast WiFi, a foosball table and fridge stocked with Maui Brewing Company to start. Our immediate focus is finding a killer location, and then growing the space and amenities as we gain momentum.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a resident of Maui or Minnesota. If you’re interested in relocating, visiting, planning a retreat or hosting a workshop on the island — we want to know what you think about a space where like-minded people can meet and create amazing things together in paradise. If you have interest in becoming a member or occasionally dropping by the space — please kokua and let us know.

To follow the progress of this project, follow @ErikBlair on Twitter.

Update: Coworking on Maui is currently being provided by CoHana at the Maui Research & Technology Center in Kihei.