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Hi all.
This week I've got something a bit different from my usual fare of late immortal update pics.
Most of you know me from my stone sculpting or customizing projects and tutorials, such as these:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MtRSn.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BJIrm.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YxT1dNs.jpg)
I have recently started looking for a workshop within foot/bike distance from my home to deliver more pictures of sculpting goodness to you dear blog readers, and have come up basically empty.
To make a longer story short, I came up with the idea of founding a commercial shared workshop/atelier space, where people can rent by the hour or for longer periods. My proposal is basically a makerspace (Wiki: Makerspace) crossed with a fitness studio for arts and crafts: work benches, tables, chairs and basic non-consumable tools are available, some basic consumables can be purchased. There is a front desk where you check in and out (since rent is time-based), can get some coffee and snacks, can flop in a comfy chair and read some art/craft books and magazines or talk to people. In the main area there is at least one "clean" room (for painting, textile work, clay sculpting, ...) and one "dusty" room (wood, stone, ...). There are tools you don't typically own privately (buzz saw, wood router, ...) that can be freely used after safety instructions. I want to offer courses (possibly give them myself, but also invite resident artists and outside people to give them) - this allows me to raise some money from subletting (from the course instructors), allows the course instructors to make some money (course fees; reduced for members) and raises visibility and attractivity for members.
[If you're reading at this point and you're mildly interested in arts/crafts, I'd like to ask you to fill out a short online survey I prepared. I'd be hugely grateful if you fill that one out, shouldn't take more than 10-15 mins, and forward the link to friends of yours who might be interested.]
Being a science geek, I ran some scenarios and found the business model to be feasible in principle, but I'd need a fair amount of capital to set everything up (which I can obtain from a bank and investors), and more importantly about 10-odd full-timers, 25 art/design/crafts students and 50 hobbyist regulars to get into the long-term profitable range.
The real issue is that as soon as you assert "I want a permament oversight person" (for safety, advice and service) as well as "the shop should be open from morning to evening" (so that pros can work whenever they like, and hobbyists like me can visit after work and still get something done), plus "there should be separate clean and dirty work areas", you immediately get fairly high running costs for personnel so that you need to plan with a large number of workspaces to make it profitable. Also, the more tenants and customers you intend to draw, the larger the space needs to be, and that results in some serious inner-city rent costs. Another consideration is that you can't take any old apartment and slap a commercial workshop in there, noise immission and zoning rules basically restrict you to larger and more industrial-style places (which is totally fine and cool, but the choice of places dwindles pretty rapidly). All in all, we're looking at fixed monthly costs easily in excess of 6000€ for rent, personnel, heating, maintenance, replacing worn down tools, insurance, repaying start-up capital, etc.
The whole concept stands or falls with the customer base, which is a bit hard to judge. From my personal experience I'd guess there should be sufficient interest in a) the professional artist community, b) the hobbyist artist/crafts community and c) the arts/crafts student and recent-graduate (you know, the guys that as yet can barely live off their work). All of them would greatly benefit from a shared place where the monthly cost is competitive or lower than the alternatives, the level of commitment is low and where there are like-minded folks to talk to and learn from. Also, an integrated small coffee and snacks bar, lounge area and a locker storage for your clothes, tools and works-in-progress don't hurt at all. Let me present to you some numbers (and by the way, thanks for reading that far, I'd love to hear your feedback!):
Basically, I'd need to charge about 4€ per hour, about 60€ for an amateur monthly membership (includes 25 h), about 120€ per flat-rate week (for short-term projects or vacations) and about 350€ per flat-rate month (for professional artists/designers/painters/craft persons). I also want to offer a deal for students or recent graduates struggling to find their feet, where basically they can use the facility for free in off-peak hours (i.e. all day, but not in the evening), and in exchange take one oversight shift per week (saving on the personnel costs). In order to further reduce the costs, since we're talking about artsy and crafty people, I considered saving substantially on the investment side by having (almost) all furniture built in-house by future members. I call the idea "Founder's Months", basically supplying all tools, materials and furniture construction manuals and then telling people "help build up and define the place you want to be working in, get one month free membership per X days of invested start-up work" (for small integer values of X, different for pro/amateur).
So again, please head over here, fill out the survey and tell me your opinions.
Thanks a lot, your input is appreciated!
