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iirc they have only one location in Sacramento. I would love to support them, but I don't live anywhere close, looks like one time donation thing won't help the

iirc they have only one location in Sacramento. I would love to support them, but I don't live anywhere close, looks like one time donation thing won't help them anyway and becoming a member not being able to attend does not make sense. However, it would be nice to know why they failed from financial standpoint. There were couple of tech shops around me that closed their door over the last few years(even before pandemic), but I think there was enough/some interest. And eventually I would be interested in starting/helping with something like this at a smaller scale in my area. This is why I am curios what could have been done differently to make it sustainable? My theory is they were more ambitious with the variety of equipments, programs and space they have, but would live if someone has more insights?

Alupis 4y ago
The thread linked to by PVG has more details from the CTO of HackerLab. The basic take-away I gathered was they relied too heavily on donations, grants and sponsorships instead of revenue-generating endeavors, and once the "free money" dried up, they were left with few-to-no options.
- samtho 4y ago
  This has been the tune for many years now. They’ve botched deals, failed to set boundaries with “investors”, and went after easy money with strings attached. The founders were still learning the ropes of running this sort of operation. I think they would have benefited from someone to handle financials and someone else to handle community building and management.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > The basic take-away I gathered was they relied too heavily on donations, grants and sponsorships instead of revenue-generating endeavors, and once the "free money" dried up, they were left with few-to-no options. Not sure if that take-away is true or not, but it's almost always a bad idea to run a business that relies on charity[1] to stay afloat. There's some outliers, sure, but if you are planning a business, make sure the plan includes getting people to give you money in exchange for something they value more than that money[2]. [1] That includes investment for current operational expenses. [2] I was, in 2009, on a panel once, distributing seed money to startups. I remember the one pitch we had from a pair of founders. They brought charts, graphs, all their numbers, current and projected. They had launched with a single investor and a runway of maybe 6 months. They were in month 3, IIRC. It was a labour intensive business (Tourism, so each customer just bought their ticket once, and may never want to go on that tour again.) They needed more money to keep their operation going (mostly just paying themselves and a few staff members). I asked about what happens after month 6. They replied that they were actively pursuing investment to make sure that they had another 6 month runway. I looked at their income and mentally divided it by the number of customers. I asked about how they were planning to get to profitability after 12 months (after all, the purse holders wanted some possibility of return). They replied that at the 9 month mark they would pursue further investment. I double-checked my figures; each customer was costing more to service than the customer was paying. Okay, so at the 12 month mark? "We'll actively pursue further investment". After 5 years? "We assure you, we'll be continuously getting new investment". At which point do you raise your prices? "We can't do that, we're already so high that there aren't enough tourists willing to pay anything more". How do we get a return on this? "It's an investment, you don't get it back. It's in everyone's interests to have more tourism. We will all benefit eventually". The most surprising part of all of this is that both were extremely recent university graduates. I know this, because they proudly presented their humanities credentials at the start of the pitch.
  - YeBanKo 4y ago
    Hacker Lab positioned themselves as for profit. I am more interested in sustainable non-profit, so probably relying on charity to stay afloat can be fine, if it is reserved for nice-to-have things, that can be reduced if needed.
posguy 4y ago
Rents have gone up, pricing out many makerspaces and hackerspaces and pushing some members out of the locality of the space they are a member of. When this revenue shortfall occurs a space will likely close, unless the membership of the space can close the gap. Running a nonprofit community space is hard, your constantly trying to grow membership to cover costs while experiencing churn amongst your members and their use cases for the space. Many makerspaces/hackerspaces are founded by an idealistic person, and when that idealism (and the persons ability to cover the gap in rent) runs out, the space will close.
- pontifier 4y ago
  That's exactly why I decided to take the makerspace I started and move across the country. I bought a 220,000 sqft building with high hopes of never ever running into the kinds of problems I was having renting. Then the pandemic hit, and the city officials decided to play stupid games, and 2 1/2 years later I still can't turn the power on, the waterjet is still packed away, almost everything else has been stolen, and I'm in the middle of a lawsuit to try to actually use the building I bought.
  - YeBanKo 4y ago
    Wow... I assume this happened in the US? And then we are going to see articles, that manufacturing is dying in the US and there are no qualified or interested people and how it needs to change asap. Can you share more from your experience?
    - xrd 4y ago
      www.ProVolt.org Looks like moved to Arkansas. I would also be fascinated to hear about this story. I just moved to Lakeland, FL and they have an incredible maker space that it a non profit. It's mind blowing how good it is. And sad that my hometown of Portland would never be able to build something like that now.
      - YeBanKo 4y ago
thejarren 4y ago
I was in Sacramento over the past year and a half and heavily considered Hacker Lab. I actually toured it, and almost got a membership. The reasons I didn't were mostly financial + time investment. Membership fee was decent ($99 month iirc) though not extreme. On top of that though, most of the equipment required an additional course just to use specific equipment. Those courses were $300, and would take a few hours, just to use equipment that I already know how to use. For me, with my limited time, it was tough to validate ~$2000 for the first year membership + classes, vs spending that money on my own equipment and space. If I have to pay $600 to use a CNC machine and then a laser cutter, I'd rather purchase a 3 in 1 hobbyist tool. There are a bunch of clever solutions to keep going, but it doesn't seem to me that the people running it tested different options. A cheaper membership for infrequent use could have been good, as well as a way to opt out of classes and just "use the equipment" with a test or something.
- YeBanKo 4y ago
  $300 is a lot for basic classes to get started. Are we talking about Ultimaker 3d printer level of equipment or a CNC machine for tens of thousands?
  - BrianHenryIE 4y ago
    Sounds like there must be a few classes required, probably three. Before Covid there were group classes, so there'd be four people paying $25 each, learning together. Then as restrictions eased they started only one-on-one classes, at the relatively higher prices.
  - thejarren 4y ago
    The $5K+ CNC. Good equipment for sure. But they even had lathe courses with $100-$200 classes to get started, tacked onto the regular membership, and you'd have to show for the scheduled class times (that only happened every 1-2 weeks). Onboarding new people seems like it needs the most attention imo.
- boneitis 4y ago
  I suspect something was miscommunicated to you somewhere, and, as a to-be-former community resident, I would like to apologize for that. I'm not what one'd describe as holding my breath over what's happening, but I'd like to do what I can to prevent this from unduly disrupting my anonymous-to-me companion's campaign. While the monthly membership fee is actually a little higher than you remember, all the classes I've taken were either $20 or $40, and probably $60 today; I just haven't taken any recently. I just asked the front desk. Our priciest equipment class is/was [e: less than half the aforementioned figure] for a two-hour session for members.

