This Makerspace Invites Makers of all Mediums — An Interview with TechShop Regional Director
TechShop is a fabrication prototyping studio / industrial strength for-profit makerspace featuring a full wood shop, full metal shop, welding lab, electronics bay, textiles studio, 3D printers and laser cutters. Now in their tenth year, TechShop has grown from their first location in the Bay Area to locations around the US and international locations in Japan, France, and Abu Dhabi. We spoke with Mark Emanuel to learn more about the ins and outs of successful makerspaces.
About Mark Emanuel
Mark holds two titles at TechShop:
- Regional Director for Eastern US (locations in Austin, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Washington DC, St. Louis)
- General Manager of the TechShop Austin/Round Rock location
Mark’s prior experience before TechShop:
- Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Master’s Degree in Engineering Management
- First job working on submarine technology for US NAVY
- Extensive operations background at large Fortune 500 computer manufacturing companies
How Mark came to join TechShop management team:
- Was an enthusiastic TechShop member (customer) before joining the company.
- Started out learning the art of welding.
Q: Thanks for meeting with us Mark. One of the many things that impressed us at TechShop is a quote from your founder, Jim Newton, who says, “We are creating spaces for other people to invent.” Can you elaborate on your mission here at TechShop?
A: The shop is at its core a fabrication prototyping studio and a makerspace. Our job in life is to provide a creative and empowering and engaging environment for individuals from all backgrounds to come in and leverage the tools of innovation to produce the ideas they’ve been dreaming of building.
One of the recurring stories here at TechShop is folks coming in with an idea for something they want to build just for themselves, and they end up launching a business out of it once they realize there is a lot of interest and demand for their idea.
On the other hand, there are also examples of folks coming in with a clear product idea already in mind. They’re here to start a company, and they use our facilities for the initial proof of concept and prototyping stages for their designs.
Q: Have you seen anybody come in here to develop an idea at TechShop and then launch a successful business or product as a result?
A: Absolutely. We’re supporting those entrepreneurs wherever we can. In any given month we’ve got around a dozen startup companies here.
While a big chunk of the Austin startup scene is web development, app development data management, and cyber security, we’re also fortunate to have hardware startups as well. We support this part of the innovation ecosystem, by helping entrepreneurs do their own prototyping and proof of concepts here at TechShop.
For example, we’ve got a gentleman walking around the floor today who is launching a motorcycle accessory business. He came in with a concept and design, used our equipment to prototype it, took that prototype to market, and developed market demand for his product. As a result, he’s been featured in some magazines and at the local biker show. Now he’s gotten retail packaging that he built here in order to launch his product into the market. So he’s in the early stages of growth.
We have other folks that are building IOT (Internet of Things) devices, such as Pretty Smart Homes, which started out building a connected lamp that communicates with your smartphone. They’ve now gone through a development and incubator stage at Texas Venture Labs, during which time they pivoted the product focus toward helping the hearing impaired. The result is a lamp that’s connected to your house — it will signal to the hearing impaired when somebody’s knocking at the front door, when the phone’s ringing, things like that.
These are just a couple of examples, both of which are just pure product hardware devices where folks are coming to us with a concept or idea and a plan — they’re making the proof of concept prototype here.
Q: What are some of the most interesting things you’ve seen created here at TechShop?
A: In our lobby, you’ll see a 12-foot tall custom made iron staff. It’s a very intricately designed, hand-painted, flowing metal form created in our welding lab. The design inspiration came out of an anime series that one of our members is a fan of — and he worked on it, piece-by-piece, for days on end. It was an amazing thing to see come together. So for me, that’s a great example of an interesting project from both an artistic and a fabrication approach.
And then I have a special interest in the projects that entrepreneurs are developing. Recently, we had a company called Ellie Grid who participated in a Pitch contest. Their project is to create a smart connected pill box that helps elderly folks keep track of their medicines and proper doses. The device has an integrated LED display that makes it as foolproof as you can imagine. They use our 3D printers to crank out version after version with adjustments to form, fit and function.
So I find it incredibly interesting to see this kind of innovation and development taking place here at TechShop — the whole entrepreneurial cycle, from the initial development process to seeing them now on the market testing it and trying to sell it.
Q: Is it just entrepreneurs that come to TechShop or do you also encourage people with less experience who want to learn how to make things?
A: Our goal is to keep extending the reach of the maker community. We can have an impact on communities by encouraging people to get back into the mode of making and creating — it really gives them an outlet to leverage their creative power.
Here in Austin, we have about 750 active members at the moment. In fact, I’ve met some of the Formaspace employees who are members here at TechShop!
Our members range from individuals, like computer programmers, who have never worked in a makerspace (but want to learn how to do something with their own hands) to those who are professionals at their craft who find it easier to use our shop as their production plant (rather than bearing the capital expense of creating their own facility).
We also have folks that come in with a very specific hobby, for example, those that use our textiles studio for sewing and quilting — we’ve got a 10-foot CNC quilter in our studio.
We also have folks that have their own Etsy businesses. So they’re developing their arts and crafts here and selling them on Etsy.
