Moving beyond the Makerspace

While the broader startup community focuses on the next big thing, hundreds of
viable and valuable small businesses and products are falling through the cracks.
Good ideas and hard work used to result in a "thing". Back in the day, we used the
word widget to describe the product we would make with our hard work. It might
be a building, a service company, an article, or a home appliance.

In our digital/virtual world, many people confuse concept with actual thing. They conceptualize and market the idea but they don't do the work it takes to move a concept into the actual world. They choose instead to pitch their way to profit by selling the idea and not the thing. The result is that the world is filled with unrealized ideas. Ideas that sound great, but are just floating around, incomplete, because we lack the ability, the talent, and the drive to make it. Entrepreneurship is all about Shark Tank- where we have turned product development into a reality show. What's the bottom line? "Product means product," an idea is just an idea until you make it into a thing.

What we need are "makers" not just ideas and pitch people. The most valuable and sought after employees of the 21st century will be the makers. Makers who can think of the idea, conceptualize the path, and then make it happen.

The fact is, entrepreneurs aren’t always makers. In fact, my experience tells me that
many entrepreneurs aren’t even idea people. Accelerators are often talent contests
where the best “pitch” wins the prize. I have seen great business ideas thrown to the
wayside because the teams that developed them couldn’t impress the celebrity judges.

Innovation doesn’t just mean a 3D printed kidney or an app that raises your children for you. Real products solve real problems or, frankly they are just so cool that they sell themselves. The point is this, entrepreneurship is vital but small business is the backbone of the United States.

So let's talk about that heavy gorilla in the room. Even if the idea is great, can it be built? Even if it can be built, can it be manufactured? Even if it can be manufactured, can a startup product be manufactured at a startup scale?

Micromanufacturing is following in the path of computer technology. Computer Aided
Designs are digital and can be moved across the internet. Micromanufacturing facilities
are smaller, leaner, and more focused. Advanced manufacturing is faster and more
accessible and manufacturing personnel are smarter and multi-skilled. Manufacturing
staff, aka makers, have become the idea-drivers of the new economy.

The Maker Movement is the new artisan guild. We have accelerated to a period that is
reflective of the craftsman era that gave us William Morris and later Frank Lloyd Wright.
Makers don’t just run the tools, they create the designs, program the files, and develop
the businesses. In the “New Economy” the geeks and nerds and artists, in short, the
makers will be running the show.

If we are to develop these opportunities, we must develop a smarter workforce. We must
encourage smart, innovative young people to not only code and program, but learn to run
the tools of manufacturing. CNC (computer numerically controlled) tools are giant robots
that make. They carve, they cut, they weld and they have been doing this in industry for 50
years. I used my first 3D printer 25 years ago. The difference today is that these tools are
no longer the behemoths of industry. They are not only controlled by elite corporations
wealthy enough to own them. You don't need to be an engineer to design for them. 


These same tools are available in smaller more affordable format. From car size to desktop,
depending on the job, these tools are available and affordable. If you can design graphics
on a computer, you can design for these machines. The old days of “Be one of the boys, be part of the team, be a pro and get into manufacturing,” just doesn’t resonate with today’s generation. We can’t continue to sell manufacturing the way we did in the 1970s. We can't afford to continue to manufacture the way we did in the 1970's either. And we can't afford to give all of the start up funding to "The Pitch" squad.

The kids of today are a digitally connected, video game driven, and outspoken generation.
Millennials aren’t lazy, they’re smart. If you want to encourage a young person to work in
manufacturing, don’t convince them that operating a CNC machine is a good way to make
a living. Instead, take the time to show them what a CNC machine is-it’s a giant freaking robot!
They could be piloting a giant robot! Teach them that not only can they run it, but they can
design for it. Show them that these tools can create anything they can imagine. And not just
industrial tech, they can use them to make art! The finest welders I have ever known, (and yes I
was a professional welder), learned their craft in art school. The new manufacturing workforce is
more artist than grease monkey and it’s time we started treating them that way.

Okay, I started out bashing entrepreneurship and wound up talking about manufacturing, the maker movement, kids and art. What does one have to do with the other? Let's bring it back around, full circle.

The point is this: entrepreneurship is vital but small business is the backbone of the United States. The startup community needs to build businesses, it can't just stop at lean canvas. Millennials need jobs and us old folks need them to pay taxes.

Right now thousands of young artists, inventors, and maker-entrepreneurs are sitting on scalable products and patented inventions because they lack the skills, access to tools, small venture-capital, and a path to manufacturing at a startup scale. These young makers are passionate and driven and they are the key to our economic future. It's our job to see the potential in what they are building.