The Problem: You want to work on a some open source project, or a side project of your own, but you don't want to do it alone. Maybe you know someone, but it's hard to work together at a coffee shop and kinda weird to get together at someone's house.
The Idea: A place called "Pair Shaped" that's geared towards you. Doors open at 6:30pm sharp in the Financial District of San Francisco, so you check in using your phone, one of the perks of the membership, and you get in line for dinner which is served every night, buffet style. More guys and gals filter in, they're all in software so you can't help but talk shop, but you slip in a segue and next you're talking about the next Tron movie. At 6:51 sharp, you hear a cow bell and everyone stands up. One by one you introduce any new faces, and then go into things people need help with. Then a guy announces anything new about Pair Shaped, and lastly people shout out for a pair if they're still looking for one.
There's 24 chairs at Pair Shaped, but only 12 desks to work at. Everyone comes here to pair and so no one is left to flounder alone. Each desk has a 27" monitor and extra keyboard and mouse waiting for you - all you do is plug in your laptop and away you go. The WiFi is pretty clippy and the chairs are comfy, so you and your new buddy, Tom, get right to it.
Around 8:30pm you and Tom need a stretch break because while pairing is awesome, it's also exhausting. Sarah and Dave are also looking for a break so you challenge them to a game of ping pong. You thrashed them 21-15 and now you're thirsty, so you grab a drink from the fridge on your way back to the desk. you and Tom get a little stuck, so you lean over and ask Marty for a little help. Marty doesn't mind because his pair can keep cranking while he gives you a hand. You like that people are so open with their knowledge and are eager to help here. You and Tom crank on your code for another hour and a half and decide at 10pm that it is time to pack it in - Tom may be a freelancer, but you've got to get up in the morning - but it is good to know you could have stayed as late as midnight.
As you're walking out you notice that there's a new sponsored project. It seems The SoftwareShop has a project they've open sourced and they'd like to see some features implemented, but don't have the man-power to get it done. Next time you've got a free evening you know you could get a free meal out of working on that project. Then you notice an event scheduled for the weekend, "Level 2 Python". The first one was great and the class is just $50 bucks so you can't beat that for a whole day of education.
You wave good bye to Tom and pull out your phone. You're glad you went for that membership, having come to Pair Shaped four times this week only ran you $15 a night (What a deal for office space + meal + snacks) and that's way better than the drop-in rate of $20/night, plus you got a free helper on your project out of it. You're liking it so much that you're planning to ask your boss if you can host your next hack-a-thon out there.
The Questions: What do you think? Would you come to Pair Shaped? How many times a week would you come? Would you want to work on your own project? Would you be willing to pay $20 for a meal, snacks, and space for 5 hours? Is there anything else that Pair Shaped ought to be offering?
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12 comments:
The idea has some sweet potential. I'm thinking though what if you could use what google has with WAVE and how you see everything your other IM partner is typing. So that way you could do it from home....Maybe that only costs $7.5 or $10 a night. As far as the cost of Pair Shaped it is hard for me to speculate for SF. That is a lot of money for a small time Indiana boy... But a good buffet meal can cost $12, so for a good meal and some beverage and knowledge sounds affordable... Remember that one of the huge reason open source has become so successful is that it's FREE(people love free).
So if I understand your idea correctly it would be more of a place to hold business type activities? Or it is more for a brain gathering central.
What id for than 24 people show up one night? Do you have to turn people away?
$50 for an all day class sounds great too! It was like $150 or more for all day photography classes when i was involved in that.
I think that this is a great idea thus far. I think if you add some services for people who maybe don't want to pair program but maybe just want some expert advice from a resident GURU.
Hope that helps some
The primary goal will be to let people work on whatever project they want in pairs. Business events would be secondary on the list. My hope is that a "regular crowd" will form eventually and people will come to know who is the expert on this thing or that.
I've also been thinking that there ought to be a queue on the website. So that way you know if there's 24 people coming already, and you can decide to be on a waiting list. A queue would also help me tell the caters how many people need food.
There already are some spaces in SF that cater to start-ups and offer services like hooking you up with potential Venture Capitalists, mailboxes, recruiters, etc. I don't want to be that. I want to be a glorified coffee shop for pair programming.
Will -- I love this idea and would lend a hand. Here are a few thoughts and answers to your questions:
- As a guy who does not have a lot of side projects, I'd probably come a couple of times per month
- Good price point.
- Would be cool to have a pairing coach on duty, kind of like the computer lab monitor. They would have to wear a faded blue vest and constantly unjam the printer... ok, strike that.
