It seems kind of strange to me that he's running it as a for-profit private company but is asking for the support of the community to fund it. There's got to be a better structure for this kind of enterprise, right? And the explanation for why nonprofit doesn't work (“The one thing i don’t like about non-profit is that you end up working for the source you got the money from. You dance to their tune to get their funding”) doesn't really make sense. If he's taking someone else's money then yeah there's going to be some amount of dancing, but that applies to funding for-profits as well. Unless, I guess, you can convince a community to give your for-profit company funding in exchange for nothing with no strings attached, which seems - again - strange...
> dance to their tune to get their funding”) doesn't really make sense
It makes perfect sense to me, having worked for a couple of non-profits. A regular business gets money by selling products to people. A nonprofit gets money by selling good feelings to rich people.
Often, one of those good feelings a rich person buys is a sense of control. They don't just give you money and say go; they give you money for a very specific purpose. Often, to get that money you have to apply for grants, meaning that you must conform to their desires up front, write a big project plan, and the follow that plan closely to receive the money. It's very much a waterfall approach to things, which can cause a lot of waste, and can be very distracting for people who want to focus on the non-profit mission. You also of course need a whole apparatus to find and flatter those rich people, which isn't free.
Basically non-profits sound like a better vehicle in theory than they are in practice for many purposes. And they don't guarantee fiscal probity from the community's perspective. A non-profit exec can still pay themselves millions of dollars [1].
For what it's worth, I am happy to help out community-oriented for-profit businesses. E.g., San Francisco's Borderlands Books, which is community-sponsored [1]. I give them $100/year just because I want them to keep existing, and bookstores in SF aren't really viable businesses anymore.
Yeah. I don’t understand why they can’t just run as a conference company. That seems like the obvious business model. Send the magazine for free to last years attendees, which gives you free advertising for next years conference.
If you have to “dance to the beat of someone’s drum” why not make it the people who are huge fans of the experience you produce?
Their CEO was the same guy who felt it was appropriate to get his company involved with a community dispute over if Naomi Wu was a "real" maker or secretly propped up by her boyfriend.
I don't get the impression he is a very good steward of the brand.
It's too bad, too. Maker Fair is one of the most important events in the penninusla. It's hugely important to educational efforts and a major focus for local makers who otherwise won't turn a profit outside of efforts like Bizarre Bazaar, which are quite expensive to attend.
There is a middle ground between Non-Profit and Traditional For Profit...
Public Benefit Corporations
I do agree however is " You dance to their tune to get their funding" do not make alot of sense, you do that if you are non-profit or for-profit... You have to dance to the tune of customers if your for-profit, or donors if your non-profit... His lack of ability to under stand that is likely one reason the company when bankrupt.... If you do not deliver a product consumer what to buy you go out of business....
The maker movement appears to be dead. At least in the SF peninsula.
TechShop went bankrupt. Its successor, "TheShop.build", closed their SF location, and briefly, the San Jose location had an eviction notice on the door. The noprofit, Maker Nexus, has pivoted to being mostly an educational operation for middle and high schoolers. HumanMade opens in SF Saturday, but that's more of a job training center.
Nobody seems to be able to make the "gym model" maker space go here.
Demand is down, too. Steampunk is dead. Etsy now allows outsourcing production. There's too much Burning Man stuff already built. Google, Facebook, and Stanford all have in-house maker spaces now.
I think the issue is that the market just didn't materialize, not dead as you say, but not nearly as big as it needed to become.
I think of Make as part of the O'Reilly Media story. The MO there for the last 35 years is to jump on emerging trends. When that trend blows up, the business does really well. It's probably easiest to see by looking at O'Reilly's conference history. OSCON, Strata, Web 2.0 where all hits with long shelf lives. Where 2.0, ETel, etc were interesting trends that didn't get big enough.
I was just leaving O'Reilly when Make was starting and the idea was that it might become the next Popular Mechanics. Make got traction, but not quite at the level where Maker projects were a normalized part of life. For all the comments saying 22 people was a lot of people, that's really not a very big company.
However, I think it's still such a great community and I love that Dale is finding a way to make it work. The phrase "rightsizing" has such bad connotations, but it shouldn't. There's a size business that fits the actual size if the Maker community. If they get that "right" then everyone can be happy.
>Nobody seems to be able to make the "gym model" maker space go here.
The problem as I see it is that a gym has specific outputs that you want from your time (ie: be stronger, lower heart rate, etc.). Given Bay Area salaries, it's probably always cheaper to just pay someone in the mid west to build something than to do it yourself. So there's no positive monetary output.
