
So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale - tarr11
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2018/04/so-you-want-to-open-a-small-press-bookstore-artist-run-space-a-cautionary-tale
======
bsenftner
I was a founder and operator of the Los Angeles free co-working space
DropLabs. We lasted for 3 years before closing out of lack of interest. We
never intended anything other than a free place for geeks to collect and work.
We had events in the evenings, which were fairly popular. Having multiple
partners with graduate business degrees, we chose not to incorporate, we just
rented a space and called it "Droplabs" (why invite the taxman?)

However, our location was near downtown, and the 20-something geeks were both
afraid of downtown and would rather pay $40-$60+ per day to have a chair in a
WeWork space in Hollywood or Santa Monica. It did not make sense, so I tried
spending a week at each of the more popular co-working spaces, and learned
they were not occupied by geeks or "real" startup people, but wealthy
20-somethings playing a startup game, dating one another, and with zero
serious intent other than wasting their parent's money.

I learned to be a success as a co-working space, one needed to create a
"dating safe play pit" for white wealthy 20-somethings. I have zero interest
in that.

~~~
zeure
Location is the most important thing in marketing a physical area.

~~~
bsenftner
We were located "next door" to The Brewery, the world largest freelance artist
community (35K freelance artists living and working in a former brewery
compound near downtown.) The artists used us far more than the geeks we were
tying to attract.

~~~
fit2rule
That location is pretty famous for having the worlds largest concentration of
artistic freeloaders. In fact, LA is a very difficult place to do these sorts
of things - every 6 months a new wave of drop-outs hits the scene to become
'the next new up and coming thang' .. so its not really a surprise.

If you want to run a successful hackrrspace in LA, you've got to find a way to
make the hackers contribute to the effort. One of the best ways to do this is
to have regular open-house events, promoting the contributing artists forward,
and thus demoting those who freeload. Form a real community around those who
contribute, and dissuade freeloaders.

(Disclaimer: ran a hackrrspace in LA for 10 years, had a hell of a lot of fun,
but also experienced immense frustration at just how some folks, who take so
much space and creative energy, contribute nevertheless so little...)

~~~
bsenftner
We were located inside the "Big Art Labs" compound, across the street from the
UPS headquarters (next door to The Brewery.) Our specific location was great
for not being attractive to the freeloading artists, because there were
similar artist intended spaces at Big Art Labs, and they got those
freeloaders.

Droplabs started as a web developers space centered around developers using
the Drupal CMS. But it soon diversified. I myself was working on my own
startup, a animation VFX tech startup. There were periods where the place was
packed, but over all not enough to justify the effort. We were not trying to
earn a profit, we were trying to create a tech creative community. Simple
enough, during the period of Droplabs, the economy overall was not there to
grant people that much free time or free income to be active in such a
community.

------
jaggederest
The economics of hobby businesses, like bookstores and coffee shops and art
galleries, are almost always such that you can either feed it the equivalent
of a full time salary, or work there every hour it's open yourself, because
the kind of business is one that other people want to do for free as a hobby.

This means that, unless you want to be a slave to your own business, you'd
better have $50k a year minimum passive income in a cheap town to "give" to
the business, plus $100k-$500k to set up the space, plus enough money to live
on for yourself, or it's not worth it.

And forget about ever making a profit, even if you do work there every hour
it's open.

~~~
chrisseaton
So how do coffee shops like Starbucks mange to support 20 working part time
plus a corporate headquarters and make a profit, from the same small store you
would operate as a hobby?

~~~
endomatrix
I have a friend who runs a brewery. They distribute a ridiculous amount of
their product into stores around the world and have won many awards, yet they
make very little margin from all that.

He told me they make an overwhelming amount of money off of the tasting room
attached to their physical brewery because the beer itself is effectively
water in terms of cost so they make profit by not having to pay any middle men
in the tasting room.

My suspicion is that in the coffee world, if you source and roast your own
beans and serve them direct in a venue you own you get a similar effect. I
think it must be essential to run the roastery yourself to make it work. That
work goes well beyond what is required to just open a cafe and serve someone
else’s coffee.

