Interested in founding a local “Maker Space” - any experiences?

[Phillip Mitchell]

I’m interested in founding / managing a local Maker Space in my small but active town. This is something that I’ve had rolling around in my head for a few years, but kept pushing aside because it seemed like such a hurdle, but I keep coming back to it.

What I’m envisioning is an ample sized shop space, ideally in a vacant industrial building close to the downtown area that can serve as a fully outfitted shop with communal access to large stationary machinery and have additional smaller spaces for individual bench spaces. There would be a “subscription” fee to gain access to the shop on a regular basis, likely tiered with basic access up to full access to the shop depending on which tier someone wanted / if they wanted their own permanent bench space. There are tons of little “shop rules” and other minutiae that could be discussed in this thread if folks have experiences from participating in communal shops that I’d certainly like to hear about, but that’s not really the main focus of this thread.

This could also be a place where classes or demonstrations to engage the community / budding woodworkers could happen which would not only have the potential to bring more folks into the fold of the shop, but also create a local “vibe” of creativity, productivity, and community.

I know that this exists in several places around the world already and is not a new idea, though there is currently nothing like this in my area for woodworking and never has been. I am acquainted with someone who does this very thing in Raleigh (state capital) and seems to do well between that pursuit as well as running his own design / custom woodworking business. I plan to reach out to him and ask more about specifics, but thought I’d ask here for more insight.

There is a local state university wood shop that you can only gain access to as a student, which feels different than what I’m thinking.

The big picture / creative talk could go on and on. Where I’m getting hung up are on the business considerations and potential insurance requirements / liability issues. I’m also interested in hearing input on how to pitch this idea to a potential “investor” as I don’t have the capital outright to make this happen alone (quickly while paying rent / mortgage on a building.)

Does anybody have any input or experience with this to share?

My main motivators for this are as follows:

To bring woodworking, creating and “making” into the local public eye in a way that becomes a staple of the local scene both artistically / culturally but also economically. Boone is a small mountain town that has (had pre-covid) a vibrant “local” downtown culture as well as Appalachian State and a lot of tourism from May - December from out of towners from all over who want to escape to the mountains.

To continue to build my dream shop and find a sustainable way to share it with others that have the same
passion for woodworking and quality tools. Over the past few years I’ve gone down the slippery slope of vintage machinery, (3 phase, heavy iron) and feel like that particular caliber of machinery had the ability to thrive in a setting like that and also be very attractive to other woodworkers who maybe don’t want to go through the trouble of acquiring and maintaining it on their own.

To do what I love as my job (don’t we all...) I’ve worked professionally both for myself in business and for others as a custom woodworker, timber framer, carpenter, project manager / contractor, as well as a custom band mill sawyer / sustainable, low impact logger prior to really diving into woodworking. I want to find a way to be in the shop everyday and surround myself with people who are interested and passionate about woodworking and get paid to do it. This very rarely happens in the trades and constantly trying to line up work as a custom woodworker / builder / etc really wears me down. I realize that a maker space wouldn’t be too much different fundamentally in the sense that there would need to be enough interest and actual “subscriptions” or other monetizations that would need to be there monthly or it would be just as stressful if not more so because of the potential overhead, but I’m willing to try and sort through that.

Ideally, I would manage said shop / maker space and be able to pay myself a salary of some kind that would supplement the custom / commission work I would continue with my own woodworking business (already in business currently.) The space would be my shop and also be a much more public / locally visible force than my current small basement shop on my own property (which is paid for, by the way...it is scary to think of creating monthly of a downtown shop space, but if the demand is there and the numbers work...)

Thanks any input!

[Matt Day]

There would be a HUGE upfront cost in doing this, unless you somehow have all the machines already. Besides that, liability will be a hurdle by itself.

Would you offer metalworking as well?

You’d need to come up with a good safety certification procedure - should t be too hard but will need all the documentation to OSHA or whoever that you tonight Johnny NOT to cut his finger off.

When I lived in Cleveland there were a couple maker spaces. I’d try giving a couple private ones a call and discuss their business plan and financials if they’ll let you.

It’s going to be hard to make money on, just like everything woodworking.

[Dave Sabo]

Where I’m getting hung up are on the business considerations and potential insurance requirements / liability issues.

You and everyone else that’s had this idea as a business. I’ll bet you a steak your buddy in the Triangle is subsidizing his “maker space” through his design and woodworking operations. No way he’s covering his overhead by selling subscriptions of hours of shop time to the well healed residents or Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. Which, is far bigger and wealthier than Boone. Dollars to donuts he’s just supplementing his bottom line with the rented space. He’s gotta have the building and tools anyway for his other operations and most of his customers are probably using it after hours and on weekend - when his business has wound down.