So a maker space's output is pure enjoyment and that doesn't scale as much with better equipment. You can do woodworking without a CNC machine and lasers and a metal lathe. You can 3d print for your projects at home instead of trying to use vacuum formers and sheet metal. Without having to deal with people and scheduling and driving.
The only advantage I see of a maker space is the community but that's more of a non-profit model rather than a for-profit gym model. Community is much easier to achieve with shared ownership versus renting from someone else. It also doesn't need fancy equipment but just enough for people to come together.
edit: Community is also harder when you have fifty different machines that cater to fifty different niches.
It's dead everywhere, because it never really existed. At least from the examples in my area, the "maker spaces" were operated like badly run city departments crossed with failing small businesses.. every mistake you could make in management combined with a holier than thou attitude, cronyism and favoritism, all wrapped up in a dangerous workshop in the name of the "movement".
I think there's room in the market for shared workspace, but it has to be done with a for profit model and competent management, maybe renting space like mini storage units do, but with tool leasing and set up to encourage 24/7 access and work (IE, not in a residential neighborhood not zoned for light industry).
A 40W laser cutter costs $300. AD 3D printer costs $300. An oscilloscope cost $500. A crappy CNC is not much more. Hot air rework station is $60. PCBs can be ordered in China for $10.
I buy these things as I need them.
The quality is way lower than what you can find at a maker space, but I don’t need the highest quality for a hobby experiment.
Why isn't Make attached to a store that actually sells DIY kits and parts? Seems like a clear business model to me. Or at the very least, better than print publishing.
Now, they probably don't have the capital or wherewithal to start selling electronics now, but a company like Adafruit or Sparkfun should take over the Make mantle and just use it to put out good guides and drive kit sales.
They have had a very solid store business at one point selling electronic kits. (Pi's, Arduino, etc).
A few years ago the kits were even in every Barnes and Nobel ni the country at Christmas. (And sadly most of them were in the clearance bin in January...)
It mostly only sold kits, drones, 3D printers, stuff like that. Very little in the way of individual parts and tools. Which always struck me as a bit of a problem -- it more-or-less sold a strict subset of the actual DIY stuff that you could get at competing retailers. So maybe they'd sell someone their very first Arduino starter kit, but it must have been really hard to retain repeat customers. Having bought that Arudino kit and completed all the introductory projects, when the time comes to start getting more creative, you're going to have to go somewhere else to buy, say, an LCD display or a fistful of capacitors. And you'd presumably stay there, since there were so few things you could get at Makershed that you couldn't also get somewhere that sells the other stuff you need.
In short, it was kind of a lot like what Radio Shack had become in the end, only even more so.
At least in Germany, the Maker Faires still seem to be doing fine. They are done by Maker Media GmbH, which is part of Heise Publishing Group (they do the c't and iX magazines). They don't publish numbers on how specifically Maker Media is doing, but at least the Maker Faires seem to be doing OK since they pretty much have record visitor numbers every year and are expanding (the one I go to in Hannover will expand from 2 to 3 halls this year).
I guess the trick is to find the sweet spot in the exhibitors. You need to have plenty of "real Makers", otherwise the Faire loses its spirit, but you also need commercial exhibitors from which you can get "real" money. I remember from last year in Hannover, the big commercial exhibitors were Nintendo (who showcased their Labo stuff), Volkswagen, and Conrad Electronics (big reseller here in Germany). Also, lots of food trucks outside. But all in all, it was still acceptable in my book, and my kid loved it. So I think this can well be done with profit, but I guess that being part of a big technical publishing group also creates lots of synergy which saves cost.
I think heise did publish a statement that Maker Media GmbH is doing fine and that the Maker Faires will continue in the forseeable future.
Atleast in my parts, Conrad is a big sponsor of Maker stuff (they profit of the parts, after all, especially makers that don't want to handle customs), so they're fine in my book. From what I know from german makers on youtube and IRL, the fair is pretty decent and well staffed with actual makers.
I think there is some definite educational and inspirational value to Maker Fair and magazine. I guess that's more domain of non profits, but maybe some philanthropic education funds could lend a hand for the more educational aspects.
Of interest an exceptional example of educational community around "maker stuff" funded by a great shop is https://www.adafruit.com/about , a lot of excellent work there!
Sadly it's not the 70/80s anymore, most people don't give a damn about building stuff when they wake up in the morning, you need special sfx or something really spectacular to attract people, especially kids, who will shot selfies and videos near the giant sized robot|working jet backpack|150Km/h electric skate| etc. to climb their online social ladder. If you're smart you can slip some cool device, development system, analog electronics kits etc. under the radar and get a few of them to learn something when they get back home, but you have to provide motivation; curiosity alone works only for a small subset among us.
