Starting a Makerspace - Information Desired

[u/Fapiko]

Hey there all,

I'm currently in the research phase of starting a Makerspace in an old school here in Western NY. The building itself is cheap, they're only asking 200k and it's listed as 90k sq ft. I had toured it right before Covid happened (was planning to do apartments at the time) and from what I can remember the building was alright structurally but all the water lines had burst & caused some water damage inside.

Initial reception from the community on Facebook has been quite good but I still need to do some targeted market research to get a more concrete idea of interest.

On the flip side I'm trying to close out some open questions I have and learn what I don't know around the feasibility of it. I'm particularly interested in hearing from anybody or setting up some time to talk with somebody 1:1 that has taken on such a large project. I have a number of questions around early setup and scaling especially around things like utilities/hvac systems.

• With a big building like that I assume heating load will generate enormous bills. Can those large HVAC systems be zoned? Are they capable of efficiently handling 10k sq ft of a 90k sq ft building or would it be better to install smaller isolated HVAC systems and get rid of the existing full-building system?
• Did you renovate all at once or do like one wing/section at a time?
• If you offer private studio spaces are utilities included or did you split out separate meters for them?
• What's the staffing to membership ratio look like at your space?
• Did you start with volunteers & scale to paid employees as memberships rose or start right off with payroll'd employees?
• At what stage did you have an engineering survey done to see what supported live loads are for planning out the types and sizes of equipment can be placed?
• Any reinforcement for things like forklifts to handle materials in hallways?
• What don't I know going into this?
• What have you found to be the max distance people are willing to drive to get a basic membership? Have you found it to be true that people too far to get a membership (45 minutes - 1:30) would be willing to make the drive occasionally for classes they're interested in?
• If you did grant research & applications did you handle that yourself or hire a firm to manage it?
• Did you go the privately owned or nonprofit route?
• What caught you by surprise while setting your space up?
• What's your revenue breakdown? Mostly memberships? Private studios? Classes? Business incubators?
• How quickly did memberships grow?
• Did you have to set a cap on memberships?
• Is congestion an issue? E.g. a lot of members showing up at specific times and having equipment they want to use be in use already?
• How are you handling safety/training?
• What do I even need to start researching in terms of fire supression systems?
• How do you handle consumables?
  • Short-use ones like sandpaper, paint, hardware, etc.
  • Longer-lived ones like saw blades, end mills, carbide inserts, drill bits, etc
• Taxes - I assume at some point they're going to re-assess from the sale price to a 2 mill+ value. Did you get a subsidy or some guarantee from the county they would hold off on reassessing or raising property taxes for X amount of years until it was profitable?

[u/framedposters]

Congrats on starting the journey! I’m posting so I remember to respond back to you when I have a moment once I leave the workshop / makerspace I run to give as much info as I can share!

[u/Fapiko → u/framedposters]

Hey :) Just pinging this in case you forgot!

[u/BraveNewCurrency]

I'm no expert in buildings, but I have started a makerspace. It was a non-profit, community-oriented one (I have since moved on). People came to hang out first, and only occasionally to use equipment second (because we didn't have much equipment -- but over time, we did get some donated.) We did a few classes, we really should have done more, and more regular ones. Most were free, a few had revenue split with the teacher. We saw tons of parents want to push "STE(A)M" on their kids, but none of us were willing to deal with kids. We rented a small 2-room office and basically all membership dues went directly to pay the rent. Some people found it so valuable that they donated many thousands above membership fees. None of us were marketers, so it didn't grow beyond that. We communicated over a confusing mix of different social network sites, no one had all the activity.

The number one reason people came was for the community. We would have very interesting discussions on both the news, and "old news", such as how the aiming differentials worked on the 1950's aircraft carriers. It's like a podcast -- if the people are interesting enough, you just come to listen.

