Small Business Labs

Maker Faire and Small Business

Maker Faire is one of the most interesting and unique events around.  Put on by Make Magazine, the event is described on their website as a "two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset. It’s for creative, resourceful people of all ages and backgrounds who like to tinker and love to make things."

An estimated 60,000 people showed up this weekend to attend the show and see the 600 exhibits -everything from a giant replica of the old mousetrap game that covered hundreds of square feet, to life sized mechanical dinosaurs, to robotic model warships, to light emitting jewelry.  The big, outdoor exhibits (like the mousetrap game) get most of the attention.  But the halls are filled with lots of interesting crafts, toys and electronics. 

While the purpose of the event is to celebrate people building things on their own, this is also a business show.  I talked to dozens of "makers" who sell their creations and many others that hope to turn their Maker Faire projects into a business.  There were also lots of companies exhibiting who sell tools and supplies to the makers.  While some big corporations were there, most were small businesses. 

In our research we've seen many small businesses that started as hobbies.  The progression often goes from hobby to part-time small business, to personal business, to small business.  Usually the driver to start a part-time business is either someone asks to buy a product, or the hobbyist wants to fund the cost of hobby supplies.  We heard both stories many times this weekend at Maker Faire.

The DIY movement continues to grow.  So does the related craft movement and the related consumer movement we call the emerging buy local coalition.  These combination of these trends is creating new opportunities for small and personal businesses.   

The NY Times on the Growing Craft Market

Long article (seven pages) in the New York Times covering the online craft marketplace Etsy and the broader movement towards handmade crafts.  The article looks at crafting mostly from the point of view of the craftsmen - actually the vast majority are craftswomen - and nicely captures many of the reasons people are starting small and personal craft businesses.  Values play a role, but it is more than values.  Key quote:

"Meanwhile there is also the more salient matter of how to make a rewarding, meaningful and satisfying living without having to give up on those ideals. The women who have led the craft movement don’t want to work for the Man. But many are also motivated by having reached adulthood at a time when the Man is slashing benefits, reneging on pensions, laying people off and, if hiring, is looking for customer-service reps and baristas. This is not a utopian alt-youth framework; it’s a very real-world, alt-grown-up framework."

The article also does a nice job of explaining the importance of the Internet to the growth of this business.  It also has updated numbers on Etsy's business - over 70,000 sellers and more than $4 million in sales in November alone. 

The rapidly growing craft market reflects the convergence of multiple trends.  Consumers are increasingly looking to buy local and/or handmade items (see our prior posts The Emerging Buy Local Coalition and The Handmade Consortium and Mass Customization).  Craftsmen and women are increasingly looking to - or needing to - start small and personal businesses.  They are starting these businesses to satisfy their artistic interests, create an income stream, and often to work in a manner than reflects their values (for more on this see our forecast report "The Changing Face of Entrepreneurs).  Key quote on this from the article:

".... Making a living from what they love to do. It’s a goal that reconciles ideology and self-branding, not so much to change the world as to stake out a place in it."

The third converging trend is technology.  As discussed in the article, the Internet allows these new artisans to reach buyers much more effectively than before.  The second technology driver is new production and manufacturing technologies and methods are making it much easier for craftspeople to build things.  We will cover this in more detail in our next forecast report. 

Converging trends is a clear sign of rapid growth and we expect this market to continue its strong growth over the next decade. 

DIY Science

More and more people are becoming DIYers (do it yourself) and often these folks extend their DIY capabilities and hobbies into small businesses.  The DIY trend is also hitting science.  Popular Science recently named Harvard astronomer Gaspar Bakos one of their 10 most brilliant young scientists for 2007.

Six years ago Bakos and three amateur astronomers built a small network of robotic telescopes.  The first one cost under $1,000 and used it find a planet revovling around a distant star.  Since then the network has been expanded to 6 telescopes  and they have found 8 new planets.  The total cost for this network is less than $50,000.  NASA's new PlanetQuest observatory is expected to cost $1.8 billion.  It will be interesting to see which is more effective at finding new planets.

The same trends that are driving DIY - cheaper computing, the Internet, etc. - are driving DIY science.  It will be interesting to see if small science has as big an impact on big science as small business is having on big business.

Maker Faire, Small Business and the DIY Economy

The 2nd annual Maker Faire show was last weekend in San Mateo, California (south of SF).  Maker Faire - billed as the "Woodstock for Inventors" - is the brain child of Make Magazine, which has extensive coverage of the show.  The San Francisco Chronicle's blog also has good show coverage.

Maker Faire is a geek, hacker, tuner and do-it-yourself (DIY) version of a crafts fair.  It is sort of a collision of  computer geeks and Popular Mechanics, with a wide range of DIY inventions, gadgets and hacks on display.  One of my favorites is the Power Tool Drag Races, which although hard to picture is exactly like to sounds (CNET article with video).  The show has hundreds of exhibtors and thousands of visitors - and  yes it could only happen in California. 

From a future of small business perspective, the most interesting thing to me about Maker Faire is how sophisticated the inventions and products are.  Individuals and small groups of individuals are inventing and making devices and products that would have required corporate resouces in the past.  While most of the Faire's exhibits fall in the hobbyist category, a lot of the products/inventions at Maker Faire are or will become commercial products.

Maker Faire shows how much easier it has become for individuals and small businesses to produce relatively sophisticated products.  It also is a great example of the growing DIY movement.  The trends that are driving the DIY movement are also contributing to the growth of small and personal businesses, and the broader trend of global economic decentralization.