Re: pitching the money men. If you’re asking how , you’re pretty much dead in the water already. Hate being blunt, but capital is a cutthroat biz. But let’s start here. How much do you need ? What’s your monthly overhead likely to be? How much are you going to charge per month and per hour? Based on that, how many makers are you going to need to commit each month to meet said overhead ? Can you realistically sell this many memberships in Boone ? What happens when they all show up next Saturday to make stuff and it’s too crowded for them all to work ? What happens when they then cancel their memberships nexT month / year because of that?

Now, with your membership shrinking or just changing , how are you going to pay the bills and service the debt ? And what happens when something like a global pandemic erupts and you can’t even have the space open for guys to come in for 3 weeks or a month. I’m still going to want my debt payment, and the PoCo and water bills are still due. How you gonna pay those ?

[stevo wis]

Phillip,
It is a great idea and it can pay for itself. Here in Madison, WI there is a very successful space called the Bodgery. I have only been a member for 6 months, but they offer a lot in metals, woods, machining, cnc, 3d printing, even fabrics etc. I dont know all about the starting up issues but I am sure if you search for the Bodgery and ask for information the board members would help. If you cant get anywhere, let me know and I will try to help.
Stevo

[Alex Zeller]

You might be better off approaching this slightly differently. Instead of you buying all the equipment, leasing the space, and needed insurance what about trying to form a woodworking club with the intent of having a common shop for all to use. Like coming up with a business plan you could come up with a plan for the club. Things like what pieces of equipment you think the shop will need right off, what pieces you think the shop will like in the future, how big of a shop will be needed, and stuff like that. You should be able to put a dollar amount to it and then try to find members and pitch the idea to them. You could find enough people with connections, say someone knows a cheap place to lease or knows of a good deal on used equipment. You might even find a company or two that will offer a great deal on new equipment in exchange for being able to show potential customers in the area the equipment in use. I think your idea has potential but it seams like it could take years to find enough people to make it viable.

[Jim Matthews]

http://covecreek.net/

[roger wiegand]

Many successful examples exist. I'd strongly suggest talking to the folks who run them to find out what works and why. The same folks either are or know people who have tried and failed at similar efforts; it's just as important to talk with them to see what didn't work and why.

There's a lot of demand and many pitfalls; the number of very successful examples suggests strongly that it's a very viable model. When it comes down to it I suspect the cost of machines and insurance will be among the least of your worries; successfully managing the needs, expectations, and issues associated with a fairly large number of users and benefactors is what will consume your days.

Running one of these places is, in large part, a fundraising job-- is that what you want to sign up for? If not, can you quickly find a partner who wants to do that aspect of the work? Chances are you won't have much time for woodworking in the first five years.

Look also at the model of Fablabs https://www.fablabs.io for maker spaces on steroids.

[Alex Zeller]

I've seen it done with automotive repair shops. AKA you rent a space to work on your car and you get a bay and tools to use. The down side to woodworking is that everything wood working related has something that will wear out. With a table saw you can let the user put their blade on it and remove it when done but as you move to things like sanders belts are easy to change but a PSA disc can't easily be removed and put back on at a later date. Then you get into jointer and planer knives. They will need to be sharpened and then set back up. With people having different schedules (some working early in the morning and other late at night) are you going to be there or on call when a paying customer thinks the knives are too dull? With a club multiple members can do the work but if you own the shop then it's either you or someone you are paying (which brings up a whole list of other requirements).

That doesn't include machines that break. You'll want to be on top of doing preventative maintenance, keeping track of all the tools and hardware that goes with a tool, and doing the repairs. Also what happens when someone sends a board through the planer with a hidden nail? Do you try to make them pay? Most likely you are going to be the one who pays. If it's a mainstay tool you can't have it down too long as customers aren't going to like to come down to process a bunch of rough cut lumber only to find they can't and it'll be a week or more before the parts show up. There's lots to think about.

[Jim Becker]

Whenever this kind of subject comes up, the number one thing eventually becomes...liability. So in addition to the funding to set a business up including both accounting/legal/permitting/space acquisition, etc., there is the big insurance elephant in the room, especially in this day and age. But that's part of developing a business plan. There's nothing bad about the idea...it just need a whole bunch of planning, paperwork and funding to make it happen. Part of that is certainly ascertaining if there would be a demand.

I'd also suggest you go slow on this from a standpoint of getting something up and running because of current conditions relative to "shared space" including numbers of people, social distancing, etc. That's a business reality right now. But having the time to better define things could be an advantage so you can more when the time is right with "all your ducks in a row". Include contacting other maker spaces in other geographies to hopefully glean some input from their experiences in getting set up.

[Richard Coers]

Maintaining membership will be your biggest hurdle. The first year of members isn't too tough with the excitement of a new space. But year two will see folks upset about high demand during prime time for certain machines and if they really evaluate the amount of time they actually came to the space, renewals will be tough. Secondly is the trying to find the second wave of new subscribers. Marketing will take up a fair amount of your time.