So, why not partnering with schools and institutes? Wouldn't be nice if they rent a lab to a school for technical lessons, then assign tasks to teams and have say every 3 months the winning project published on the magazine? That would create competition encouraging more users/schools to join while boosting sales.
The gist is: you don't sell many Van de Graaf Generators (the device, not the band:^) kits until you show what happens to the girl's hair when she touches the electrode.
I went to the maker faire in NYC a few years ago. There was lots of cool stuff, but unfortunately about 60% of it were various slight mods/etc of 3d printers. Lots weren't even special, just a brand promoting itself.
To some extent, I think this is good. While the Maker Faire is iconic and I'd like to preserve that at all cost, the actual org behind it is poorly managed and inexplicably for-profit.
It makes me think that there is room for new non-profits focusing on what people actually wanna do in the various venues as opposed to be a generalist system. I hope someone will compete in this fashion.
I was an early subscriber, but it seemed like the magic of the early issues really faded after the first two years or so. I hope they can recapture a bit of that.
[+] [-] brianpgordon|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wpietri|6 years ago|reply
It makes perfect sense to me, having worked for a couple of non-profits. A regular business gets money by selling products to people. A nonprofit gets money by selling good feelings to rich people.
Often, one of those good feelings a rich person buys is a sense of control. They don't just give you money and say go; they give you money for a very specific purpose. Often, to get that money you have to apply for grants, meaning that you must conform to their desires up front, write a big project plan, and the follow that plan closely to receive the money. It's very much a waterfall approach to things, which can cause a lot of waste, and can be very distracting for people who want to focus on the non-profit mission. You also of course need a whole apparatus to find and flatter those rich people, which isn't free.
Basically non-profits sound like a better vehicle in theory than they are in practice for many purposes. And they don't guarantee fiscal probity from the community's perspective. A non-profit exec can still pay themselves millions of dollars [1].
For what it's worth, I am happy to help out community-oriented for-profit businesses. E.g., San Francisco's Borderlands Books, which is community-sponsored [1]. I give them $100/year just because I want them to keep existing, and bookstores in SF aren't really viable businesses anymore.
[1] https://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-at...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/25/borderlands-bo...
[+] [-] erikpukinskis|6 years ago|reply
If you have to “dance to the beat of someone’s drum” why not make it the people who are huge fans of the experience you produce?
[+] [-] KirinDave|6 years ago|reply
I don't get the impression he is a very good steward of the brand.
It's too bad, too. Maker Fair is one of the most important events in the penninusla. It's hugely important to educational efforts and a major focus for local makers who otherwise won't turn a profit outside of efforts like Bizarre Bazaar, which are quite expensive to attend.
[+] [-] syshum|6 years ago|reply
Public Benefit Corporations
I do agree however is " You dance to their tune to get their funding" do not make alot of sense, you do that if you are non-profit or for-profit... You have to dance to the tune of customers if your for-profit, or donors if your non-profit... His lack of ability to under stand that is likely one reason the company when bankrupt.... If you do not deliver a product consumer what to buy you go out of business....
[+] [-] Zenst|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crankylinuxuser|6 years ago|reply
https://benefitcorp.net/
[+] [-] Animats|6 years ago|reply
TechShop went bankrupt. Its successor, "TheShop.build", closed their SF location, and briefly, the San Jose location had an eviction notice on the door. The noprofit, Maker Nexus, has pivoted to being mostly an educational operation for middle and high schoolers. HumanMade opens in SF Saturday, but that's more of a job training center.
Nobody seems to be able to make the "gym model" maker space go here.
Demand is down, too. Steampunk is dead. Etsy now allows outsourcing production. There's too much Burning Man stuff already built. Google, Facebook, and Stanford all have in-house maker spaces now.
[+] [-] tonystubblebine|6 years ago|reply
I think of Make as part of the O'Reilly Media story. The MO there for the last 35 years is to jump on emerging trends. When that trend blows up, the business does really well. It's probably easiest to see by looking at O'Reilly's conference history. OSCON, Strata, Web 2.0 where all hits with long shelf lives. Where 2.0, ETel, etc were interesting trends that didn't get big enough.
I was just leaving O'Reilly when Make was starting and the idea was that it might become the next Popular Mechanics. Make got traction, but not quite at the level where Maker projects were a normalized part of life. For all the comments saying 22 people was a lot of people, that's really not a very big company.
However, I think it's still such a great community and I love that Dale is finding a way to make it work. The phrase "rightsizing" has such bad connotations, but it shouldn't. There's a size business that fits the actual size if the Maker community. If they get that "right" then everyone can be happy.
