Please save Hacker Lab
"There's no money in maker spaces."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).A few weeks ago I was talking to the founder of a wildly profitable coworking chain in Ohio.He broke the code...don't sell memberships, sell the foot traffic to towns (and malls).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.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.It truly breaks my heart to see maker spaces go under again, and again, and again.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.