
Bankrupt Maker Faire revives, reduced to Make Community - sohkamyung
https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/10/maker-faire-now-make-community/
======
brianpgordon
It seems kind of strange to me that he's running it as a for-profit private
company but is asking for the support of the community to fund it. There's got
to be a better structure for this kind of enterprise, right? And the
explanation for why nonprofit doesn't work (“The one thing i don’t like about
non-profit is that you end up working for the source you got the money from.
You dance to their tune to get their funding”) doesn't really make sense. If
he's taking someone else's money then yeah there's going to be some amount of
dancing, but that applies to funding for-profits as well. Unless, I guess, you
can convince a community to give your for-profit company funding in exchange
for nothing with no strings attached, which seems - again - strange...

~~~
wpietri
> dance to their tune to get their funding”) doesn't really make sense

It makes perfect sense to me, having worked for a couple of non-profits. A
regular business gets money by selling products to people. A nonprofit gets
money by selling good feelings to rich people.

Often, one of those good feelings a rich person buys is a sense of control.
They don't just give you money and say go; they give you money for a very
specific purpose. Often, to get that money you have to apply for grants,
meaning that you must conform to their desires up front, write a big project
plan, and the follow that plan closely to receive the money. It's very much a
waterfall approach to things, which can cause a lot of waste, and can be very
distracting for people who want to focus on the non-profit mission. You also
of course need a whole apparatus to find and flatter those rich people, which
isn't free.

Basically non-profits sound like a better vehicle in theory than they are in
practice for many purposes. And they don't guarantee fiscal probity from the
community's perspective. A non-profit exec can still pay themselves millions
of dollars [1].

For what it's worth, I am happy to help out community-oriented for-profit
businesses. E.g., San Francisco's Borderlands Books, which is community-
sponsored [1]. I give them $100/year just because I want them to keep
existing, and bookstores in SF aren't really viable businesses anymore.

[1] [https://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-
at...](https://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-at-
nonprofits)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/25/borderlands-
bo...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/25/borderlands-books-san-
francisco-sponsorships-crowdfunding)

~~~
benj111
You seem to be describing a (for profit) relationship between a small to
medium size IT vendor and a large blue chip, and the internal decision making
process of a blue chip as well.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
No, it's more like the relationship between a small store that adds value to a
community in ways that don't appear in GAAP calculations, and a corporation
that extracts value from communities in ways that ditto.

It's going to take a while for it to become clear if this new venture is the
first or the second type.

Obviously everyone is hoping for the former.

------
Animats
The maker movement appears to be dead. At least in the SF peninsula.

TechShop went bankrupt. Its successor, "TheShop.build", closed their SF
location, and briefly, the San Jose location had an eviction notice on the
door. The noprofit, Maker Nexus, has pivoted to being mostly an educational
operation for middle and high schoolers. HumanMade opens in SF Saturday, but
that's more of a job training center.

Nobody seems to be able to make the "gym model" maker space go here.

Demand is down, too. Steampunk is dead. Etsy now allows outsourcing
production. There's too much Burning Man stuff already built. Google,
Facebook, and Stanford all have in-house maker spaces now.

~~~
codesushi42
The failure of IoT and consumer 3D printers also helped kill the Maker
movement. Along with Pebble and countless other failed Kickstarter projects.

Hardware is hard. Best to stick with software based businesses.

~~~
skykooler
Pebble wasn't a failed Kickstarter project; it was a successful Kickstarter
project that was then bought up and killed off by Fitbit.

~~~
brlewis
"Pebble was losing money, with no profit in sight." \- discussion at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13161832](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13161832)

------
_hardwaregeek
Why isn't Make attached to a store that actually sells DIY kits and parts?
Seems like a clear business model to me. Or at the very least, better than
_print publishing_.

Now, they probably don't have the capital or wherewithal to start selling
electronics now, but a company like Adafruit or Sparkfun should take over the
Make mantle and just use it to put out good guides and drive kit sales.

~~~
roberte3
They have had a very solid store business at one point selling electronic
kits. (Pi's, Arduino, etc).

A few years ago the kits were even in every Barnes and Nobel ni the country at
Christmas. (And sadly most of them were in the clearance bin in January...)

------
deng
At least in Germany, the Maker Faires still seem to be doing fine. They are
done by Maker Media GmbH, which is part of Heise Publishing Group (they do the
c't and iX magazines). They don't publish numbers on how specifically Maker
Media is doing, but at least the Maker Faires seem to be doing OK since they
pretty much have record visitor numbers every year and are expanding (the one
I go to in Hannover will expand from 2 to 3 halls this year).