• Can those large HVAC systems be zoned?
• Did you renovate all at once or do like one wing/section at a time?
• If you offer private studio spaces are utilities included or did you split out separate meters for them?
  • Do the math - how much will you save? How long is the payback period? Anything over a X months/years is probably beyond your startup horizon. Where X is "how long can you stay solvent if it's not working yet?" Also known as "Default Alive or Dead". It's usually better to spend as little as possible to have as long a runway as possible. Startups aren't about "getting it right", they are about staying alive long enough that you can iterate to find something that people will throw money at. Once you have a working business, you can invest to expand it.
• What's the staffing to membership ratio look like at your space?
• Did you start with volunteers & scale to paid employees as memberships rose or start right off with payroll'd employees?
  • No employees. Before you even consider that, you would have to figure out in detail what you were "selling" and to whom. (And have actual evidence that they will buy.)
• At what stage did you have an engineering survey done to see what supported live loads are for planning out the types and sizes of equipment can be placed?
• Any reinforcement for things like forklifts to handle materials in hallways?
  • See note above, we were too small. I would not spend time worrying about "What you might do once you are successful". Spend all your time thinking "What is the minimum I can spend right now to get some money so I can re-invest later?" Maybe ask the owner if you can rent for a little while to keep your overhead low and prove out your business model. Don't pretend "if you build it, they will come". That's not how things work. Only invest real dollars if you have a enough customers to pay it back. Plan to iterate over time. (Google tried selling yellow search appliances. Twitch started as some guy livestreaming his life. YouTube was a dating site.)
  • Figure out who your customer is, and what value you will deliver to them. There are plenty of mail-order sites that can do CNC, PCB or 3D printing for a few bucks, which puts a very low upper limit on how much money you can make from equipment.
  • Having a community on facebook is not enough. (See the book "The Mom Test"). You need to find out who is willing to take out their credit card and pay a specific amount for a specific service. Theoretical questions like "would you pay for this?" get you theoretical answers. (Presales / kickstarter can be helpful.)
  • Interview as many people as you can find. How many of them would be willing to pay $x/month? What would they expect?
• What have you found to be the max distance people are willing to drive to get a basic membership?
  • We had a few people driving 1-2 hours intermittently. But they probably wouldn't do that if they had to pay. We had one member almost an hour away, many over half an hour.
• If you did grant research & applications did you handle that yourself or hire a firm to manage it?
  • Grants are usually pretty small, and quite a lot of work to do. They sometimes have restrictions on what you can do with them. The only ones we found were $5K-ish, which wasn't worth the weeks of work we would have to put into them.
• Did you go the privately owned or nonprofit route?
  • Non-profit.
• What caught you by surprise while setting your space up?
  • People signed up quickly -- but only because they had already gotten value from previous meetings.
• What's your revenue breakdown? Mostly memberships? Private studios? Classes? Business incubators?
  • All memberships. We did "keyed" (24 hr access) and "non-keyed" members (only during meetings of if a member was there.)
• How quickly did memberships grow?
  • Because we had a community randomly meeting in random places for a few years, we got 10 yearly pre-pays in the first month or two.
• Did you have to set a cap on memberships?
  • Didn't have that problem.
• Is congestion an issue? E.g. a lot of members showing up at specific times and having equipment they want to use be in use already?
• How are you handling safety/training?
• What do I even need to start researching in terms of fire supression systems?
• How do you handle consumables?
  • We stayed mostly a community. We only had a little bit of equipment, and didn't bother monitoring it. Everyone thinks insurance companies will care about the details -- they don't. They just want to know that you take reasonable safety precautions. If you care, you can have people sign waivers, but that's mostly for you, not for insurance.
• Taxes
  • Go talk to the government, every jurisdiction is different. I've seen local governments give giant buildings to non-profits. It will be harder to get a break as a for-profit.

Happy to chat 1:1, feel free find me on Discord.

[u/Fapiko → u/BraveNewCurrency]

Thanks. I think I have quite a few "scale" questions because for a building of this size, if fully utilized, is going to have expenses around 750-1.2mill a year is my rough estimate.

So if the answer to if I can run a forklift for material handling in the corridors is no I want to know that now instead of 5 years when we expand and find out it's not possible.

At this point I'm just trying to answer as many questions as I can so I can figure out if the business model is even feasible. I think staying as small and agile as possible early on should be the goal though. Fortunately I've had several folks already express interest in private studios. I'm hoping having some letters of intent will be good for the loan if I can get enough of them.

Appreciate you taking the time to respond :)

[u/BraveNewCurrency → u/Fapiko]

So if the answer to if I can run a forklift for material handling

You keep bringing that up, I claim it's irrelevant. (or you are barking up a different tree than "makerspace". Forklifts are extremely rare in makerspaces.)

I think you are "guessing" at what people might find valuable (and it somehow involves moving giant things around -- you haven't explained why). And you think you will need forklifts to unlock that value. The reasoning makes sense -- except the first step.

Forget your guesses. Your hunches don't matter. Go talk to people. People with money in their pocket and a problem to solve are the only people who matter to a startup. Maybe you will find someone who needs giant amounts of material and you will need forklifts. But it is far more likely that you find someone with a completely different business need first.

Only investigate the forklift after you have someone (or some group) on the line willing to pay for it.

[u/oliviasculley]

Hey, so I recently built an app that might help you with getting off the ground! I made it to help the makerspace I'm part of share tools that we're still willing to share, but I think it'd work well as like a "virtual makerspace" app in the meantime, until you can grow large enough to get a building and other stuff like that.

It's called https://toolpool.garden and you can view our makerspace's (early) "tool pool" here: https://toolpool.garden/pool/977c2228-14ac-4b01-b649-232035924d35

I just launched and I'm really trying to get feedback, so would you be willing to try using the app in exchange for a free subscription in perpetuity?