Please save Hacker Lab
"There's no money in maker spaces."<p>I so wish this wasn't true. I want to open my own to inspire young inventors to learn and build (because I wish it had existed for me).<p>A few weeks ago I was talking to the founder of a wildly profitable coworking chain in Ohio.<p>He broke the code...<p>don't sell memberships, sell the foot traffic to towns (and malls).<p>A few local towns even gave him $1 rent on beautiful buildings because the downtown needed more foot traffic. Or $750k non recourse loans for remodels.<p>In short, he's a damn fine businessman... and he's the one to say that he can't figure out how to make a maker space profitable.<p>It truly breaks my heart to see maker spaces go under again, and again, and again.<p>Clearly the standard business model of memberships + classes + fees doesn't carry enough margin. I just wonder what might as I'd love to see a makerspace in every city.