[hackerspaces] Hackerspace business plan

[Far McKon]

Hive76 took the planning model a lot of cooperative housing and studios take.

1) Membership should pay the bills, + 5-10% extra to slowly accumulate
for damage, improvements, and emergencies.

2) By 6 months, you should have 3 months of 'reserve cash' to pay
bills. IE, if everyone gets hit by a meteor,
there should be cash on hand for 3 momths of operation. You should
always have that reserve, and if you use it.
refill it before spending other 'emergency' cash.

3) Lights and Rent should be covered by membership. New
projects/equipment by pledge drives or net income classes.


The above is a very common model of housing cooperatives, and shared
workspaces, and has worked very well.  That said, Hive76 has barely
made those goals. But they are do-able goals, and easy to explain and
agree on.

hack on,
- Far McKon


http://www.Hive76.org  "Making things awesome,  making awesome things!"
http://www.FarMcKon.net "Creatively Maladjusted"



On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 10:57 AM, Adam D Bachman <adam.bachman at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was going to give a quick one-liner like Jens' "are the bills payable?",
> mostly because that's how we did it at the Node, but I think Punkin's
> suggestion is a winner.
> If folks want a business plan because, "businesses have business plans, QED"
> then forget it. You'd be better going it alone, you're not going to catch a
> break because they're not supporters, they're haters. But if they have very
> specific questions and answering those questions will be valuable to you, if
> would be a good exercise to answer them.
> At the Node (http://baltimorenode.org) our plan looked something like an
> answer to, "what will it take to survive for six months". It was very
> helpful to write down how I thought this would work
> (http://wiki.baltimorenode.org/index.php?title=Version_Zero) but the only
> real purpose of the document was as a starting place for discussion and a
> limit to the very vague, bike-sheddy, non-helpful side discussions that were
> happening during our formation.
> The discussion is ongoing and we've been in business for almost a year (one
> year next week), so it has worked for us. "When needs arise, we will meet
> them" is always enough of a business plan for a roomful of creative folks.
> Whatever gets you from "here we are" to "we are doing things" fastest
> (http://baltimoreprintstudios.com/2010/05/strategic-plan-posters-are-back/).
> I'm curious what you expect your relationship to investors to be? Are you
> going the for-profit root with actual shares and returns and all that, or
> are you a non-profit and they're actually donors? Donors don't get a say in
> how their money is spent, members are part of creating the business, so a
> "business plan" (talking about what you're going to do) makes less sense
> than just doing it.
>
> - Adam
> On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 10:19 AM, punkin3.14 <punkin at mag3.14159.ca> wrote:
>>
>> On 10-06-28 9:49 AM, Chris Hardee wrote:
>>>
>>> We're starting up a space here in San Antonio, TX and I've been asked by
>>> sponsors and members for a business plan. I've been working on one but
>>> is there a skeleton plan or something I can base this off of? Any tips
>>> or experience anyone can share about writing one? Thanks
>>
>> To be frank, most "business plans" aren't worth the paper they're printed
>> on. But since you are being asked to provide one by people with a real or
>> potential stake in what you're doing, its important to understand what
>> specifically they want to see before they'll be willing to invest. Any
>> business plan you draft needs to address whatever specific question your
>> sponsors and members have. The most valuable thing you can do at this point
>> is make sure you know what those questions are.
>>
>> At KwartzLab, we held a very long conversation with our potential
>> membership regarding what they expected from the venture -- both what they
>> wanted in terms of community and resources, and what they needed in terms of
>> financial stability. From this, we were able to draft a vision statement, a
>> governance model, and a budget for the space. Because we knew how many
>> people would be signing up on day one, we were also able to draft reasonably
>> accurate financial projections. We didn't package this up as a business plan
>> per se, but its the sort of thing you'll want to include.
>>
>> If your sponsors are interested in knowing how you plan on growing your
>> numbers, you may also want to include a section on the sort of marketing or
>> outreach you have done so far and have planned for the future, how
>> successful its been, and what growth you anticipate for the coming year.
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>>    |\___/|   Punkin3.14
>>    )     (
>>   =\     /=     punkin at mag3.14159.ca | http://punkin3.14159.ca
>>     )===(
>>    /     \          Relaxen,
>>    |     |            und watschen der blinkenlichten
>>   /       \
>>   \       /
>> /\_/\__  _/_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\
>>  |  |( (  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
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