- Actually, more on the pairing coach: I fear that the space could lose it's pair-centric nature if everyone, especially if people are new to pairing. You and I both know how hard it is to kick the distractions of email, IM, Twitter, etc. when pairing, and the whole thing could degrade into 24 (or more) people on individual laptops hacking. Though this is not in itself a bad thing, it's not the goal of your project. Having a coach to make sure that people really do pair would good.
- I like the idea of having classes, lightning talks, hackathons, or other event-things going on at the same time as the pairing to add some spice. I do worry that that would be distracting, though.
- In-house barista.
If there was onsite childcare (even for extra $) I'd probably go once a week. Maybe you could have a weekly childcare night for all the parents.
Instinct tells me that this is not something that you can count on initially to be a week-daily thing. And at this price not sustainable.
However, a scheduled & promoted event - say monthly, initially - that teaches people how to pair sounds really promising. As momentum builds it could truly turn into a specialized co-work space as you suggest.
And not even just for nightly post-work time. But rather as you suggest: a place to pair and bootstrap your project.
Great name, btw. Already pondering logos.
Sarah, I really like the parents night idea. I know nothing about having a kid so I'd want to pick your brain about what parents expect for group child care.
Joe - You bring up a good point about having a "coach" of some sort on hand. I almost want there to be a "safety course" like when you go to a rock climbing gym and have to learn how to tie knots and belay - that idea is in opposition to a low barrier to entry.
Also for Joe, I was planning to hold classes, talks, etc. outside normal operating hours. What I was really thinking about here is the number of times I've wanted to host a hands on class on stuff like "How to use our API" and there's never any good space to do it. This could be that space during the day.
+1 for the barista.
To your point Davis about frequency - I think I see two (maybe three) use cases:
1) People like Joe who want to drop in a couple times a month to work on something that can be tackled in a night or two.
2) Freelancers looking for consistent space and a community to hook in to. Here, Pair Shaped becomes a business expense and is a lot more palatable.
3) People who can't stop programming. Personally I enjoy being done with code at 6pm, but there certainly are people out there who want to put in another full work day at the keyboard.
Host events and build momentum... I wonder how muddy the water gets if I were to ask Pivotal for their weekend office space on some reoccurring schedule...???
My comments (posted on Buzz) prior to reading anyone else's here....
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Will! What's up man? Things are good here, but onto responding to your post (as I am definitely one to constantly come up with my own - sometimes crazy - business ideas)
It sounds like an interesting idea, but you would have a relatively limited consumer pool. For example, I would not come to Pair Shaped, nor would anyone else who isn't a programmer, but you knew that already.
The bigger concern is the revenue stream, even assuming you're operating at max capacity. You're looking at about $14-$15K/month, assuming $20/night * 24 people * 30 days. Take out food costs at $6 per person (probably a low estimate), and you're down to $10K. Looking at operating at 75% capacity, you're at $7,500. It seems like you'd be looking at a relatively small space, but I imagine rent in SanFran is pretty steep. Assuming $4K/month (which I more or less pulled out of a google search and my ass), you're down to $3-4K/month. You'll also have employee wages, insurance, computer maintenance costs, and so on. One benefit of your market would be that the marketing costs woudl be relatively low, as I imagine you could reach your target audience pretty easily through blogs, sociall media, etc.
At the pricing model you suggest, I don't know that it could be feasible. You could certainly add more desks (i.e. more $/night) and raise the price (potentially...it would depend on your market, but $20 seemed low to me for a night out in SanFran to do anything).
I'm interested to see how your thoughts develop on this, so keep me posted! Good luck!
Bruno, your numbers are pretty much spot on. I was eyeballin' 1,500 sqft which I might be able to get for $3k a month, but it is more likely that'll grow into a $4k/month expenditure.
We don't have computers (well maybe 1 or 2) just monitors, keyboards, mice, so that's a little cheaper.
Last night I found some numbers around catering. I was expecting to sneak away at $6/person, looks like it's in the $15/person range IF I can find someone to cater dinner every night. But that's the money killer, I think the plans look more like $25/$20 or even $30/$25 which starts to get steep, especially if you consider you're pairing, so the two of you are paying $60.
I was hoping to put off having employees until we can expand to a bigger facility, but I also don't want to be the guy who is opening and closing 7 nights a week. Partners anyone?
One way to do some cheap market research (to get a feel for how many in SanFran would be interested in this type of thing, the cost, etc.) would be to post a LinkedIn poll. I don't know how reliable/valuable the info would turn out to be, but it's a thought.
I like the idea. You could get started Agile style by focusing on the key elements of the idea (pairing at fixed times) without the overhead of a location or handling the catering, basically by doing what Cassio did for the pair programming event at Pivotal. That would allow you to gauge market interest and adjust the idea. I bet you could get companies to give you space for free one evening a week like they do for the Ruby and Rails meetups. There's also the Hacker Dojo and similar spaces available.
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