Starbucks has simply insane process automation, training, branding, marketing,
custom drink labs pushing out new flavors every two weeks, complete control of
their global supply chains.

It would be more accurate to ask: “How the F can anyone make any money when
Starbucks is on every other street corner and has the advantages of scale they
have.”

~~~
dragonwriter
> It would be more accurate to ask: “How the F can anyone make any money when
> Starbucks is on every other street corner and has the advantages of scale
> they have.”

Source and roast your own beans, don't overroast the beans, charge a premium
over Starbucks for not producing crap coffee from overroasted beans. Starbucks
does some impressive work with the candy flavors it adds to distract from
their coffee, but...

~~~
Terretta
Objections from sibling comments aside, roughly ‘everyone’ who has compared
coffees for taste feels Starbucks is ‘overroasted’.

Curious then why Starbucks doesn’t adjust.

Is it something in the scale manufacturing, such as, more margin for error in
the overroasted side, so taste will be the same signature burnt at every
Starbucks in the world?

Is it that their market is former fast food coffee drinkers used to bland
_and_ burnt drips from McDonalds who will try a Starbucks, find it so ‘robust’
(ahem) as to be obvious, and that’s the end of the experimentation?

There has to be a data driven reason.

~~~
lostlogin
> Curious then why Starbucks doesn’t adjust.

Poor quality beans and robusta are ‘hidden’ with a dark roast as the flavour
moves to bitter. This also lasts a long time and doesn’t go stale for ages. As
a general rule in coffee, light roasts have a variety of tastes and dark ones
are just bitter. This saves a lot of money. Low quality arabica beans are less
than half the price of good ones, and that’s for me, purchasing a few kg at a
time. Starbucks will be using a lot of low grade robusta and that stuff
cheaper again. Combine this with a brand which makes coffee where the dominant
flavour isn’t the coffee but the milk (if you can call miscellaneous juiced
nuts etc that) which is often flavoured. I don’t think the coffee will be
their primary cost in consumables, I’m guessing milk is. If you want to have a
play, get a heat gun and a kilo of beans. Have a play about with different
roast styles. It’s a slippery slope but it isn’t an expensive one.

Edit: Here is a link with a breakdown of Starbucks costs. Not sure how
accurate it is, but it puts the coffee as 16c per cup, and the milk at the
same. The cup itself is about 32c according to the article.
[http://coffeemakersusa.com/pricing-breakdown-cup-
coffee/](http://coffeemakersusa.com/pricing-breakdown-cup-coffee/)

~~~
woah
I find these Starbucks complaints interesting. They always have the character
of a warning about a hidden conspiracy. Kind of a "wake up, sheeple!" vibe.

Like, once a Starbucks drinker goes out and buys a heatgun to roast their own
beans they will discover the truth that has been hidden from them all along.

I always just assume that someone who drinks Starbucks regularly would be the
most aquainted with how it tastes and might not need someone to tell them.

~~~
twblalock
It's like what happens when whisky fans discover single malts and start
dissing Johnny Walker.

Making a consistent product year over year with inconsistent raw materials, in
high volume with wide distribution, and maintaining prices most people can
afford is very difficult.

Sure you can get better coffee if you spend time doing research and sourcing
beans and roasting equipment, but that doesn't mean there is no place for
Starbucks in the world.

------
clarkevans
The author talks about this as a charitable (501c3) vs for-profit endeavor. I
don't see any talk about using a cooperative structure. Cooperatives don't
need IRS approval, since they operate commercially; any profits (and there
won't be) are distributed proportionally to the users of the facility via
1099-DIV. Then, you run a membership drive to raise money. The membership then
is used to select the board. Anyway, there's lots of experience doing
cooperatives for stores like this. It is not easy, but starting a business of
any kind is not easy. If you can't do a membership drive that builds enough
grass-roots support and community buy-in, then don't do a cooperative. Here
are some additional resources:
[https://www.nasco.coop/](https://www.nasco.coop/)
[https://www.ncba.coop/](https://www.ncba.coop/)
[http://www.uwcc.wisc.edu/](http://www.uwcc.wisc.edu/)

~~~
someguydave
Wouldn’t the members each be legally liable for anything that goes wrong?

~~~
jrochkind1
It's a corporation. "limited liability" is part of the basic idea of a
corporation, right?

The _board_ will be individually liable for gross negligence or criminal
malfeasance, same as any corporate board. The members are no more liable than
shareholders in any other corporation, ie virtually none. (Beyond losing their
equity completely, of course).

