The more I look at Hackerspaces (or Makerspaces, or whatever name you want to use to describe a co-op like group of people who like to create things, be it software, hardware, art, media, furniture, whatever . in a warehousey place where everyone stores and shares tools/knowledge and joins as a member and helps pay the rent)  I have to wonder:

Could this be a new Venture Capital/ Angel Investment model?

I mean, this is where people who like to make things are gravitating towards.  These are the people the investors are all trying to suss out and recruit.

I'm pretty sure some of the more recently created hackerspaces I'm seeing form are being used by investor types for just this reason (I just read up on a new on in Loveland, CO that seems to be funded by a guy who's a serial company starter himself).

It also looks like it might even be an actual business onto itself as well.  Different levels of access to the space and tools cost a different level of monthly 'dues'.  Maybe profit oriented, maybe non-profit.  Maybe a bit of both.



Is it a new kind of business incubator?

You could also look at them as a bit like an ongoing Techstars entity without the extreme focus of a set number of teams with a specific timeline to create.  It would be a looser kind of thing (sort of like a hackathon that goes on and on.. with things forming and popping out from time to time when they mature enough to be real).

Could it be a 21st century "guild center"  where people apprentice to learn new things?

I also suspect these spaces could become real community centers for towns creatives.  Kind of like the Free University model we saw in Boulder and other parts of the country back in the 60's and 70's.. effectively teachers self organizing to pass on knowledge to anyone interested in a broad range of subjects, and people interested in learning showing up to soak it up.

You could also look at it as a place that supports informal apprenticeship groups that are self organizing with the help of a place to meet (the hackerspace) and online tools to organize people and promote the meetings and classes (Meetup, Facebook pages, etc.).

Mix this all together, the creators with ideas and desires to build stuff (sometimes products and services, sometimes just cool stuff for themselves and their friends), investors who can fund things beyond the hobby stage, a place to meet and create community, a place to share tools, knowledge and expertise and a place to, well, just hang out and think up new stuff with interesting people.

Really... it's a community where that special subset of people, that 5-10% or so of the population that like to make things, can come together and have a clean, well lighted place to just create.

These places could become pretty magical.  Especially if every town had one.

Some Potentials:

Imagine all the local media types who have been laid off from their jobs at the local newspaper, radio station and TV station getting together at a hackerspace and creating a new local media entity of some sort that combines local news, events, community information with an online radio station (paired with a Low Power FM license), a specific YouTube channel for their town and a website full of the latest news and happenings...  I know I'D pay attention to something like that.  I might even contribute to it to keep it going.

A set of classes taught by, say, sysadmins, on how to securely run a business or school network.  I can see our city government and school systems hiring these folks to help run their own networks.  Or businesses in town realizing 'hey.. we have some real talent here, why are we outsourcing this to some consultant anyway?'.

Or a Node.JS expert teaching a regular class on whipping up apps on Android, and a bunch of high school kids or recent HS grads who've taken the class forming a gaming company that uses Spokeo balls to create a multiplayer soccer game, which turns into a company that in turn get's some Angel funding from hackerspace affiliated investors.

How about an EE who teaches a class on simple circuit design, attracting some EE wannabe who's never going to college, but has a gift for chip design that he would never, ever have discovered if he hadn't had access to people, ideas and a place to grow that ability like his or her local hackerspace, and then running into a Seagate employee who's also a member that get's him a job with the local Seagate software group.

Maybe a group of designers who are coming up with interesting toy designs and using the Makerbot 3D printer to create prototypes that they test market via the web to see if anyone will buy and then use the same prototypes to get quotes from factories in China, S. America and N. Dakota to make them in quantity.

It's really about community

Basically, it's a community for the 10% of people that make things, and it could be supported by those makers themselves as well as the people that invest in people that make things.  It could also partner with local schools, local municipalities and local businesses to help meet different needs in the community, whatever that might be.

And, I suspect, entirely new products, services, art, media, jobs, and entire companies will get formed out of these hackerspaces in the coming years.

If I were a Venture Capitalist, or an Angel Investor group, or even a school district or city government, I'd be taking a long hard look at helping to start, or just flat out funding the initial startup (rent, some basic equipment, not very expensive) creation of a hackerspace in their town.

I'll bet the ROI they get would far exceed any money put in for just about anyone smart enough to get plugged into what looks like a new global movement just now starting to really pick up steam.

The more I look at Hackerspaces (or Makerspaces, or whatever name you want to use to describe a co-op like group of people who like to create things, be it software, hardware, art, media, furniture, whatever . in a warehousey place where everyone stores and shares tools/knowledge and joins as a member and helps pay the rent)  I have to wonder:

Could this be a new Venture Capital/ Angel Investment model?

I mean, this is where people who like to make things are gravitating towards.  These are the people the investors are all trying to suss out and recruit.

