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So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

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Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#231

Post by wdr1 »

bsenftner wrote: post #189

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…

Someone else has already said it, but location.

I live in Santa Monica and would love a space like yours. But going between the westside & downtown -- particularly during rush hour -- just isn't reasonable for a regular thing. It'll take easily 1hr+.

I had hope the Expo line would help, and while it does a bit, its current speed still makes it a long journey, timewise.

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#232

Post by newnewpdro »

kakarot wrote: post #227
chippy wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the landlord didn't get charged, the people who leased the building from him did.

If someone leases a building to me, and I turn around and let you live there under certain conditions, who is your landlord-- my landlord, or me?

Landlord generally implies (owner && lessor), not just lessor, AFAIK.

I think you guys are just talking past eachother due to a disparity of definitions, and otherwise are actually in agreement.

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#233

Post by [deleted] »

bsenftner wrote: post #189

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…

[deleted]

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#234

Post by fit2rule »

bsenftner wrote: post #201
zeure wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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...)

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#235

Post by masonic »

itchyouch wrote: post #214
winkelwagen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understood is that not every Starbucks needs to be profitable. Some are insanely profitable, while others are just branding and marketing places that sell coffee. Of course there is a difference between not being profitable and bulking up insane losses each day, I think that is something Starbucks does well.

They keep them going as long as they are profitable. They track a metric called “store contribution” which is the profit sent to corporate after all the store expenses. The highest volume stores are grossing about 40+k/week with contributions in the realm of 500-700k/yr from one example I know of. Moderate stores are doing around 25k/week. Stores below 10-15k/week tend to be at risk of shutting down or having the loc…

Two SV locations that I used regularly (Alma Village in Palo Alto, Hacienda center in Sunnyvale) have closed this year alone.

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#236

Post by masonic »

UncleEntity wrote: post #164
winkelwagen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understood is that not every Starbucks needs to be profitable. Some are insanely profitable, while others are just branding and marketing places that sell coffee. Of course there is a difference between not being profitable and bulking up insane losses each day, I think that is something Starbucks does well.

I've always wondered about this, there are 15 Starbucks within a 2 mile radius of where I live (just looked on google maps) and for some reason they don't seem to cannibalize each others sales enough for them to not keep building new stores, at least 3 of them have gone up within the last year or so.

Even 17+ years ago, there were downtown intersections in both Seattle and Vancouver that had two Starbucks each on opposite corners.

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#237

Post by oikos »

projectileboy wrote: post #106
oikos wrote: post #84

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 vo…

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”.

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.

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#238

Post by 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.

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#239

Post by SyneRyder »

jhbadger wrote: post #228
SyneRyder wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol :) I am a huge fan of Gloria Jeans (especially their Mudslide Mocha), but it isn't them. Gloria Jeans run on a franchise model & earn their money from selling franchising rights, collecting franchise fees, advertising fees & requiring franchisees to purchase coffee beans etc from approved suppliers that in some cases are owned by the umbrella company. I understand they're considering a shift to a company-owned st…

Gloria Jeans actually started in America (in a Chicago suburb in 1979) and were common in Illinois and Wisconsin in the early 1980s. They've pretty much died out here -- interesting to learn that they had a second life in Australia.

The Australian owner took it international, Gloria Jeans are apparently in 55 countries now. It was interesting to search for Gloria Jeans on Twitter and find most of the tweets were from places like Pakistan, Malaysia, Oman, Singapore & Fiji.

I'm particularly excited that Gloria Jeans is launching 40 stores in Germany soon [1], and also 13 stores in the UK next year [2].

(We don't have Starbucks in my city and I loved Gloria Jeans so much that I bought shares in the parent company, that's why I'm so interested in information about coffee shops & competitors. So far it's been the worst share investment I made though, the shares have crashed 90%!)

[1] https://www.insideretail.com.au/news/gloria-jeans-to-open-40...

[2] http://www.rfg.com.au/2018/05/22/gloria-jeans-coffees-open-f...

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#240

Post by AnonymousPlanet »

woah wrote: post #212
lostlogin wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, purchasin…

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…

I was staying in a city in Germany's north west lately. There's a large old market place with plenty of cafés. All very busy except one: Starbucks. When you've been used to the kind of coffee that was brought in by Italian guest workers, Starbucks is a pretty mediocre experience.

On the other hand, Starbucks keeps spreading to smaller cities. So they seem popular with someone at least.

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