~~~
someguydave
I thought you were specifying a partnership, not an LLC.

------
hguhghuff
True to a greater or lesser extent of all businesses that are about bringing
someone’s passion into the world rather than making money.

The arty passionate person five years later has an entirely new perspective on
every single aspect of their venture.

When someone asks me about starting a business, I say, “exactly why?”, “what
is is you really want from this, do you know?”. You’d be surprised st how few
people are really clear on what they actually want the outcomes to be in a
tangible way.

My advice is to create any business that makes money and do your passion as a
hobby.

There’s another thing.... people starting their first business generally don’t
understand the importance of cash flow. They don’t want to know, they’ve got
no reference point in their head to understand it. Nothing you can say will
bring them to understand the importance of cash flow. In a years time there
will be those who grasped it (might still be in business) anc those who didn’t
(out of business).

------
rwmj
Tim Harford covers this in one of his books - I think it was _The Undercover
Economist_. Almost all the money you pay for an expensive coffee at a coffee
shop goes to the landlord, and he explains the reasons why.

~~~
closeparen
Almost all of what you’re paying for by going to a coffee shop is the
diversion away from home / nice place to spend some time, so that makes sense.

------
chiefalchemist
I was the owner of a retail store from '90 to '00\. The ecomm version
overlapped from '97 to 2007. Given that experience, I read this thinking: This
person(s) was massively underprepared, as well as underfunded. They also
seemed to believe that all their options (in growing the biz) were too
difficult. Marketing was rarely mentioned.

I don't want to be negative but there are two life rules (not just biz) that
apply here:

\- If it were easy, everyone would be doing it

\- Making it look easy is very very hard.

Pardon me for stating the obvious ;)

~~~
wiz21c
I'd say their only problem was : underfunded. All others problems becomes much
more easy when you're funded (they say it in the article I think).

(and that's why, imho, if you have nobody to give (yep, "give") you the amount
of money you need, you'll never ever make it; that's a very unequal world...)

~~~
chiefalchemist
Yes. Ultimely, no funds === "failure." None the less, what I read was someone
expecting the process to be easier than a traditional job. If you have less
money then time + energy is your next best asset. Sucks. But that's the nature
of the beast.

I feel for this person(s). But they didn't do their homework. That is on them.

------
mamborambo
So much truth in this article. We closed down our hobby business, a dance
studio, after 10 years of trying to make it work, and finally come to the
realisation that we can do much more without the anchor weighing us down. The
truth is a passion startup often defies rational analysis, almost like why
people have children, it simply fills the part of them that fears regret.

~~~
wayanon
Can you explain that last bit please about having children? Is it that some
people are motivated to have kids to block out the opportunity to fail in
their own projects?

~~~
praptak
It's not about personal projects. It's just the fear that you will regret not
having children when you reach the age when it's no longer possible. It's a
shitty kind of motivation btw.

~~~
wayanon
So did I get it the wrong way round, people have kids so they don’t risk
failing in a business?

~~~
rpeden
No, praptak was saying that some people start a business because they fear
that if they don't, they'll look back on their life and regret that they
didn't start a business, and that this is similar to the way some people
decide to have children just because they fear that they'd regret not having
them.

~~~
praptak
Minor correction: I'm not the author of the original analogy. I just explained
it.