I'm pretty sure some of the more recently created hackerspaces I'm seeing form are being used by investor types for just this reason (I just read up on a new on in Loveland, CO that seems to be funded by a guy who's a serial company starter himself).

It also looks like it might even be an actual business onto itself as well.  Different levels of access to the space and tools cost a different level of monthly 'dues'.  Maybe profit oriented, maybe non-profit.  Maybe a bit of both.



Is it a new kind of business incubator?

You could also look at them as a bit like an ongoing Techstars entity without the extreme focus of a set number of teams with a specific timeline to create.  It would be a looser kind of thing (sort of like a hackathon that goes on and on.. with things forming and popping out from time to time when they mature enough to be real).

Could it be a 21st century "guild center"  where people apprentice to learn new things?

I also suspect these spaces could become real community centers for towns creatives.  Kind of like the Free University model we saw in Boulder and other parts of the country back in the 60's and 70's.. effectively teachers self organizing to pass on knowledge to anyone interested in a broad range of subjects, and people interested in learning showing up to soak it up.

You could also look at it as a place that supports informal apprenticeship groups that are self organizing with the help of a place to meet (the hackerspace) and online tools to organize people and promote the meetings and classes (Meetup, Facebook pages, etc.).

Mix this all together, the creators with ideas and desires to build stuff (sometimes products and services, sometimes just cool stuff for themselves and their friends), investors who can fund things beyond the hobby stage, a place to meet and create community, a place to share tools, knowledge and expertise and a place to, well, just hang out and think up new stuff with interesting people.

Really... it's a community where that special subset of people, that 5-10% or so of the population that like to make things, can come together and have a clean, well lighted place to just create.

These places could become pretty magical.  Especially if every town had one.

Some Potentials:

Imagine all the local media types who have been laid off from their jobs at the local newspaper, radio station and TV station getting together at a hackerspace and creating a new local media entity of some sort that combines local news, events, community information with an online radio station (paired with a Low Power FM license), a specific YouTube channel for their town and a website full of the latest news and happenings...  I know I'D pay attention to something like that.  I might even contribute to it to keep it going.

A set of classes taught by, say, sysadmins, on how to securely run a business or school network.  I can see our city government and school systems hiring these folks to help run their own networks.  Or businesses in town realizing 'hey.. we have some real talent here, why are we outsourcing this to some consultant anyway?'.

Or a Node.JS expert teaching a regular class on whipping up apps on Android, and a bunch of high school kids or recent HS grads who've taken the class forming a gaming company that uses Spokeo balls to create a multiplayer soccer game, which turns into a company that in turn get's some Angel funding from hackerspace affiliated investors.

How about an EE who teaches a class on simple circuit design, attracting some EE wannabe who's never going to college, but has a gift for chip design that he would never, ever have discovered if he hadn't had access to people, ideas and a place to grow that ability like his or her local hackerspace, and then running into a Seagate employee who's also a member that get's him a job with the local Seagate software group.

Maybe a group of designers who are coming up with interesting toy designs and using the Makerbot 3D printer to create prototypes that they test market via the web to see if anyone will buy and then use the same prototypes to get quotes from factories in China, S. America and N. Dakota to make them in quantity.

It's really about community

Basically, it's a community for the 10% of people that make things, and it could be supported by those makers themselves as well as the people that invest in people that make things.  It could also partner with local schools, local municipalities and local businesses to help meet different needs in the community, whatever that might be.

And, I suspect, entirely new products, services, art, media, jobs, and entire companies will get formed out of these hackerspaces in the coming years.

If I were a Venture Capitalist, or an Angel Investor group, or even a school district or city government, I'd be taking a long hard look at helping to start, or just flat out funding the initial startup (rent, some basic equipment, not very expensive) creation of a hackerspace in their town.

I'll bet the ROI they get would far exceed any money put in for just about anyone smart enough to get plugged into what looks like a new global movement just now starting to really pick up steam.

So, got a closed beta invite yesterday to Googles Ingress game.  Reviews sound good.  Looks like a location based game designed to get people to walk around and take pictures of things (betcha Googles got some interesting things it can do with THAT data).



I played Shadow Cities pretty intensely for a few months early this year, similar concept.  We'll see how good Google is at games when I start playing it later this week.  More to come.

So, got a closed beta invite yesterday to Googles Ingress game.  Reviews sound good.  Looks like a location based game designed to get people to walk around and take pictures of things (betcha Googles got some interesting things it can do with THAT data).



I played Shadow Cities pretty intensely for a few months early this year, similar concept.  We'll see how good Google is at games when I start playing it later this week.  More to come.

Paul Graham's got a short thought piece up on makers and the Hardware Renaissance.  Great read.  Link to his latest thought piece here.

I recently joined denhac (www.denhac.org), a hacker space based in Denver and it's full of makers.  People who love hardware  But they also love software, technology, music, art and media.

There's a trend here.  A big one.  I think the cost of creating hardware is dropping.  Atoms will always cost more than bits to produce, but the distance in cost between the two is closing fast.  The cost of the tools needed to create are dropping extremely fast and the capabilities of these tools are skyrocketing.