 
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I would try to get the fixed monthly costs lower, since it's a pilot project, and you are essentially starting from the ground up, with no awareness of your project by your target market-- it takes a while for brand-recognition momentum to get going, all the while your monthly capital costs are ticking away. Artists in general don't tend to be the richest folks in the world. Also, startup artists may be enthusiastic about your idea, but not enthusiastic about the cost, whereas more established ones may already have their own space (they are established after all), and if you want to attract them, you need to offer something above and beyond what they already utilize in order to justify the cost (a lot of what you talk about definitely does differentiate your idea from other studios though).
You probably want an alternative revenue stream on top of memberships that is relatively stable-- I'd assume you'd be selling your own artwork (but you'd be doing that anyways). If you had a good, already established brand or PR machine of some sort you could harness it to both advertise the space to people who would be interested, as well as advertise art done by members as a perk for being members (and take some commission). . .
A lot of artists run co-ops where they are all partial owners/stakeholders, and it serves as a common workspace and a showroom/store for their artwork. (e.g. http://www.oldtownglassworks.com/) There are a lot of advantages to an approach like this, and may also be some disadvantages, depending on your long term goals.
*shrugs* It's a cool idea in general, it's fun to brainstorm ideas on how to make it financially sustainable
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maybe a kickstarter project? That would establish pretty quickly if people are actually willing to put their money where their mouth is.
and random idea of the day: You could rent out the quiet/clean space as shared office, to get some off-peak people in. From the people I know that work as contractors, the majority is not working from home, as girlfriends and wives are pretty distracting.
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Thanks for you feedback!
@caradoc (mostly):
Concerning lowering the fixed costs: I started toying with this idea based on a small place I could (almost) rent alone, to minimize the risk in case no one joins. When you play this through, you quickly run into issues: who gets a key, what do you do if people drop out, who has access, can you leave stuff lying around, ...? Oh, and you're basically back to a privately shared workshop, which is something I wanted to avoid because of the trust and effort overhead that goes into it.
Most of these issues go away when you have someone there permanently, who acts as a sort of oversight. Most non-commercial workspaces work that way, too - with the big restriction that you can basically only use the facility, if a "super-member" with a key is present, which is either three times a week from 7-9 p.m., or totally randomly. I looked at this from several angles, and finally came up with the gym analogy. If it's possible for a gym to operate profitably despite lots of very expensive fitness machines that have to be rented or invested in, and despite the fact that in a medium to large gym you have several paid trainers plus a receptionist hanging out at all times of the day, it should be possible to get something similar to work for the arts and crafts area.
I have checked out collectives similar to the glass works you linked to. There's surprisingly few (or at least few with a web presence), and in order to cover their rent they also have to take membership fees that are not much lower than what I am considering at the amateur level, and for a much lower level of utility and service (very limited time slots, additional cost if you use machine X, ...). Lots of them rely on additional donations.
As much as I am in favor of open source and the common good, I think an essentially non-welfare idea such as the one I'm proposing here has to be measured against whether it can sustain itself. If a collective only works if there is one person or small group of persons who keep going above and beyond their fair share of effort, sooner or later it results in frustration and burnout, and the collective collapses (most of the time).
A reasonably fair method of evaluating the viability of my concept (without self-sacrifice) was to monetarize it and see if it could fly.
@Rimstalker:
Yeah, I was considering Kickstarter, but I think since it's a pretty local endeavor, I'll either try to kickstart very late (after some publicity and when most planning is finalized) or maybe not at all, if I can reach that handful of people (both local and aware of kickstarter) via other channels. Might still use it as a safe money handling platform.
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Another thing you can do that a gym can't is do hour or two-hour workshops for members of the public who may not want a membership. You can give instruction, allow them to use some of the space and create their own art. Good for word of mouth, since it's ideal for small groups/outings and is inherently a social thing-- it also showcases some of the art that you/your studio produces, and helps cashflow-- they pay materials/instruction/rental-- it's a strength over a gym I think since it produces a product in addition to an experience, and the product goes on to help word of mouth.
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On April 22 2013 15:02 caradoc wrote:
Another thing you can do that a gym can't is do hour or two-hour workshops for members of the public who may not want a membership. You can give instruction, allow them to use some of the space and create their own art. Good for word of mouth, since it's ideal for small groups/outings and is inherently a social thing-- it also showcases some of the art that you/your studio produces, and helps cashflow-- they pay materials/instruction/rental-- it's a strength over a gym I think since it produces a product in addition to an experience, and the product goes on to help word of mouth.
Fantastic idea! 
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Yeah, I think courses are an essential part of increasing visibility and getting people to just try stuff out. I was amazed by what you can achieve by using the right tools with a little bit of instruction, on several occasions and in several techniques.
