TechShop

"Making things is core to who we are as Americans," says Mark Hatch, co-founder of TechShop, "a chain of do-it-yourself workshops," reports Ashlee Vance in the New York Times (4/11/10). "We are inventors," he continues. "We are creators. Once you give people access to the tools, there will be a resurgence of creativity and innovation." So far, Mark and co-founder Jim Newton are realizing this vision at three retail locations.

It’s kind of like a health club for hackers. Members "pay a $100 monthly fee for access to a workshop and $500,000 worth of equipment … On an average weekday at the TechShop in Silicon Valley, you might run into people laser-engraving wedding invitations, making soil fertilization analysis machines or shaping fake dog feces for a movie set." Michael Pinneo has used TechShop to find a way to make cheaper synthetic diamonds for "everything from tools to microchips."

Phil Hughes is actually running his three-person start-up company out of a TechShop store. He’s working on "technology for cooling computer servers" and has both won a $2.8 million government grant and "licensed his technology to a major manufacturer." Each store needs 1,000 members to be profitable, and Mark Hatch is confident he’ll get there. "I believe a significant subset of Americans will trade up from Ikea to TechShop, so they can point to one of their chairs and say, ‘I made that.” Plans are to open 10 more TechShops over the next 20 months.