Alupis 4y ago

The thread linked to by PVG has more details from the CTO of HackerLab. The basic take-away I gathered was they relied too heavily on donations, grants and sponsorships instead of revenue-generating endeavors, and once the "free money" dried up, they were left with few-to-no options.

samtho 4y ago
This has been the tune for many years now. They’ve botched deals, failed to set boundaries with “investors”, and went after easy money with strings attached. The founders were still learning the ropes of running this sort of operation. I think they would have benefited from someone to handle financials and someone else to handle community building and management.
lelanthran 4y ago
> The basic take-away I gathered was they relied too heavily on donations, grants and sponsorships instead of revenue-generating endeavors, and once the "free money" dried up, they were left with few-to-no options. Not sure if that take-away is true or not, but it's almost always a bad idea to run a business that relies on charity[1] to stay afloat. There's some outliers, sure, but if you are planning a business, make sure the plan includes getting people to give you money in exchange for something they value more than that money[2]. [1] That includes investment for current operational expenses. [2] I was, in 2009, on a panel once, distributing seed money to startups. I remember the one pitch we had from a pair of founders. They brought charts, graphs, all their numbers, current and projected. They had launched with a single investor and a runway of maybe 6 months. They were in month 3, IIRC. It was a labour intensive business (Tourism, so each customer just bought their ticket once, and may never want to go on that tour again.) They needed more money to keep their operation going (mostly just paying themselves and a few staff members). I asked about what happens after month 6. They replied that they were actively pursuing investment to make sure that they had another 6 month runway. I looked at their income and mentally divided it by the number of customers. I asked about how they were planning to get to profitability after 12 months (after all, the purse holders wanted some possibility of return). They replied that at the 9 month mark they would pursue further investment. I double-checked my figures; each customer was costing more to service than the customer was paying. Okay, so at the 12 month mark? "We'll actively pursue further investment". After 5 years? "We assure you, we'll be continuously getting new investment". At which point do you raise your prices? "We can't do that, we're already so high that there aren't enough tourists willing to pay anything more". How do we get a return on this? "It's an investment, you don't get it back. It's in everyone's interests to have more tourism. We will all benefit eventually". The most surprising part of all of this is that both were extremely recent university graduates. I know this, because they proudly presented their humanities credentials at the start of the pitch.
- YeBanKo 4y ago
  Hacker Lab positioned themselves as for profit. I am more interested in sustainable non-profit, so probably relying on charity to stay afloat can be fine, if it is reserved for nice-to-have things, that can be reduced if needed.