[+] [-] marcinzm|6 years ago|reply
The problem as I see it is that a gym has specific outputs that you want from your time (ie: be stronger, lower heart rate, etc.). Given Bay Area salaries, it's probably always cheaper to just pay someone in the mid west to build something than to do it yourself. So there's no positive monetary output.
So a maker space's output is pure enjoyment and that doesn't scale as much with better equipment. You can do woodworking without a CNC machine and lasers and a metal lathe. You can 3d print for your projects at home instead of trying to use vacuum formers and sheet metal. Without having to deal with people and scheduling and driving.
The only advantage I see of a maker space is the community but that's more of a non-profit model rather than a for-profit gym model. Community is much easier to achieve with shared ownership versus renting from someone else. It also doesn't need fancy equipment but just enough for people to come together.
edit: Community is also harder when you have fifty different machines that cater to fifty different niches.
[+] [-] driverdan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Accujack|6 years ago|reply
I think there's room in the market for shared workspace, but it has to be done with a for profit model and competent management, maybe renting space like mini storage units do, but with tool leasing and set up to encourage 24/7 access and work (IE, not in a residential neighborhood not zoned for light industry).
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] TomVDB|6 years ago|reply
A 40W laser cutter costs $300. AD 3D printer costs $300. An oscilloscope cost $500. A crappy CNC is not much more. Hot air rework station is $60. PCBs can be ordered in China for $10.
I buy these things as I need them.
The quality is way lower than what you can find at a maker space, but I don’t need the highest quality for a hobby experiment.
[+] [-] rosensan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codesushi42|6 years ago|reply
Hardware is hard. Best to stick with software based businesses.
[+] [-] _hardwaregeek|6 years ago|reply
Now, they probably don't have the capital or wherewithal to start selling electronics now, but a company like Adafruit or Sparkfun should take over the Make mantle and just use it to put out good guides and drive kit sales.
[+] [-] roberte3|6 years ago|reply
A few years ago the kits were even in every Barnes and Nobel ni the country at Christmas. (And sadly most of them were in the clearance bin in January...)
[+] [-] bjt|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mr_crankypants|6 years ago|reply
It mostly only sold kits, drones, 3D printers, stuff like that. Very little in the way of individual parts and tools. Which always struck me as a bit of a problem -- it more-or-less sold a strict subset of the actual DIY stuff that you could get at competing retailers. So maybe they'd sell someone their very first Arduino starter kit, but it must have been really hard to retain repeat customers. Having bought that Arudino kit and completed all the introductory projects, when the time comes to start getting more creative, you're going to have to go somewhere else to buy, say, an LCD display or a fistful of capacitors. And you'd presumably stay there, since there were so few things you could get at Makershed that you couldn't also get somewhere that sells the other stuff you need.
In short, it was kind of a lot like what Radio Shack had become in the end, only even more so.
[+] [-] colechristensen|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deng|6 years ago|reply
I guess the trick is to find the sweet spot in the exhibitors. You need to have plenty of "real Makers", otherwise the Faire loses its spirit, but you also need commercial exhibitors from which you can get "real" money. I remember from last year in Hannover, the big commercial exhibitors were Nintendo (who showcased their Labo stuff), Volkswagen, and Conrad Electronics (big reseller here in Germany). Also, lots of food trucks outside. But all in all, it was still acceptable in my book, and my kid loved it. So I think this can well be done with profit, but I guess that being part of a big technical publishing group also creates lots of synergy which saves cost.
[+] [-] zaarn|6 years ago|reply
Atleast in my parts, Conrad is a big sponsor of Maker stuff (they profit of the parts, after all, especially makers that don't want to handle customs), so they're fine in my book. From what I know from german makers on youtube and IRL, the fair is pretty decent and well staffed with actual makers.
[+] [-] colechristensen|6 years ago|reply
It's a niche market but 80,000 subscribers and 100,000 attendees in San Mateo alone should be able to keep the lights on.
[+] [-] mdorazio|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IshKebab|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Killes|6 years ago|reply
Of interest an exceptional example of educational community around "maker stuff" funded by a great shop is https://www.adafruit.com/about , a lot of excellent work there!
[+] [-] squarefoot|6 years ago|reply
The gist is: you don't sell many Van de Graaf Generators (the device, not the band:^) kits until you show what happens to the girl's hair when she touches the electrode.
[+] [-] mlurp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] delfinom|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KirinDave|6 years ago|reply
It makes me think that there is room for new non-profits focusing on what people actually wanna do in the various venues as opposed to be a generalist system. I hope someone will compete in this fashion.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] musicale|6 years ago|reply
Maker Faire will probably be better if it's primarily run by volunteers and has fewer corporate sponsors.
[+] [-] ineedasername|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deboflo|6 years ago|reply