Hello fellow makers -
I’m passionate about maker-space entrepreneurship, and curious who would be interested in an Entrepreneurship category on this forum where we could discuss it.
Here are some topics I’d be interested in talking about / learning about / contributing…
Maker-Entrepreneur topics
Documenting your business vision / goals / plan - clients, problems to solve, niches
Ideal client personas - Goals, problems, unmet client needs. Who are your dream clients, where are they, how to connect with them.
Pricing - Figuring out how much a solved problem is worth to clients (“The Mom Test” is a good book on this)
Setting up your e-commerce website (example; Shopify, Stripe), digital & printed product portfolios, business cards.
Attracting clients - local & remote. Example potential clients to get started: Cafes, furniture builders, jewelry stores, sports clubs, breed-specific dog group chats, etc.
Events, show and tells, workshops - getting yourself out there. How do “booths” work at artesinal fairs, etc.
How to start an entrepreneurship lab in a community makerspace. Example: Taking pictures of your work, uploading to a Shopify site as a product, linking to your site with a business card containing a QR code link to a “Buy now” button. Finding common goals among a group of makers, creating an action plan.
Finding popular products online, and building it better with quality & customization (example tools: JungleScout)
Tools & marketplaces - Etsy, Fiverr, Pintrest
Teaching, workshops, e-learning - Recording what you do using OBS, publishing/streaming, offering recorded How-to’s as digital products & courses, for a specific niche/domain. Example: "How to make a commonly-replaced part for Toyota 4Runners). Starting a local neighborhood weekly makerspace school for kids, so parents can drop their kids off for a day, everyone learns & gets paid
Using your own tools Vs using other peoples/companies’ tools, partnerships. Making win-win partnerships with local wood & metal providers. “I can help with your customization requests.”
Connecting with business incubators, universities, chamber of commerce, Small Business Association. Many entrepreneurs are not familiar with makerspaces, and the rapid product prototyping capabilities.
Building a team / collaborating with others - Designers, engineers, project managers, sales. Identifying what you’re good at, what you’d prefer not doing, and finding experts who love that
Admin - Legal entities (LLC in USA), Taxes, invoicing, estimates, payment processors, shared drives, keeping organized
Client service / differentiators - Guarantees, Making clients feel special, those extra touches that make the differences, taking clients out to dinner & fun events.
Connecting with Community - Finding/setting up Local maker group chats, Meet-ups, finding & helping local entrepreneurs. Taking potential clients on tours of makerspaces for that Wow factor.
Easy / profitable project ideas per tool (example: CNC cutting boards, laser-etched holiday gifts, metal etching peoples/pets names onto things with fiber lasers)
“How to escape my dull corporate job and successfully do makerspace activities as my main job, and get paid my dream $ for it”
Is there interest here for these topics? What else would be interesting & valuable? Other forums where this is being discussed?
// JRO
A note about my background. I worked at a company called Pivotal Labs which did intensive product prototyping in a makerspace-like environment. Clients would send their teams to pair-program with us to get their idea to a prototype, and then launch/scale it commercially.
Later, I applied those techniques to found an entrepreneur lab within a makerspace in Austin, which is going strong. I’m in Medellin Colombia building upon that idea - connecting university business incubators, library makerspaces, and local entrepreneurs to accomplish high-quality product prototyping. Looking to find other folks doing stuff like this, so we can collaborate, make it successful & reproducible for folks who find this to be the “dream job”.
Example forum: Entrepreneurs - YO! Asmbly