Talk:Business Plan

NEEDS

I've got a lot of the 'poetry' written, though feel free to go through and make edits you feel necessary. What we need comes down to some hard research and brainstorming.

INDUSTRY - need numbers, overall trends, specifically what and who are the players in this DIY market

• make subscriptions over last several years
• makerfaire attendence over last several years, number of maker faires held
• defcon / ccck attendence over last years--are we really hackers though?
• diy tv? like bob vila? what else?
• art?
• music?
• vocational schools? like evit?
• sparkfun, adafruit, etc? growth?
• other hackerspaces growth?
• Lowes, Ace, Home Depot, Harbor Freight?
• ?

TARGET MARKET - need numbers, specifically who and how many are the DIYers we are targeting

• engineers (ieee) who need to work on their prototype -- Took a week to get this: 14,194 IEEE members in the PHX Section
• high schools within x miles who don't have shop programs
• colleges disenfranchised
• home tinkerer/hobbyist
• FRC participants
• ?

MARKETING PLAN-how do we reach our previously established market

• presentations at high schools and colleges - free
• magazines - make, craft, nuts and volts, circuit cellar, machinist magazines? How much?
• flyers and costumes for art walks?-how much?
• google adwords? how much?
• ?

Industry Brainstorming

Techshop Just opened San Fran and" New York, Detroit and San Jose, California locations are coming soon, the company says." stopping the franchise model, Re opening the Portland franchise and taking over the north carolina franchise:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/03/techshop-san-francisco-video/
http://blog.oregonlive.com/siliconforest/2010/04/techshop_portland_goes_chapter.html
http://techshop.ws/ts_sanjose.html
http://techshop.ws/ts_detroit.html

Sparkfun

• 1,000,000 widget! 3/14 http://www.sparkfun.com/news/566
• over 10+ million in revenue

Adafruit

• Over 1+ million in revenue

BeagleBoard

• over 1 million in revenue

Arduino

• over 150K sold
• over 1 million in revenue

LiquidWare

• over 1+ million in revenue

Makerbot

• over 1 million in revenue

Makershed

• over 1+ million in revenue

Parallax

• Over 1+ million in revenue

http://www.slideshare.net/adafruit/open-source-hardware-foo-camp-east-2010-3995472

Make Magazine

• January 2005 first issue 60,000 first year http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/12/opinion/12sun3.html?_r=1
• Guaranteed paid circulation: 125,000
• Total readership: 250,000
• Distribution: 300,000
• http://makezine.com/advertise/

Makerfaire

• 2006 San Mateo 22,000
• 2007 Bay Area 45,000, Austin TX
• 2008 San Mateo 65,000 people, Austin Tx
• 2009 Bay Area 78,000, New York, Detroit, UK Newcastle upon Tyne, Rhode island
• 2010 North Carolina, Detroit, New York, Bay Area attendance estimated 160,000 http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmakezine.com%2Fimages%2Fadvertise%2FSellSheets2010-MakerFaire.pdf&rct=j&q=makerfaire%20attendence&ei=Imd-TYf0CY71rAHYvqDmBQ&usg=AFQjCNE3GyvCtALBIJmC5XKHvP7MVizmUg&sig2=CExASrwXBGq6hOqMM9HxGw&cad=rja
• 2011 UK, San Mateo, North Carolina, Vancouver, Detroit, New York

Defcon

• 10,000 people attended DEF CON 18

Chaos Communication Congress

• 2,500 and 3,500 participants at Chaos Communication Congress each year.
• Every year there is a hackerspace get together.

Hackerspaces

• Hackerspaces by the numbers--Interesting if not academic and slightly messy

http://extreme.ajatukseni.net/2010/07/19/hackerspaces-members-and-involvement-survey-study/

Marketing Plan Brainstorming

• Presentations at high schools and colleges, for students target parent and teacher, leave materials behind, presentations at supply places like Tempe Yarn, hobby shops, more?, bring other DIY groups in (geek girls, valley metal) and have one of their meetings here
• Magazines/blogs - Makers - make zine and blog, EE's --nuts and volts, circuit cellar, Machinists--machinist magazines (SAE mag, Invention & Technology Mag and SciAM), Crafters- ravelry, craft blog, other crafting magazines blogs?, Music - Matrix Synth http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/ Synth-DIY http://www.synthdiy.com/?
• Flyers and costumes for art walks?-how much?
• Google adwords? which and for how much?
• Sponsorships - for students and makers, for FRC teams, Makersfaire trips, other projects

Castoffs

Still like this stuff even though it doesn't fit currently:

• We reject cubicles, offices, partitions, and silos.
• We are a community workshop which promotes Do-It-Yourself science and education and prides ourselves on application -in addition- to theory.