When I really think about it, these hackerspaces are kind of the new computer club, moose lodge/coffee shop/bar/hangout/workspace and free schools of the 21st century.  

I suspect they may be even more, like the beginnings of new local media creation points.  A place where media makers come together as well as technology geeks.  An intersection where the cool kids from all the clicks meet, and. well.. create.

Our denhac, for instance, is for us a club,  a place to work, an impromptu movie theater, a recording, podcasting and live internet radio studio, a 3D print shop,  a well stocked toolshed for hacking together a range of silicon based projects you'd be surprised at the sophistication of and a university to take classes on damn near any subject you can imagine; for example: denhac has in the last few months, had classes on Synthetic Biology (hacking DNA with $3000 home 'labs'), Lock Sport (picking locks), Serious Computer Security (think: ROP Exploitation and associated protection techniques) Game development, Home Beer Brewing with microcontrollers, Silicon Mask Making (Level: Hollywood), DEFCON 'badge' creation (basically a custom computer that does wild stuff built into your DEFCON badge) and on and on and on.  It's a 'true' Free School where those who can teach something interesting self organize and present classes for any interested person to attend and learn.

We've got a van.  I don't know why.  But we've got a van.

We're also getting ready to put together a proposal for a Low Power FM (LPFM) license (something that's going to become available mid next year... a 100 watt FM station that covers your local community).  This would make us the first hackerspace with it's own live radio station (we already have an internet radio station, why not go retro AND analog!).

Creating DEFCON badges, en mass

Now, put all this stuff together and what you really have is a place that attracts intelligent, interesting, creative and slightly crazy people.  The ones that don't really fit into the 'corporate' culture of a big company (although many members work at these big companies).  You'll get lots of startup types.  People who like creating things because they feel the need to.  Because they want one.  Because that damn thing is stupid and and I can do so much better.  And when you get these kind of people together, well, really good things happen.

I'll even go so far as to say that, if your town doesn't have a hackerspace, you might think about getting to work on creating one.  It's going to be the place that attracts all the creatives.  It's where the cool kids will hang.  It's where the future's, very likely, being invented... right now.

Paul Graham's got a short thought piece up on makers and the Hardware Renaissance.  Great read.  Link to his latest thought piece here.

I recently joined denhac (www.denhac.org), a hacker space based in Denver and it's full of makers.  People who love hardware  But they also love software, technology, music, art and media.

There's a trend here.  A big one.  I think the cost of creating hardware is dropping.  Atoms will always cost more than bits to produce, but the distance in cost between the two is closing fast.  The cost of the tools needed to create are dropping extremely fast and the capabilities of these tools are skyrocketing.

When I really think about it, these hackerspaces are kind of the new computer club, moose lodge/coffee shop/bar/hangout/workspace and free schools of the 21st century.  

I suspect they may be even more, like the beginnings of new local media creation points.  A place where media makers come together as well as technology geeks.  An intersection where the cool kids from all the clicks meet, and. well.. create.

Our denhac, for instance, is for us a club,  a place to work, an impromptu movie theater, a recording, podcasting and live internet radio studio, a 3D print shop,  a well stocked toolshed for hacking together a range of silicon based projects you'd be surprised at the sophistication of and a university to take classes on damn near any subject you can imagine; for example: denhac has in the last few months, had classes on Synthetic Biology (hacking DNA with $3000 home 'labs'), Lock Sport (picking locks), Serious Computer Security (think: ROP Exploitation and associated protection techniques) Game development, Home Beer Brewing with microcontrollers, Silicon Mask Making (Level: Hollywood), DEFCON 'badge' creation (basically a custom computer that does wild stuff built into your DEFCON badge) and on and on and on.  It's a 'true' Free School where those who can teach something interesting self organize and present classes for any interested person to attend and learn.

We've got a van.  I don't know why.  But we've got a van.

We're also getting ready to put together a proposal for a Low Power FM (LPFM) license (something that's going to become available mid next year... a 100 watt FM station that covers your local community).  This would make us the first hackerspace with it's own live radio station (we already have an internet radio station, why not go retro AND analog!).

Creating DEFCON badges, en mass

Now, put all this stuff together and what you really have is a place that attracts intelligent, interesting, creative and slightly crazy people.  The ones that don't really fit into the 'corporate' culture of a big company (although many members work at these big companies).  You'll get lots of startup types.  People who like creating things because they feel the need to.  Because they want one.  Because that damn thing is stupid and and I can do so much better.  And when you get these kind of people together, well, really good things happen.

I'll even go so far as to say that, if your town doesn't have a hackerspace, you might think about getting to work on creating one.  It's going to be the place that attracts all the creatives.  It's where the cool kids will hang.  It's where the future's, very likely, being invented... right now.

I had an odd experience yesterday with my cellular provider.