[hackerspaces] Hackerspace in Poland - hackerspace.pl

[Marcin Kaszynski]

Hi everyone,

time for me to stop lurking and say hello :)

I am one of the people building a hackerspace in Warsaw; you might have 
seen or heard a mention during last call-in -- olleolleolle and kugg 
flew all the way here to talk about it at http://bootstrap.pl, our 
monthly developer meetup. We have started very recently, so we are 
looking for more people, the right place and ways to finance it.

One of my main concerns is making the place sustainable, either by 
finding enough members to cover expenses out of their (relatively small) 
fees or by finding other sources of income. We might be able to find a 
place very cheaply (I know some of you were lucky enough to get one for 
free -- great!), but it is hard to depend on that.

We are looking into the obvious ways like grants and government 
programs, but my question is: what are your experiences with other 
sources of income? I know that selling drinks and supplies like solder 
is an option. Does that provide enough money to justify the burden of 
keeping stock, dealing with suppliers and doing other non-hackery stuff? 
What about other commercial activities like renting out parts of the 
space for coworking or paid workshops? Are they worth it and doable 
without interfering with the main purpose of the place?

The goal here is not to create a company, but to make the money flow 
stable enough so that we don't have to worry about it.

I'll be most grateful for all suggestions.

Cheers,
-Marcin

-- 
http://marcinkaszynski.com/
http://warsztatyit.pl/django/ - warsztaty Django
http://oiola.com/ - łatwe organizowanie imprez