I guess the trick is to find the sweet spot in the exhibitors. You need to
have plenty of "real Makers", otherwise the Faire loses its spirit, but you
also need commercial exhibitors from which you can get "real" money. I
remember from last year in Hannover, the big commercial exhibitors were
Nintendo (who showcased their Labo stuff), Volkswagen, and Conrad Electronics
(big reseller here in Germany). Also, lots of food trucks outside. But all in
all, it was still acceptable in my book, and my kid loved it. So I think this
can well be done with profit, but I guess that being part of a big technical
publishing group also creates lots of synergy which saves cost.

~~~
zaarn
I think heise did publish a statement that Maker Media GmbH is doing fine and
that the Maker Faires will continue in the forseeable future.

Atleast in my parts, Conrad is a big sponsor of Maker stuff (they profit of
the parts, after all, especially makers that don't want to handle customs), so
they're fine in my book. From what I know from german makers on youtube and
IRL, the fair is pretty decent and well staffed with actual makers.

~~~
deng
> From what I know from german makers on youtube and IRL, the fair is pretty
> decent and well staffed with actual makers.

I can confirm. It has definitely gotten more commercial over the years, and I
also wish they would get rid of some stuff that plain weirds me out (don't get
me started on the BattleBot arena... also, some of the cosplayers...), but as
I said: all in all, it's still OK.

~~~
zaarn
Maker Cosplay? Do they dress up as MOSFETs?

~~~
michaelt
Some definitions of "maker" are pretty expansive, including things like
sewing, knitting, brewing, woodworking, jewellery making, upcycling,
sculpture, ham radio, bicycle repair, and suchlike.

If you use such a definition, a cosplayer who makes their own props and sews
their own costumes qualifies for sure.

~~~
dragontamer
Well, then comes this: [https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/07/look-at-this-spider-
man-co...](https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/07/look-at-this-spider-man-
cosplayers-mechanical-eyes/)

Some costumes require custom mechanical props. Spiderman's eyes in recent
movies have the mechanical-quirk. So reproducing that mechanism in real-life
is certainly a Cosplay + Maker thing.

There's a lot of Cosplayers using LED Lights for highly color-accurate
"glowing" effects (common for high-end Overwatch Cosplayers). Some cosplayers
are just sewing / stiching things (which is fine: that's still a skill), but
there are other cosplayers who are putting serious effort into their
electronic components of their costumes.

------
colechristensen
Where did all the money go?

It's a niche market but 80,000 subscribers and 100,000 attendees in San Mateo
alone should be able to keep the lights on.

~~~
mdorazio
If I remember correctly, they had a stupidly large permanent staff for what
they do, taking California-level salaries.

~~~
dougmwne
I interviewed there. Very cool office near the SF waterfront. Lots of staff.
Even 5 years ago, clearly unprofitable and relying on funding. I recall
thinking at the time that their executives smelled the blood in the water. I
sure did.

------
Killes
I think there is some definite educational and inspirational value to Maker
Fair and magazine. I guess that's more domain of non profits, but maybe some
philanthropic education funds could lend a hand for the more educational
aspects.

Of interest an exceptional example of educational community around "maker
stuff" funded by a great shop is
[https://www.adafruit.com/about](https://www.adafruit.com/about) , a lot of
excellent work there!

------
squarefoot
Sadly it's not the 70/80s anymore, most people don't give a damn about
building stuff when they wake up in the morning, you need special sfx or
something really spectacular to attract people, especially kids, who will shot
selfies and videos near the giant sized robot|working jet backpack|150Km/h
electric skate| etc. to climb their online social ladder. If you're smart you
can slip some cool device, development system, analog electronics kits etc.
under the radar and get a few of them to learn something when they get back
home, but you have to provide motivation; curiosity alone works only for a
small subset among us. So, why not partnering with schools and institutes?
Wouldn't be nice if they rent a lab to a school for technical lessons, then
assign tasks to teams and have say every 3 months the winning project
published on the magazine? That would create competition encouraging more
users/schools to join while boosting sales.

The gist is: you don't sell many Van de Graaf Generators (the device, not the
band:^) kits until you show what happens to the girl's hair when she touches
the electrode.

------
mlurp
I went to the maker faire in NYC a few years ago. There was lots of cool
stuff, but unfortunately about 60% of it were various slight mods/etc of 3d
printers. Lots weren't even special, just a brand promoting itself.

~~~
delfinom
O god yes. I went to the same NYC maker faires. It was completely absurd how
many were just 3d printers rehashed.

~~~
jasonwert
The magazine had gotten to be the same thing. 90%+ of it was reviews or little
blurbs about 3d printers.

------
KirinDave
To some extent, I think this is good. While the Maker Faire is iconic and I'd
like to preserve that at all cost, the actual org behind it is poorly managed
and inexplicably for-profit.

It makes me think that there is room for new non-profits focusing on what
people actually wanna do in the various venues as opposed to be a generalist
system. I hope someone will compete in this fashion.

------
musicale
Make: magazine seems like it should be as viable as any magazine (which means:
maybe or maybe not?)

Maker Faire will probably be better if it's primarily run by volunteers and
has fewer corporate sponsors.

------
ineedasername
I was an early subscriber, but it seemed like the magic of the early issues
really faded after the first two years or so. I hope they can recapture a bit
of that.

------
deboflo
The first time I saw the Tesla Model S was at Maker Faire in May 2009. It
changed my life.

