Kyoto Makers Garage (by Makers Boot Camp)

The key user figures are the following:

• 25 hardware start-ups are followed by Makers Boot Camp,
• 300 to 400 people entered Kyoto Makers Garage so far,
• 20 regular members attended classes in the makerspace

If we focus on the makerspace’s users,

• 50% of them are students as it’s free for them to use the space
• The rest of it are makers (male professionals) and entrepreneurs.
• Kyoto Makers Garage targets at the end of the year 60 to 70 monthly members.

Most those makers enter the lab to get connections, access qualitative machines and have an office. Diversity if key here. Thereby, a user is currently working on a keyboard and another one develops a work-of-art for an exhibition in Kyoto.

As students use the space for free, some of them volunteer freely to help KMG team build the space: machine repair, creation of user manuals to use the machines, etc.

According to the makerspace team, Japan, and especially Kyoto, is still at the beginning of its “maker journey”. Even though the government tries to foster the start-up movement and partly funded Kyoto Makers Garage, “there’s not enough makerspaces”: machines are barely affordable and accessible. Moreover, the Japanese society is still very structured and strict: once graduated, you’re doomed to be a full-time employee in a large company. Being an entrepreneur, in other words “free-timer”, is full of obstacles to get a loan or even a credit card.

Part of Makers Boot Camp organization, Kyoto Makers Garage was financially supported by Kyoto City at 80% for 3 years and the CVC itself.

The main revenues of the makerspace come from:

• Events
• Membership: 45$ for one month • Use of tools and machines: 10$ an hour
• Rental of the space to companies such as Panasonic To develop their profit, they plan to focus on space rental and sponsorship of events.

Regarding the costs, 67% come from salaries and the rest from rent and electricity.

Regarding the revenue model of Makers Boot Camp, 10 to 20% come from consulting activities and 80 to 90% from venture funds.

To develop the Japanese entrepreneurship mind, Makina, the young CEO of MBC, targets in a close future to:

• raise more money to help further hardware start-ups (they target 17M€ of venture capital fund end of 2017 vs 5M€ today),
• grow their consultancy activity by developing collaborations between start-ups and large companies (40% vs 10-20% today),
• create a bigger makerspace for Kyoto Makers Garage,
• expand their model at the global scale,
• and create an entrepreneurship program for high school students.

13 full-time employees work full-time at Makers Boot Camp including 4 people fully dedicated to Kyoto Makers Garage: 1 lab manager, 1 makerspace officer, 1 operation officer and an intern in charge of community management.

Today, 3 weekly classes take place in the space to learn how to use the machines: laser cutter, 3D printer and CNC milling. Those training courses are compulsory for makers before getting started to use the machines. Moreover, 1-month course was organized this summer for high school students.

In a close future, Connor aims to organize:

• 3D printing monthly meet-ups
• And fun and educational hackathons

Monthly meet-ups are set up by MBC at the makerspace, called “Monozukuri Hub” open events. The intent is to enable makers, experts, entrepreneurs or investors from all industries to share experiences and knowledge about the latest trends in hardware start-ups.

The lab team communicates thanks to Slack, shares documents via Google documents and follows projects with Quip.

Outside of its walls, Kyoto Makers Garage developed several partnerships to foster collaborations and share knowledge at the local and global scale: FrenchTech Tokyo, foreign organizations such as Usine IO or local Universities in Kyoto.

As the lab was created 2 months ago, no proper documentation process has been created so far.

However, Connor aims to make open source video lectures on how to use the machines both in English and Japanese. It would replace the classes he organizes today to teach makers how to use CNC, laser cutters or 3D printers.