------
rbrbr
At halfway through the article it becomes clear that the writer has kids to
take care of and his own job. That’s what should have been in the title to
clarify the scope, and I would have saved the time reading this article. It’s
obviously a much different challenge with those factors present. Without kinds
and him/her taking care of the cafe instead it would have worked out likely. I
mean think of it, people who have a full time job and children usually have
little to no time for anything else.

~~~
jl6
Full time job and two kids here, and ain’t that the truth.

------
vincentpants
Could it have been that the author's business/community structure could have
affected its outcome? I found having a more horizontal do-ocracy, membership-
driven community model. I'm convinced that was essential to helping persist a
few orgs that I've participated in cofounding. This CCC document [1] really
drove that philosophy home for a few of us up here in Vancouver, BC. Highly
recommend the read!

That being said there is a lot of toxicity I've seen coming from other spaces.
Noisebridge on Mission St. is the first to come to mind. That being said it's
still around and kicking!

[1]
[https://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/attachments/100...](https://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/attachments/1003_Building%20a%20Hacker%20Space.pdf)

~~~
arkitaip
That CCC document deserves its own post!

------
jakobegger
All the successful small artist spaces that I know are different in two ways:

\- they are run by volunteers (no paid staff)

\- they have some sort of arrangement where they don't have to pay rent at
market rate

If you rent a space and hire someone to keep it open, you need a lot of money
coming in...

~~~
Asooka
Sounds like before you open an artist- (or hacker-) space, you should start a
real estate business, preferably with other people who want to make small
artist spaces.

------
olvo
They go to some lengths to dance around the issue. If you can't pay for the
space based on a sustainable amount of donations, or other recurring income,
you aren't running a space you are running a business and a lot of businesses
fail. There is at least half a century of complaints over gentrification to
that point.

~~~
coffeefirst
Right. The rent is the problem. You can find coffee shops/bookstores/wine
bars/libraries that will provide or rent out space for these events and it's
far less risky.

~~~
mcguire
I double-dog-dare you to find a library that will rent out space for that guy
who is welding a 27 foot tall phallus.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
My librarians, a tremendous open-minded free-thinking group, might have a
problem with the fire hazard but not the other part!

------
CPLX
This person created a startup business but kept their regular job and didn’t
go to work there all day. That really almost never works, it doesn’t matter if
it’s s booksstore or a car wash or a law firm. Bootstrapped new ventures are
incredibly fragile, and generally need at least one passionate founder working
on them full time.

------
newnewpdro
Interesting writeup, but the Ghost Ship is an extreme example of what goes
wrong - you couldn't make a place more of a fire hazard if you tried.

~~~
rwmj
The Wikipedia page is informative:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_warehouse_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_warehouse_fire)

As you say you could hardly make a more hazardous environment if you tried.
Wooden pallets _for stairs_?!

~~~
newnewpdro
I'm sure you can find interior photos pre-fire. If I were on a high-speed link
I'd find some to link here myself.

It was a grossly negligent situation. The whole place was brimming with wooden
crap mixed with electrical junk for lights and sound. Words can't do justice
to how much of a tinder box it was, the photos left me speechless when I
investigated back on the day of the fire.

------
keiferski
I’ve always thought that a remote tech job/lifestyle business is perfect for
opening an art gallery / niche bookstore. You don’t need to worry about paying
the bills, you have a private office / desk, and realistically you won’t get
more than a few visitors per hour, so you can focus on work.

~~~
roel_v
Let's say 'a few' is 3. How can you get any work done when you have to stop
every 20 mins (one someone else's schedule) and spend 3 mins making coffee &
small talk? This sounds like people saying 'I won't have to pay for child care
because I can work from home'. Uh, what? Either you're doing 'child care' or
you're 'working from home', but you can't do both (for children < 5), and
anyone who says they can, obviously has never done it.

~~~
keiferski
Most smaller art galleries get 5 visitors a day, tops. That industry revolves
around openings, events, and networking, not people walking in off the street.

