Business Plan

"Non-profit, as well as government agency business plans tend to focus on the "organizational mission" which is the basis for their governmental status or their non-profit, tax-exempt status, respectively." - Wikipedia

Idea

HeatSync Labs provides a collaborative workspace where engineers, entrepreneurs, students and tinkerers come together to imagine and build tomorrow’s innovations.

We break down barriers to innovation by providing equipment and facilities to people interested in programming, hardware hacking, physics, chemistry, mathematics, photography, security, robotics, and art.

We encourage hands-on development of exciting new creations, we host talks, workshops, and encourage knowledge exchange through collaborative development projects, and we stimulate learning by providing mentoring and cross-disciplinary educational opportunities.

Our vision is a world where we re-awaken our population and reinstate the knowledge of creation in opposition to our throw-away society. We aim to empower our population, delivering the confidence and skills to compete in a globalized economy.

Overview and Plan Objectives

• Market Need
• Our Product
• Goals

Experience and Capabilities

Principals (The Team)

• List the Board Members and Their Experience Levels - This was included and can be updated for our f1023

Partners, Community Partners

Who do we partner with for activities?:

• ASU
• Elementary Schools
• Gangplank
• etc.

Current Business Accomplishments

Workshops

Monthly we run a free to attend Arduino workshop where we train kids to adults how to program micro-controllers. Hundreds of people, from children to adults have attended our monthly meetings with the goal of empowering themselves with technology to solve their own problems. MORE HERE

Most recently we had been asked to create a workshop series on soldering and programing for UrbanStew another local nonprofit. Again, we wanted to instill the values of creation, having our attendees actually BUILD the computer they would eventually program. Demystifying these devices which are increasingly becoming ubiquitous.

Public Meetings

We have hosted over 24 free public educational events this year. Every 1st and 3rd Thursday we invite in a speaker to invigorate us, and them. From materials, to tools, to processes we want to empower our people with the knowledge they need to succeed. Topics have included:

• Astronomy
• PCB Layout and Design with Eagle Cad
• PCB Chemical Etching, Heat Transfer, with FeCl
• Haptic Interfaces
• Lock Picking
• Cube.ly 3D printer Design
• PaperCraft
• Thermoforming
• Near Space Project Balloon - Idaho Communications Payload
• High Speed Photography
• Haystack Project - Internet Search Anonymity Project
• Working with Acrylic
• Glass Working
• Rep Rap Made Easy - Open Source 3D Printer Design
• Tear Down Party(everyone brings a piece of electronics to tear down for parts in order to understand the underlying components)
• Lathing for fun and profit
• Electroluminescent Wire
• Monster Plush Party (Disassembling plush dolls and sewing them back together with electronics - Recycling Old Toys)
• Coffee Science and Arduino
• Arduino and VOIP - Dial-a-Lulz
• CAD/CAM Introduction
• Home Brewing

Weekly Events

We host weekly 3d printing meetup event where we foster the innovative field of personal manufacturing. These devices are finally realizing the promises of the Star Trek Replicator, creating 3d, multi material, objects before your eyes! Even more intersting is the idea of the machine creating the machine. This is the promise delivering Moore's Law for computer chips (exponential increase as the computer designs the next computer) to the mechanical realm!

Large Scale Projects

Write it as a story?

Outreach

Our 501c3 chartered mission is education, but its also our passion.

Throughout this past year we focused on education, not only internally, but externally. It was our joy to mentor our first First Lego League teams. Our kids, mostly 9r olds, worked throughout 2010 Body Forward Challenge, as the FLL put its to "explore the cutting-edge world of Biomedical Engineering to discover innovative ways to repair injuries, overcome genetic predispositions, and maximize the body's potential, with the intended purpose of leading happier and healthier lives." They learned computer programming and mechanical and biological engineering concepts culminating in a team presentation and robot competition. The goal, again here, was to empower them to solve THEIR OWN problems. Our technique was entirely discovery learning and the adults were only there to supervise and answer questions. It was the first year for our kids and they had amazing fun. In addition our mentor won best mentor for the season.

Recently we've waded into science education waters. We've been working with a local teacher to help develop, implement and fund science courseware. Our first two labs included an earthquake simulation for student built toothpick structures, and an examination of strawberry DNA.

August 28th was the culmination of several months of preparation. More than 40 people attended our near space balloon launch, from children to adults, to help us 'chase' down the landing. A team of XXX People planned and executed the development of a payload to survive a trip to ~75k feet into the upper atmosphere, and see it safely return. Anyone from the public was welcome to join the development team and learn the multidisciplinary fundamentals necessary to launch an object into nearspace!

