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What do you think was learned? I was a member for a few years, but don't feel like I have an understanding of the economics.

by nkurz 9y ago

karmicthreat 9y ago
Pretty much that a conventional retail experience in makerspace form is economically impossible. Every space was staffed by two people during open hours. They had large capital costs and real estate costs. And few people were willing to pay the real cost of being a member. 150$ per person/month was pretty steep, so you would not just keep the membership going unless you were specifically doing a project. That is why they were trying to pivot to being more a consultant and service supplier for corporate and municipal makerspaces. They just ran out of runway to make that happen.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
Hopefully I'll get a chance to ask Jim the next time I see him. But to speculate based on my own experiences and those of others that I interact with socially there were a couple of huge challenges; * When you had a project it was "easy" to justify the monthly cost of membership, when you were between projects it was not. * Scheduling vs flow - you could schedule an hour on a machine tool to make a part, spend half of that hour just getting the machine trammed again from the previous inexperienced user, then discover you needed a small change that you could sit down and make and come back, but the next available time on the tool was the next day. It really interrupts your flow when that sort of stuff happens, and wasting "your" time tramming was always annoying. I and a number of other people suggested that there be 10 minute breaks in the schedule so that when the previous person's time was up, a 'pro' would come over and make sure everything was ready for the next person to start. * Space to keep things in progress was always tight. If your project was half done, and you need to leave it there over night, that wasn't too bad unless someone decided to come over and have a look at it. There were also some issues where people would bring in some of their own tools and other members would see them over by a project and assume they were Techshop tools. Never a good outcome there. * Instruction isn't a P/L center. It bugs people to pay to be given the safety lecture, many felt that the lecture on how to use the tool should be part of the monthly membership not an add on. When you go to the gym they don't charge you extra to explain how to use a machine, they do charge you extra if they are consulting on your training program. Similarly at Techshop (and this was more true later) the money is in having someone consult on the aspects of a problem they are more expert on than you are. * Meetings and outreach, there is a opportunity for a "low cost" membership in a center where meetings can be held for groups of 30 - 100. When the robotics club was meeting at Techshop it was valuable but not everyone wanted to become a full time member just to go to a once a month meeting. A $10 - $25/month 'attend meetings here' sort of membership would have worked well for a lot of those folks. Those things just sort of pop out easily. The challenge of being too flexible is an interesting one (if you can do any number of things, its hard to support any one area as well as you would like). It gave me a bunch of ideas for my "Prototype Electronics" store idea :-)

What do you think was learned? I was a member for a few years, but don't feel like I have an understanding of the economics.

by nkurz 9y ago

What do you think was learned? I was a member for a few years, but don't feel like I have an understanding of the economics.

karmicthreat 9y ago

Pretty much that a conventional retail experience in makerspace form is economically impossible. Every space was staffed by two people during open hours. They had large capital costs and real estate costs. And few people were willing to pay the real cost of being a member. 150$ per person/month was pretty steep, so you would not just keep the membership going unless you were specifically doing a project. That is why they were trying to pivot to being more a consultant and service supplier for corporate and municipal makerspaces. They just ran out of runway to make that happen.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

Hopefully I'll get a chance to ask Jim the next time I see him. But to speculate based on my own experiences and those of others that I interact with socially there were a couple of huge challenges; * When you had a project it was "easy" to justify the monthly cost of membership, when you were between projects it was not. * Scheduling vs flow - you could schedule an hour on a machine tool to make a part, spend half of that hour just getting the machine trammed again from the previous inexperienced user, then discover you needed a small change that you could sit down and make and come back, but the next available time on the tool was the next day. It really interrupts your flow when that sort of stuff happens, and wasting "your" time tramming was always annoying. I and a number of other people suggested that there be 10 minute breaks in the schedule so that when the previous person's time was up, a 'pro' would come over and make sure everything was ready for the next person to start. * Space to keep things in progress was always tight. If your project was half done, and you need to leave it there over night, that wasn't too bad unless someone decided to come over and have a look at it. There were also some issues where people would bring in some of their own tools and other members would see them over by a project and assume they were Techshop tools. Never a good outcome there. * Instruction isn't a P/L center. It bugs people to pay to be given the safety lecture, many felt that the lecture on how to use the tool should be part of the monthly membership not an add on. When you go to the gym they don't charge you extra to explain how to use a machine, they do charge you extra if they are consulting on your training program. Similarly at Techshop (and this was more true later) the money is in having someone consult on the aspects of a problem they are more expert on than you are. * Meetings and outreach, there is a opportunity for a "low cost" membership in a center where meetings can be held for groups of 30 - 100. When the robotics club was meeting at Techshop it was valuable but not everyone wanted to become a full time member just to go to a once a month meeting. A $10 - $25/month 'attend meetings here' sort of membership would have worked well for a lot of those folks. Those things just sort of pop out easily. The challenge of being too flexible is an interesting one (if you can do any number of things, its hard to support any one area as well as you would like). It gave me a bunch of ideas for my "Prototype Electronics" store idea :-)