[Ryan J Carpenter]

Just out of school I looked into joining several these spaces which are numerous in Portland. I loved the concept of gaining access to all the tools I needed and couldn't store at home. I was also eager to access community that I had in similar spaces in school. However, many of the monthly costs were pretty steep and it was cheaper to start buying my own used tools. One of the larger challenges was that many required expensive and time consuming safety courses that really added up to access all the tools I had used for years.

[William Chain]

In addition to the myriad insurance and liability issues are the two big obvious problems with your rationale - you're essentially saying you want your dream shop paid for by not you, and you really love the whole idea of a woodworking business, minus the business. I mean...yeah...

To continue to build my dream shop and find a sustainable way to share it with others that have the same
passion for woodworking and quality tools. Over the past few years I’ve gone down the slippery slope of vintage machinery, (3 phase, heavy iron) and feel like that particular caliber of machinery had the ability to thrive in a setting like that and also be very attractive to other woodworkers who maybe don’t want to go through the trouble of acquiring and maintaining it on their own.

To do what I love as my job (don’t we all...) I’ve worked professionally both for myself in business and for others as a custom woodworker, timber framer, carpenter, project manager / contractor, as well as a custom band mill sawyer / sustainable, low impact logger prior to really diving into woodworking. I want to find a way to be in the shop everyday and surround myself with people who are interested and passionate about woodworking and get paid to do it. This very rarely happens in the trades and constantly trying to line up work as a custom woodworker / builder / etc really wears me down. I realize that a maker space wouldn’t be too much different fundamentally in the sense that there would need to be enough interest and actual “subscriptions” or other monetizations that would need to be there monthly or it would be just as stressful if not more so because of the potential overhead, but I’m willing to try and sort through that.

Ideally, I would manage said shop / maker space and be able to pay myself a salary of some kind that would supplement the custom / commission work I would continue with my own woodworking business (already in business currently.) The space would be my shop and also be a much more public / locally visible force than my current small basement shop on my own property (which is paid for, by the way...it is scary to think of creating monthly of a downtown shop space, but if the demand is there and the numbers work...)

Thanks any input!

[Andrew Joiner]

To bring woodworking, creating and “making” into the local public eye in a way that becomes a staple of the local scene both artistically / culturally but also economically. Boone is a small mountain town that has (had pre-covid) a vibrant “local” downtown culture as well as Appalachian State and a lot of tourism from May - December from out of towners from all over who want to escape to the mountains.

This may be your biggest downside. I live in an area that has a lot of tourism May to October.
Even before covid most businesses that survive here are dead in the winter. The same type business in Portland ( an hour away) is active year round. The bigger the population of your location the more likely you'll make it work. You may be able to draw year round business by having events set up year round to bring in customers from outside your area.

The sad news here is a few businesses that succeeded year round are closing. Probably covid related. The good news for here and maybe Boone NC in the future? People may move from crowded cities to smaller towns due to the virus.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Hi!
I Googled your town. It is small.....
We had (temporarily closed pending relocation) a Makerspace. Honolulu has a bit less than a million people. A friend was a member. I think you are going to be targeting less than 1% of the population where you live. I think you'd need to have a sizeable population, just to get enough people that are even interested in WWing. Also, you would need a sizeable portion of those people, that live in townhouses/condos/high rises who don't have space to buy any tools whatsoever. As mentioned, many would rather spend a monthly fee on equipment that they own, providing one has the physical room for it. Our MS was pretty good from what I understand. You could do blacksmithing if you so chose. Unsure why they had to relocate. They were doing well. If my rapidly fading memory serves, the initial lease ran out and got tripled. Yet another problem one has to consider.
I wish you luck in your quest. We don't have enough of us wood workers. More would be better.

[Phillip Mitchell]

In addition to the myriad insurance and liability issues are the two big obvious problems with your rationale - you're essentially saying you want your dream shop paid for by not you, and you really love the whole idea of a woodworking business, minus the business. I mean...yeah...

Hah! Well I’m well on my way to having my dream shop (from my own finances slowly over time) that will continue to evolve independent of any maker space and I already have the woodworking business and some history with it.
It’s not as if I’m coming into this blind and empty handed and wanting someone to finance my entire operation. I’m simply seeing a business model that seems to work in other places and fleshing out of this is even a possibility in my area, which is a huge initial market research type question to answer.

It is extremely challenging to make a consistent living from strictly custom woodworking that is creative and small scale, yet this is the part of woodworking that I and so many others love and want to be involved in so much. Really all I’m doing in this hypothetical exercise is trying to harness that spirit and way of working and find a business model that can support it. Bringing it a bit more public and community / education oriented is a big plus.

I appreciate all the replies. I knew this would be a topic that garnered a good bit of cautionary and pragmatic responses, which is exactly what I’d like to hear.