Also, I think the whole fix-it and DIY movement is bound to increase in importance and momentum, as well as the desire for handmade, self-made, authentic utility and artistic items. So in the long run I think something like a shared workshop is a totally safe bet, the question is how to get it operational in the immediate future.
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If you do a kickstarter, advertise it locally and have rewards for higher amounts (like a free month for those who donate enough)
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On April 23 2013 08:49 PrinceXizor wrote:
If you do a kickstarter, advertise it locally and have rewards for higher amounts (like a free month for those who donate enough)
Even more than this, contact local area artists, I'm sure there are a lot of people, especially universities, that would welcome a thing like this.
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From what I heard of students it's like that: if you're studying something like architecture or design etc, they have in-house workshop spaces for you that are basically free to use and very well stocked. After you graduate, or when you're doing focused projects is when you would need some additional or alternative place.
I'm also counting on people who have just finished college or vocational training (carpenters, ...) and would like to live off their job, but are struggling to get initial customers, pay their rent and make ends meet in general.
By the way - so far 5 people from TL.net filled out my questionnaire: 3 from Australia, 1 from the US, 1 from Germany. Go Australians! You other nations have some catching up to do ;-)
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thinking about this a bit more, the most important aspect for me would probably the access to materials and the possibility to make things myself that are either impossible to get, or prohibitively expensive.
An example: On my balcony, I have two pillars that support the balcony above mine, maybe 2.5 metres apart. I'd love to put a horizontal bar between them so that I can make pull-ups and attach some climbing exercise equipment. I have no idea where to get a polished steel bar of that length, and how to weld it to some kind of brace to attach it to the pillars.
edit: I did actually find some place where I seem to be able to get steel pipes cut to custom length, with prices that are not too expensive, however, I have no idea if they can easily hold 100 kg+ with only 2 mms of wall thickness.
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On April 22 2013 15:02 caradoc wrote:
Another thing you can do that a gym can't is do hour or two-hour workshops for members of the public who may not want a membership. You can give instruction, allow them to use some of the space and create their own art. Good for word of mouth, since it's ideal for small groups/outings and is inherently a social thing-- it also showcases some of the art that you/your studio produces, and helps cashflow-- they pay materials/instruction/rental-- it's a strength over a gym I think since it produces a product in addition to an experience, and the product goes on to help word of mouth.
When I briefly worked at a department at uni we went to a clay studie with the spinny things (don't know that word in english) and made clay things with an instructor. This was a "bonding" event for all the personal and it was extremely appreciated.
Then you got to choose your varnish and they burned the clay which was picked up a few weeks later. It's a great pitch to many companies etc.
I also had students in my class who did a lot of clay things after taking a few classes. For that you basically need the space and equipment and above all the ovens and it's a very common hobby that's almost impossible to do at home. It would be a perfect thing for you if you can get someone who's skilled doing classes early on. Most of the students love coming in to do their own thing and since they get like 1512321321 vases and stuff that they give away as gifts word spreads quickly.
Also a nifty idea is getting a corner where you can package and wrap things cheaply and have the wrapping paper have your name/logo/number on it. People tends to give away their crafts and it's free PR.
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The gift wrapping thing is actually a neat idea. A pottery oven is kind of expensive (which is why hardly anyone owns one privately), basically it's the ideal reason to go to a shared workshop. I had previously considered it, but it wasn't yet on my tentative list of equipment to invest in, since the woodworking crowd so far was more vocal in expressing what they'd like to have, and I have more personal experience in that area (buzz or band saw, router, ...).
I'll need to see how many people express interest in pottery, but I know that it's one of the larger "things" that many people would like to try.
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FuDDx
United States5008 Posts
Hello bumpitty bump...
I thought your idea for this shared space was awesome. Apparently some others were working on it as well or something a bit similar. Here is the facebook page for a local space that is trying to provide space and equipment in a wonderful enviorment for meetings, art and community.
Hope you can get some ideas or even contact them and get some info for your project!!
https://www.facebook.com/makerhouse.org
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Excellent link, thank you FuDDx!
It's been a while since I last posted, but my wife and me are still pursuing this idea. We've been out looking at real estate, estimating costs, strategizing marketing and generally wisening ourselves up in business matters. Oh, we also launched our website KleineKreise, featuring the logo that won our design contest here on TL (site is in german, though).
The main question right now is not whether this can work in principle (by now, I'm fairly sure it can), but the question is how much demand is there for such an offering. The amount of facebook buzz over Makerhouse is a good sign, but how many of the "likes" will sign up in the end? And in how far will it sustain itself, independent from donations and public sponsoring?
Will post updates when I have news!
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EPT
