
Apply HN: CreatorsNest – On-Demand, Private Workspaces for Artists and Creatives - LYeo
CreatorsNest (CreatorsNest.com) is a network of private, affordable creative workspaces that are accessible on-demand.  Each space, or “nest”, is developed by repurposing residential garages and transforming them into beautiful and inspirational spaces for artists and creatives to use for a variety of purposes.  The goal here is to fundamentally change the way artists work by providing affordable space for creatives, and to disrupt the &gt; $5 bn creative studios industry that capitalizes on artists&#x27; need for privacy.<p>P.S. The first nest was recently opened in Los Angeles.  You can view it here: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;creatorsnest.com&#x2F;the-nests.html
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JayNeely
1) Love the idea of repurposing residential garages, but are these spaces as
available (with all the criteria for your needs, like bathroom access) /
convertable as you think they'll be?

2) Is the plan for home owners to clear their space, renovate it in the hope
you'll accept it, then list their space in an AirBnB-type model? Or is someone
on your team seeking them out, signing a long-term rental agreement, and
converting them yourselves? With a cut to the homeowner, cost of renovations,
cost of cleaning after every use, cost of supplies & refills, how much
utilization do you need for a space to cover setup costs and then maintain a
profit?

3) Beyond the community, a lot of artists who use creative studios do so
because they're working on projects that won't get completed within a day or
two. How do you address needs for storage of things like wet paintings, clay
sculpture, large print templates, etc.? Right now your booking system doesn't
seem to support needs like "3 hours today, 3 hours tomorrow, 3 hours after the
weekend" without multiple bookings / risking getting out-booked and kept away
from stored items.

4) Do you see your target market being more artists currently in a studio (or
that have used them in the past), or artists that have never yet joined one
(primarily worked from home)?

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LYeo
Hey Jay, thanks for your insightful questions:

(1) I chose residential garages for two reasons: (a) they represent a strong
differentiator, and (b) their abundance and flexibility when repurposing the
space. I do have certain criteria when it comes to location, but generally
speaking, garage spaces are simpler to design and repurpose because they
aren't meant to be living spaces. If you look at our first nest, the only
substantial changes we made to it were building the wooden accent wall (costs
less than $200 to do), built out the back window, added lighting and some
furniture (we built the desks ourselves), and installed new doors. We learned
that bathrooms cannot be built inside the garage itself due to regulatory
concerns, so we had a nice one built in the backyard instead (it was quite
affordable too). I think that garages are a vast, untapped resource that sits
idly for many house owners, and this represents a great opportunity to
maximize it and earn space owners some money in the process.

(2) CreatorsNest will not be an Airbnb type of marketplace. Since art-making
is such an emotional, tailored endeavor, we want to be in direct control of
the user experience and build spaces that fit an inspirational aesthetic that
we want to maintain. If we open it up for anyone to list, the quality of these
spaces will be highly questionable, especially since empty garages do not
warrant a “creative space”. We are seeking each one out by submission
([http://creatorsnest.com/build-a-nest.html](http://creatorsnest.com/build-a-
nest.html)) or referrals/suggestions from users, and either signing a rental
agreement or using a revenue-sharing program for x number of months/years.
I’ve calculated that if each nest can bring in about 240-250 recurring users
with an average booking of 1.5 hours, then building that space would be
worthwhile. It won’t take a critical mass of folks to make money off of each
space.

(3) Great question. Our take on the space is for it to be used on an on-demand
basis, and not as a creative studio that you are using day-in and day-out.
Storage is a very craft-specific thing that a tailored studio would have to
provide, as there is no real one-size-fits-all mechanism for all artforms. If
you happen to be a painter that is using the space, the expectation is that
you are in an awesome environment to work on your project for a given length
of time, and to take that project back home with you after your reservation. I
can see this potentially changing as more nests are opened up and each one
becomes more specialized for certain artforms, but as of now, the spaces are
meant to be more temporal in nature.

(4) My target market are folks that have never joined a studio, value privacy,
but don’t know where to go when they want to escape the staleness of their
home. From speaking with users, I’ve found that there is an abundance of these
types of artists who can’t find an affordable solution to this problem. In Los
Angeles, artist co-working spaces are flourishing, but there are two chief
complaints: (1) they are over-crowded and often distracting, and (2) the
monthly membership model is expensive, and they end up not going as much as
they’d like to (a la gym membership). I think that in the process, we may end
up bringing over some people that are already using studios, but CreatorsNest
may have some limitations that they are not used to having (for example, the
issue of storage space). I believe that going the on-demand route makes
CreatorsNest a more accessible solution for the general, work-from-home
artist.

If you have any other things you're curious about, please feel free to shoot
them over!

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Geekette
The site notes that bathrooms aren't in the nest but on premise and renters
can use them. How will you address the fact that while many people may be open
to renting out an underused garage because it's somewhat detached from the
house, they don't want strangers in their homes (except when renting out whole
house)?

Are you paying for any/some of the house-owner's renovation costs or how will
you encourage them to remodel? Renovations are costly and the potential
revenue may not be high enough to entice an owner to redo their garage. Most
garages are bare by default.

What is the rental price point?

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LYeo
Small bathrooms will be built separately from the house itself. For example,
the first nest’s bathroom has been built in the backyard, and it was quite
affordable to do as well. Anything related to the nest will require no entry
to the house itself, as we want it to be a completely independent space.

When it comes to encouraging the home owner to repurpose their garage, a lot
of it will have to do with how our first nest does. If I assume a 50%
occupancy rate for our first nest which is open 12 hours a day (fairly
conservative in my opinion), that would yield over $120 of revenue per square
foot, which would more than pique people’s interest to do something with a
garage that’s just collecting dust. I also plan on splitting the costs of the
reservation with the home-owner (specific %s have not been figured out yet),
and also sharing the revenue with them as well. The cost of renovating a
garage is actually not as high as you would think because it’s not a
functional living space (for example, the cement floor of a garage can be left
as is); I predict the average cost of a renovation would be < $8k.

The current price point is at $20-25 hour for the space, which would make it
the most affordable, private creative space you can currently find in Los
Angeles (that is also inspiring and beautiful as well!).

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qopp
Do you plan to mostly focus on urban centers?

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LYeo
The plan is to first focus on metropolitan areas, primarily in Los Angeles,
where many artists and creatives tend to cluster. However, since we are
focusing on residential garages as the physical venues to repurpose, we would
be able to service different parts of the city quite effectively (since
underutilized garages are fairly abundant wherever you go).