A new team has formed around tackling issues related to solar power generation and storage. A rocket engineer, turbine engineer, electrical engineers, students and hobbyists are all working to adapt an MIT design for a solar collector. The goal is to leverage our location in the Arizona desert to further understand renewable energy problems and solutions.

Marketing Plan and Forecast

Market Research

Who is our population-this is all really old and can be radically changed The market for a technical work space would segment into engineers, artists, designers, students, overall creatives, and makers. The difficultly in this may be up front costs of the variation in tools necessary. For this reason it would be wise to first target the segment of these users most able and willing to pay. In my research, wood and metal working tools may be found without too much trouble as the tools are commoditized fairly well. Electrical design and simulation equipment, however, are pricey and can be difficult to locate. Finally, Phoenix has a nearly unique concentration of engineers. The target market should thus be engineers and technical people.

The IEEE Phoenix membership is 3,600 members. These members are professionals well into their careers and should have some income to be 'invested' in their future. We will want to sell them on setting out to peruse their dream rather than staying at the same job they may be dissatisfied with. Another interesting concept to be exploited is that engineers who use their companies equipment may find themselves mired in IP rights issues. The way to reach these users will be through their professional society and through professional publications including IEEE publications, Circuit Cellar, Nuts and Volts, Wired and possibly Linux publications.

Another good avenue will be trade shows and strategic partnerships. It may be possible to work with the big electronics vendors including Jameco, Digikey, and Newark to cross promote by being a local presence for these online companies.

A second target market segment would include up and coming engineers. Technical students are becoming more and more disenfranchised with the opportunities and equipment available to them in academia. There was a day many years ago where the only place you could find a 'computer' was in academia, but that time has passed. There may be as many as 300,000 college and technical school students in the phoenix metro area, with only maybe 5% with arts/ design/technical backgrounds, leading to 15,000 possible customers. These customers are going to be more eager to get their hands on professional equipment, but also more sensitive to price. It will be important to stress the experience and connections membership in our elite organization can bring them, connections to local jobs and internships, as well as a start upon the career of an entrepreneur. TechCrunch and other online sites have fetishized the startup lifestyle and it will be important to capitalize on this. Outreach to students should be done on campus. Poster advertising is free, and student ambassadors would be cheap to hire. Another method of reaching these users could be through ad-vertainment in the form of speeches and presentations on campus. Student groups will be another excellent way of reaching the correct demographic. Groups including Linux Users Groups, On campus Engineering fraternities and societies, will be a valuable resource.

Competitive Analysis

Universities and Tech Schools

• MCC
• EVIT
• ASU
• U of A

Incubators

• Skysong's Hackspace

High schools pulling out of access to the tools of creation because of safety, budget cuts, etc.

Colleges continue to be silos. Inter-departmental bickering and inability to communicate leads to an institution will all the tools present which are necessary to succeed, yet frustratingly kept at arms length.

Build large buildings off campus, offer offices, more closed off spaces.

Putting on tech talks and having free food doesn't build a community, it simply attracts an audience that prefers to be fed.

• Techstars
• 500 Startups

Co-Working/Collaboration

• AZ Disruptors
• Gangplank
• Co-Hoots

Hackerspaces

It's a Global Phenomenon.

We're most like a traditional academic incubator model mixed with the newer coworking model. Entreprenuers and skilled tradespeople who don't wish to work in an office alone but would rather work side by side with the other brightest minds in the community in order to build their workspace in public More specifically, we are part of a larger maker/do-it-yourself culture exemplified by Make Magazine. There are spaces are popping up throughout the united states, and globally, all with different visions and goals, but all listing themselves at hackerspaces.org.

Locally we are most like our peer coworking/collaboration sister and landlord, Gangplank. Gangplank, much like us, intends to revolutionize education, community, and collaboration. Hardware and access to tools is on their agenda, but only superficially.

What makes us different from all these is our focus on infrastructure. It has become very vogue to open a space, provide wifi and try to build community around Bring-Your-Own-Computer concepts. These purposely dodge the challenges of infrastructure. Even our schools are pulling out of this area in frustration. We refuse to back down. The infrastructure is indeed the hard part, but it is also the difference. The infrastructure, the safety, training, liability, skills and experience to make these things open to the public are the key to bringing creation back to our throw away society.