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I was a founder and operator of the Los Angeles free co-working space DropLabs. We lasted for 3 years before closing out of lack of interest. We never intended

I was a founder and operator of the Los Angeles free co-working space DropLabs. We lasted for 3 years before closing out of lack of interest. We never intended anything other than a free place for geeks to collect and work. We had events in the evenings, which were fairly popular. Having multiple partners with graduate business degrees, we chose not to incorporate, we just rented a space and called it "Droplabs" (why invite the taxman?) However, our location was near downtown, and the 20-something geeks were both afraid of downtown and would rather pay $40-$60+ per day to have a chair in a WeWork space in Hollywood or Santa Monica. It did not make sense, so I tried spending a week at each of the more popular co-working spaces, and learned they were not occupied by geeks or "real" startup people, but wealthy 20-somethings playing a startup game, dating one another, and with zero serious intent other than wasting their parent's money. I learned to be a success as a co-working space, one needed to create a "dating safe play pit" for white wealthy 20-somethings. I have zero interest in that.

zeure 8y ago
Location is the most important thing in marketing a physical area.
- bsenftner 8y ago
  We were located "next door" to The Brewery, the world largest freelance artist community (35K freelance artists living and working in a former brewery compound near downtown.) The artists used us far more than the geeks we were tying to attract.
  - fit2rule 8y ago
    That location is pretty famous for having the worlds largest concentration of artistic freeloaders. In fact, LA is a very difficult place to do these sorts of things - every 6 months a new wave of drop-outs hits the scene to become 'the next new up and coming thang' .. so its not really a surprise. If you want to run a successful hackrrspace in LA, you've got to find a way to make the hackers contribute to the effort. One of the best ways to do this is to have regular open-house events, promoting the contributing artists forward, and thus demoting those who freeload. Form a real community around those who contribute, and dissuade freeloaders. (Disclaimer: ran a hackrrspace in LA for 10 years, had a hell of a lot of fun, but also experienced immense frustration at just how some folks, who take so much space and creative energy, contribute nevertheless so little...)
    - bsenftner 8y ago
      We were located inside the "Big Art Labs" compound, across the street from the UPS headquarters (next door to The Brewery.) Our specific location was great for not being attractive to the freeloading artists, because there were similar artist intended spaces at Big Art Labs, and they got those freeloaders. Droplabs started as a web developers space centered around developers using the Drupal CMS. But it soon diversified. I myself was working on my own startup, a animation VFX tech startup. There were periods where the place was packed, but over all not enough to justify the effort. We were not trying to earn a profit, we were trying to create a tech creative community. Simple enough, during the period of Droplabs, the economy overall was not there to grant people that much free time or free income to be active in such a community.
simonebrunozzi 8y ago
This is a really clever comment, regarding WeWork essentially being (to summarize a bit) a dating app. I would love to hear more about your experience.
nullpunkt 8y ago
How does dating work exactly in this context?
Balgair 8y ago
I knew that the vibe on the west-side had changed when I saw more people in coffee shops 'working' on their startups and not screen plays. Probably good for LA overall, though, more diversity in the economics.
wdr1 8y ago
Someone else has already said it, but location. I live in Santa Monica and would love a space like yours. But going between the westside & downtown -- particularly during rush hour -- just isn't reasonable for a regular thing. It'll take easily 1hr+. I had hope the Expo line would help, and while it does a bit, its current speed still makes it a long journey, timewise.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

zeure 8y ago

Location is the most important thing in marketing a physical area.

bsenftner 8y ago
We were located "next door" to The Brewery, the world largest freelance artist community (35K freelance artists living and working in a former brewery compound near downtown.) The artists used us far more than the geeks we were tying to attract.
- fit2rule 8y ago
  That location is pretty famous for having the worlds largest concentration of artistic freeloaders. In fact, LA is a very difficult place to do these sorts of things - every 6 months a new wave of drop-outs hits the scene to become 'the next new up and coming thang' .. so its not really a surprise. If you want to run a successful hackrrspace in LA, you've got to find a way to make the hackers contribute to the effort. One of the best ways to do this is to have regular open-house events, promoting the contributing artists forward, and thus demoting those who freeload. Form a real community around those who contribute, and dissuade freeloaders. (Disclaimer: ran a hackrrspace in LA for 10 years, had a hell of a lot of fun, but also experienced immense frustration at just how some folks, who take so much space and creative energy, contribute nevertheless so little...)
  - bsenftner 8y ago
    We were located inside the "Big Art Labs" compound, across the street from the UPS headquarters (next door to The Brewery.) Our specific location was great for not being attractive to the freeloading artists, because there were similar artist intended spaces at Big Art Labs, and they got those freeloaders. Droplabs started as a web developers space centered around developers using the Drupal CMS. But it soon diversified. I myself was working on my own startup, a animation VFX tech startup. There were periods where the place was packed, but over all not enough to justify the effort. We were not trying to earn a profit, we were trying to create a tech creative community. Simple enough, during the period of Droplabs, the economy overall was not there to grant people that much free time or free income to be active in such a community.

simonebrunozzi 8y ago

This is a really clever comment, regarding WeWork essentially being (to summarize a bit) a dating app. I would love to hear more about your experience.

nullpunkt 8y ago

How does dating work exactly in this context?

Balgair 8y ago

I knew that the vibe on the west-side had changed when I saw more people in coffee shops 'working' on their startups and not screen plays. Probably good for LA overall, though, more diversity in the economics.

wdr1 8y ago

Someone else has already said it, but location. I live in Santa Monica and would love a space like yours. But going between the westside & downtown -- particularly during rush hour -- just isn't reasonable for a regular thing. It'll take easily 1hr+. I had hope the Expo line would help, and while it does a bit, its current speed still makes it a long journey, timewise.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]