posguy 4y ago

Rents have gone up, pricing out many makerspaces and hackerspaces and pushing some members out of the locality of the space they are a member of. When this revenue shortfall occurs a space will likely close, unless the membership of the space can close the gap. Running a nonprofit community space is hard, your constantly trying to grow membership to cover costs while experiencing churn amongst your members and their use cases for the space. Many makerspaces/hackerspaces are founded by an idealistic person, and when that idealism (and the persons ability to cover the gap in rent) runs out, the space will close.

pontifier 4y ago
That's exactly why I decided to take the makerspace I started and move across the country. I bought a 220,000 sqft building with high hopes of never ever running into the kinds of problems I was having renting. Then the pandemic hit, and the city officials decided to play stupid games, and 2 1/2 years later I still can't turn the power on, the waterjet is still packed away, almost everything else has been stolen, and I'm in the middle of a lawsuit to try to actually use the building I bought.
- YeBanKo 4y ago
  Wow... I assume this happened in the US? And then we are going to see articles, that manufacturing is dying in the US and there are no qualified or interested people and how it needs to change asap. Can you share more from your experience?
  - xrd 4y ago
    www.ProVolt.org Looks like moved to Arkansas. I would also be fascinated to hear about this story. I just moved to Lakeland, FL and they have an incredible maker space that it a non profit. It's mind blowing how good it is. And sad that my hometown of Portland would never be able to build something like that now.
    - YeBanKo 4y ago

thejarren 4y ago

I was in Sacramento over the past year and a half and heavily considered Hacker Lab. I actually toured it, and almost got a membership. The reasons I didn't were mostly financial + time investment. Membership fee was decent ($99 month iirc) though not extreme. On top of that though, most of the equipment required an additional course just to use specific equipment. Those courses were $300, and would take a few hours, just to use equipment that I already know how to use. For me, with my limited time, it was tough to validate ~$2000 for the first year membership + classes, vs spending that money on my own equipment and space. If I have to pay $600 to use a CNC machine and then a laser cutter, I'd rather purchase a 3 in 1 hobbyist tool. There are a bunch of clever solutions to keep going, but it doesn't seem to me that the people running it tested different options. A cheaper membership for infrequent use could have been good, as well as a way to opt out of classes and just "use the equipment" with a test or something.

YeBanKo 4y ago
$300 is a lot for basic classes to get started. Are we talking about Ultimaker 3d printer level of equipment or a CNC machine for tens of thousands?
- BrianHenryIE 4y ago
  Sounds like there must be a few classes required, probably three. Before Covid there were group classes, so there'd be four people paying $25 each, learning together. Then as restrictions eased they started only one-on-one classes, at the relatively higher prices.
- thejarren 4y ago
  The $5K+ CNC. Good equipment for sure. But they even had lathe courses with $100-$200 classes to get started, tacked onto the regular membership, and you'd have to show for the scheduled class times (that only happened every 1-2 weeks). Onboarding new people seems like it needs the most attention imo.
boneitis 4y ago
I suspect something was miscommunicated to you somewhere, and, as a to-be-former community resident, I would like to apologize for that. I'm not what one'd describe as holding my breath over what's happening, but I'd like to do what I can to prevent this from unduly disrupting my anonymous-to-me companion's campaign. While the monthly membership fee is actually a little higher than you remember, all the classes I've taken were either $20 or $40, and probably $60 today; I just haven't taken any recently. I just asked the front desk. Our priciest equipment class is/was [e: less than half the aforementioned figure] for a two-hour session for members.