~~~
roel_v
Then why bother at all opening during the day? Surely not for the $5 in
profit?

~~~
wayanon
Some galleries are only open at weekends or Fri-Sat or by appointment. They
need to have opening hours to show the world they’re a gallery and their
artists also want to feel they are having an actual exhibition.

------
late2part
[https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-
fisherma...](https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/)

"The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing
village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take
siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could
sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”"

------
oikos
Hi!

I love this kind of spaces. This is how I would advise to do it.
Art/literature - create high quality, high ROI product offering first. Hand
bound collectables for example. Low cost digital counterparts. Find niche
online first. Crowdfund, test. Have the publishing first. That's raising
capital. Profit/Non-Profit no real difference if you have income. Just don't
rely on grants and voluntary resources (economic volatility will hit these
first). Physical space: make it enchanting (design/brand/service/experience).
So that people would want to pop in regardless of products. High ROI food:
coffee, tea, pastry, nibbles, smoothies and such. Food=energy. Sell local
energy (economic volatility will hit this last). Innovate. Constantly change
the furniture, accessories - sell them. Both online and at the physical space.
Think of it as a curated space. Assess risks particular to the location/niche.
Have contingency. Have another contingency for risks that are unknown.

Anyone planning to open something like that - happy to give some more specific
free advise (tangible products/interior- service
design/branding/marketing/economics).

~~~
projectileboy
I agree with everything you just said, but with respect, you are exactly the
problem that the author was talking about. Lots of (probably great) ideas mean
absolutely nothing until you’ve signed your name on a lease and put your own
neck on the line. Until then, you’re just “the idea guy”.

~~~
oikos
Forget about the Ghost Ship tragedy. I'm offering more than ideas - what I've
done successfully since '92 - developing products / services etc. for my
clients. Point being here to avoid the pitfalls of cashflow issues beforehand
and working yourself to death and not enjoying what you've started. And yes,
once you have these problems it may be hard to convince anyone else to put
their name behind it. Operationally there's something to be said stakeholders
having "skin in the game". I like that Acequias idea.

------
biztos
These two bits of advice really spoke to me:

> Consider being a for-profit.

and

> If you’re going to have a public space, try to find a cheap place you can
> buy and own.

I have, for a few years now, really wanted to start an art gallery, or at
least something similar to an art gallery.

I've looked into the local equivalent of a nonprofit, and I've considered
renting a super cheap space and keeping irregular hours and bla bla bla.

But I keep coming back to the idea that I want to really be in charge, even
though I think it'll never make any money; and renting a loss-leader lifestyle
storefront is a great way to achieve untenable fragility and _poof_ it
disappears at your next personal downturn, taking a chunk of your net worth
with it.

I have no idea if I'll ever pull it off, but I'm increasingly attracted to the
idea of forming an LTD and _buying_ the cheapest space I can find... someday.
Maybe in ten years.

In the meantime I am considering trying to do a pop-up version, which might be
a stupid idea but would certainly be a learning experience and not have any
recurring costs. The pop-up idea is, I think, useful for any kind of creative
thing that doesn't require much equipment.

~~~
rkuykendall-com
What about offering to curate a local coffee shop or coworking space or
something? There's got to be some place that would not mind free art in
exchange for little labels or prices. I know this was very common in my home
town. Plus, the relationship could be kept loose, since you aren't exchanging
any money either way.

------
pontifier
If I knew then what I know now, would I ever have started a Makerspace?

I've been running a small space for the last 4 years, and it's lost a lot of
its magic for me. I used to have high hopes of inspiring others to create.
It's very rarely like that. Many times it's cleaning up others messes, or
fighting to grow with no resources.

Once in a while though, someone's eyes light up when they see the
possibilities in the waterjet or laser or 3D printer...

Sometimes it's worth it. Most times it's not.

------
raffael-vogler
> And because you aren’t independently wealthy and/or don’t have a spouse who
> makes six figures, you’re probably going to be non-profit.

I don't understand the logic behind this. Wouldn't not being independently
wealthy rather imply attempting to be for-profit?

~~~
mcguire
Artists spaces aren't well known for making a profit, and you cannot attract
donations as a for-profit.

------
l00sed
What if all the people in this thread just Kickstarterd something together?

------
xab9
Heavens, I thought the fire was an allegory or a worst case scenario. Looking
at the artsy enterior I feel an existential dread thinking about being trapped
in that place with flames around.

------
xtiansimon
(I love Poetry Magazine)

------
l0b0
A recent experience from a hackerspace showed me how incredibly thankless
people can be. After working really insanely hard to build an inclusive space
with loads of features, every little hobby revolutionary in the community just
shits all over the work and proclaims the people actually getting stuff done
should just stop and leave it to them.

Even if I had the time, money and expertise I would never do something like
that. These days you can't even ban assholes without everyone making like
you're the one with a problem. And even a single person with a grudge can make
you more problems than anyone can reasonably deal with while having a life.

