I was at Hackerlab at the beginning in 2012 when it was still on I at 17th. The community has always been lovely and Gina is very sweet and passionate. One of the biggest reasons why I’ve seen it struggle is the fact that so many people wanted it to be/to do different things for them. Coworking, private offices, event space, but also a makerspace with metalworking, woodworking, laser cutting, electronics, and more. A robust system of classes took years to get off the ground. Nobody wanted to do anything that wasn’t pleasant or interesting, but this is exactly what is needed to keep a space up and running.<p>Coworking area was boring, but this comes with the territory. Private offices make the bulk of their revenue but also consumed the bulk of their space. This was not a community, however. Everyone did their work and left - which is fine, but this was the front-of-house thing that everyone saw and was not super impressive until you saw the back. The Coworking area did serve as a meetup space which was nice at least.<p>In the makerspace area, at the beginning, a ton of people brought their tools into the space and made their own little dens and nobody was really allowed to touch those tools. Early members often did not pay membership but monopolized so much space with their clutter and tools that were useless to anyone else. This was a huge drain on the ability to get up and running but nobody wanted to have the hard conversations with these “foundational” members. This created a lot of social debt that had to be repaid/reorganized that, quite frankly, held them back a tremendous amount. A few “members” that seemed to be there all the time but we never saw working or making things, were actually homeless people just sleeping on the couches after everyone left.<p>Also, HackerLab is a B-corp, but not a tax-exempt nonprofit. I firmly believe getting tax-exempt status under 501(c)(3) is the only way to run a successful community space as we can align the organization’s
mission with what makes communities great to be apart of.<p>I was part of a small group that splintered off in 2016 to form our own smaller makerspace focused on desktop fab. We suffered a similar fate in that everyone on the board/admin side of things were makers. We didn’t want to do stuff like fundraise, go after members, equipment, or organize periodic events. We still did fine but made the decision to cease operations when the stay at home order started.<p>Now, I’m involved with Shop Class on Stockton Blvd at 14th ave. The guy who started it is my across-the-street neighbor. I found out what he was doing and helped him get connected with some people who were interested in this sort of thing. I’ve helped him organize as a nonprofit org and we just found our education coordinator, operations manager (myself), an (interim) events coordinator, and a community manager, but we’re still looking for a treasurer/ accountant. I’m helping Chad do everything right here from what I’ve learned over the years. We are current getting funding to build out the facility and possibly purchase the building.