[Noisebridge-discuss] New space?

Andy Isaacson adi at hexapodia.org
Thu Apr 2 02:56:46 UTC 2009


On Wed, Apr 01, 2009 at 07:30:42PM -0700, Jonathan Foote wrote:
> Hey, for folks who couldn't make the meeting last night, can someone
> summarize what happened, specifically regarding a new space?

At the meeting 2009-03-31 we discussed the possibility of renting
additional space at 83 Wiese.  Currently 83A is available.  We would
prefer to expand into 83D but the tenant there is still present.

Our most excellent treasurer, Mitch, pointed out that we have
approximately $9k in the bank after paying April rent (but before the
rest of our April expenses).  This is approximately 3 months of
operating expenses at our current run rate, which meets his minimum
comfort level.  If we double our space it will approximately double our
rent, electricity, and cleaning, but won't affect our other expenses
much (Internet primarily).  So we estimate that we'd need about $15k in
the bank for Mitch to be comfortable increasing our burn rate.

Several people took this as an opportunity for an impromptu fund drive,
and offered to make lump sum donations to meet this $15k goal.  I
believe we came very close, the last number I heard was $5400 in
commitments leaving us around $600 short.

As a result of this fundraising Jake and I are contacting the landlord
to explore our options.  The options under consideration include

 * discounted rent due to economic conditions
 * free months of rent
 * coterminating leases at 83C and 83A (either 6mo or 12mo from now)
 * offering to move the tenants currently in 83D to 83A so that we can
   have contiguous space

We could also move to another space elsewhere than 83 Wiese, but for the
moment expanding at 83 seems like our best bet.  (We do have a lease on
83C running through September 2009 and given that the landlord has an
open unit she's probably not going to be very happy to agree to break
the lease -- and getting taken to small claims court for breaking the
lease is neither excellent nor fun.)

Finally, can we actually afford another $2500/mo in burn rate?  Assume
that we start paying $2500 extra in April 2009 and we do not increase
our income at all (so we continue to take in $3000/mo as we did in
February and March).  Then we'll burn through our $15k nest egg in 6
months.

In order for this to work, we need to raise our input by $2500/mo before
that line hits 0.  The sooner we can start getting more income, the
slower we burn through the nest egg.  To that end, we signed up 8 (!)
new members last night.  There are 20 (!) prospective new members in our
Membership Binder.  Depending on the mix of Starving to Employed
hackers, that's an additional $640 to $2240 per month, so call it $1200
round numbers -- not all of those 20 will materialize.

So on top of those, we need another 20-odd members to break even.  At
these rates, that doesn't seem unlikely.  Remember, it was only 6 months
ago that we *rented* 83C, and look where we are now.

-andy



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