Apply HN: CreatorsNest – On-Demand, Private Workspaces for Artists and Creatives | Hacker News Reader

Apply HN: CreatorsNest – On-Demand, Private Workspaces for Artists and Creatives

5 pointsLYeo6 comments

CreatorsNest (CreatorsNest.com) is a network of private, affordable creative workspaces that are accessible on-demand. Each space, or “nest”, is developed by repurposing residential garages and transforming them into beautiful and inspirational spaces for artists and creatives to use for a variety of purposes. The goal here is to fundamentally change the way artists work by providing affordable space for creatives, and to disrupt the > $5 bn creative studios industry that capitalizes on artists' need for privacy.

P.S. The first nest was recently opened in Los Angeles. You can view it here: http://creatorsnest.com/the-nests.html

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1) Love the idea of repurposing residential garages, but are these spaces as available (with all the criteria for your needs, like bathroom access) / convertable as you think they'll be?

2) Is the plan for home owners to clear their space, renovate it in the hope you'll accept it, then list their space in an AirBnB-type model? Or is someone on your team seeking them out, signing a long-term rental agreement, and converting them yourselves? With a cut to the homeowner, cost of renovations, cost of cleaning after every use, cost of supplies & refills, how much utilization do you need for a space to cover setup costs and then maintain a profit?

3) Beyond the community, a lot of artists who use creative studios do so because they're working on projects that won't get completed within a day or two. How do you address needs for storage of things like wet paintings, clay sculpture, large print templates, etc.? Right now your booking system doesn't seem to support needs like "3 hours today, 3 hours tomorrow, 3 hours after the weekend" without multiple bookings / risking getting out-booked and kept away from stored items.

4) Do you see your target market being more artists currently in a studio (or that have used them in the past), or artists that have never yet joined one (primarily worked from home)?

Hey Jay, thanks for your insightful questions:

(1) I chose residential garages for two reasons: (a) they represent a strong differentiator, and (b) their abundance and flexibility when repurposing the space. I do have certain criteria when it comes to location, but generally speaking, garage spaces are simpler to design and repurpose because they aren't meant to be living spaces. If you look at our first nest, the only substantial changes we made to it were building the wooden accent wall (costs less than $200 to do), built out the back window, added lighting and some furniture (we built the desks ourselves), and installed new doors. We learned that bathrooms cannot be built inside the garage itself due to regulatory concerns, so we had a nice one built in the backyard instead (it was quite affordable too). I think that garages are a vast, untapped resource that sits idly for many house owners, and this represents a great opportunity to maximize it and earn space owners some money in the process.

(2) CreatorsNest will not be an Airbnb type of marketplace. Since art-making is such an emotional, tailored endeavor, we want to be in direct control of the user experience and build spaces that fit an inspirational aesthetic that we want to maintain. If we open it up for anyone to list, the quality of these spaces will be highly questionable, especially since empty garages do not warrant a “creative space”. We are seeking each one out by submission (http://creatorsnest.com/build-a-nest.html) or referrals/suggestions from users, and either signing a rental agreement or using a revenue-sharing program for x number of months/years. I’ve calculated that if each nest can bring in about 240-250 recurring users with an average booking of 1.5 hours, then building that space would be worthwhile. It won’t take a critical mass of folks to make money off of each space.

(3) Great question. Our take on the space is for it to be used on an on-demand basis, and not as a creative studio that you are using day-in and day-out. Storage is a very craft-specific thing that a tailored studio would have to provide, as there is no real one-size-fits-all mechanism for all artforms. If you happen to be a painter that is using the space, the expectation is that you are in an awesome environment to work on your project for a given length of time, and to take that project back home with you after your reservation. I can see this potentially changing as more nests are opened up and each one becomes more specialized for certain artforms, but as of now, the spaces are meant to be more temporal in nature.

(4) My target market are folks that have never joined a studio, value privacy, but don’t know where to go when they want to escape the staleness of their home. From speaking with users, I’ve found that there is an abundance of these types of artists who can’t find an affordable solution to this problem. In Los Angeles, artist co-working spaces are flourishing, but there are two chief complaints: (1) they are over-crowded and often distracting, and (2) the monthly membership model is expensive, and they end up not going as much as they’d like to (a la gym membership). I think that in the process, we may end up bringing over some people that are already using studios, but CreatorsNest may have some limitations that they are not used to having (for example, the issue of storage space). I believe that going the on-demand route makes CreatorsNest a more accessible solution for the general, work-from-home artist.

If you have any other things you're curious about, please feel free to shoot them over!

The site notes that bathrooms aren't in the nest but on premise and renters can use them. How will you address the fact that while many people may be open to renting out an underused garage because it's somewhat detached from the house, they don't want strangers in their homes (except when renting out whole house)?

Are you paying for any/some of the house-owner's renovation costs or how will you encourage them to remodel? Renovations are costly and the potential revenue may not be high enough to entice an owner to redo their garage. Most garages are bare by default.

What is the rental price point?

Small bathrooms will be built separately from the house itself. For example, the first nest’s bathroom has been built in the backyard, and it was quite affordable to do as well. Anything related to the nest will require no entry to the house itself, as we want it to be a completely independent space.

When it comes to encouraging the home owner to repurpose their garage, a lot of it will have to do with how our first nest does. If I assume a 50% occupancy rate for our first nest which is open 12 hours a day (fairly conservative in my opinion), that would yield over $120 of revenue per square foot, which would more than pique people’s interest to do something with a garage that’s just collecting dust. I also plan on splitting the costs of the reservation with the home-owner (specific %s have not been figured out yet), and also sharing the revenue with them as well. The cost of renovating a garage is actually not as high as you would think because it’s not a functional living space (for example, the cement floor of a garage can be left as is); I predict the average cost of a renovation would be < $8k.

The current price point is at $20-25 hour for the space, which would make it the most affordable, private creative space you can currently find in Los Angeles (that is also inspiring and beautiful as well!).

Do you plan to mostly focus on urban centers?

The plan is to first focus on metropolitan areas, primarily in Los Angeles, where many artists and creatives tend to cluster. However, since we are focusing on residential garages as the physical venues to repurpose, we would be able to service different parts of the city quite effectively (since underutilized garages are fairly abundant wherever you go).

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