~~~
specialist
Thank you for sharing your experience.

I've been chewing on an idea. Please bear with me.

A friend's MBA thesis (WIP) is on the _business model_ of evangelical
churches. How the players build their flock, manage the brand, shape the
culture, revenue, run their meetings, etc.

Kinda eye opening.

I'm even going to church again, a new one every few weeks. To gleen the
strategies and techniques that have been hiding in plain sight.

One of the volunteer orgs I work on (with?) is game. We've started making some
changes, just to see how it plays out.

If I could share one takeaway:

The Field of Dreams "Built it and they will come" strategy doesn't work.

Non-profits, communities, etc. need as much intent and effort as any other
startup to succeed.

~~~
tarr11
Gimlet did a Startup podcast series about this, they called it "Church
Planting"

[https://www.gimletmedia.com/startup/church-planting-1-the-
mo...](https://www.gimletmedia.com/startup/church-planting-1-the-movement)

~~~
specialist
This is terrific.

Of course there's a church planting industry, conference circuit.
[https://exponential.org](https://exponential.org)

My friend's thesis is descriptive, not prescriptive. I've been struggling to
harvest actionable advice. These resources will help. Just having the right
phrase ("church planting") helps.

Thank you.

------
throwaway487548
Every idealistic "business" based on assumptions and wishful thinking instead
of demand will inevitably fail. Demand and demand only is what makes any
business possible.

One has to be an exceptional, way above average artist _before_ making himself
a brand. Actually, a branding follows being exceptional.

------
jancsika
Why didn't you hire a grant writer?

------
coldtea
> _Then, a few months later, you wake up to the headline that 36 people died
> at Ghost Ship, an artist collective in Oakland, CA. When it’s all said and
> done, it won’t be the landlord, but the leaseholders, Derick Almena and Max
> Harris, who’ll be charged with manslaughter and face up to 39 years in
> prison._

That's a big problem right there (all the bureaucracy that has creeped up for
having a space or shop etc, a lot of it which didn't exist 30 and 50 years
ago). If the place is inspected regularly, and is as it should be (e.g. have
fire extinguishers, etc), NOBODY should be charged with anything unless they
did something (like throw gasoline at the crowd).

Shit happens. If adults burn in a building, it's a risk they should be willing
to take when stepping it, the owner is not some nanny to prevent all natural
and unnatural causes from ever becoming dangerous....

~~~
Symbiote
Rather than launching into an uninformed rant about bureaucracy, you should
read the background to the Ghost Ship fire.

The place hadn't been inspected for decades, and didn't have basics like a
fire alarm, multiple staircases, or a suitable electricity supply. People who
had warned the owner of problems had been ignored.

> Shit happens. If adults burn in a building, it's a risk they should be
> willing to take

Ridiculous — those adults aren't in a position to evaluate the risk. Are they
supposed each to check the fire alarm works before entering, or just ask to
see a certificate showing the building has been inspected recently? Can they
do a flammability test on the staircase?

And what about the 17 year old who died?

~~~
coldtea
> _Rather than launching into an uninformed rant about bureaucracy, you should
> read the background to the Ghost Ship fire._

Did you just want to restrict this to the Ghost Ship fire? I only used the
quote as a starting point, I don''t intend to talk about the Ghost Ship fire
and its particular circumstances.

I'm talking about the creeping codes and bureaucracy in general, and I've
already said that inspection is OK. Just not the piling of risks and
litigation to the people running the place for every little thing (that goes
beyond fire hazard etc, to stupid stuff like someone slipping on the wet floor
and suing).

> _Ridiculous — those adults aren 't in a position to evaluate the risk_

They wouldn't have to evaluate any of those things if the place had been
properly inspected (as I say in my comment).

If it's "not inspected in years", it's the state that should be put to blame,
not the owners.

