Maker spaces provide an incredible collaboration of unique builders, designers, and thinkers, while equipping them with the tools to create. At Coworks, we help power some of the top maker spaces around. We help top university student maker spaces like NCSU Garage and renowned Life Science shared lab spaces like Biolabs.

Here's how you can use Coworks to solve several of the common pain points and logistical issues that can make operating a maker space a challenge.

We'll cover how we solve the following pain points:

In the beginning, when you have a small number of equipment or members, you can perhaps get away with first-come-first-serve or a paper sign-in system for reserving equipment. However, these methods do not scale and do not give you or your members adequate data on equipment utilization and booking schedules.

Implementing a streamlined and easy-to-use reservation system makes it possible to scale your members without dealing with the headaches of resource allocation. In Coworks, your members can pull up our beautiful member mobile app and quickly browse through a list of equipment to reserve.

Safety is one of the top priorities when providing your members with advanced and potentially dangerous equipment. It is imperative that your members are properly trained on the necessary equipment and safety protocols before jumping into industry saws, laser cutters, etc.

Through the Coworks admin dashboard, you can safely set permissions on individual resources. Once your member has completed the necessary requirements, you can then grant them access to the individual equipment, allowing them to book directly in the app.

Security and space utilization are important metrics to track while running a space with dangerous and expensive equipment. Coworks provides a robust member check-in system that will allow you to know who was in your space and at what times. Our check-in system provides a report that shows a historical list of access to your space. You can also dive in on each member to see a log of their specific check-ins.

Having a fully integrated platform like Coworks enables you to manage your members and glean important and data and analytics.

Training and onboarding is a critical piece of success in a maker space. The more information, resources, and training you can provide to your members, the better they will take care of your (expensive) tools and avoid damage.

With Coworks, we've created a robust Resource Center in the app where you can leave helpful links to documents, videos, manuals, web pages, etc. We also provide helpful resource slides where you can create step-by-step visual aids to train people on how to use or care for certain resources. Our resource forms also enable your members to quickly reach out to the relevant staff or support member for any issues or questions. Ultimately, this will save you countless hours per week answering the same questions (whats the wifi, how do I refill the printer ink, how do I report an issue) because the answers are all available in the app!

Finally, part of the allure of a maker space is the ability to create and collaborate with other makers. Building a vibrant community of people is what will ultimately lead to a successful space long term.

Coworks provides several tools to help you manage and engage with your community. We provide an Announcements feature that allows you to send quick email or push notification blasts to your members. Our member directory empowers your members to explore and view profiles of other members to spur collaboration. And our community feed allows you to create and showcase important events to all of your members (trainings, workshops, community events). Together, with these features, we create the ultimate member experience to keep your members engaged and collaborating.

These are just some of the many ways that Coworks can help you with your business. We also have a fully automated and robust Billing system for collecting one-time and recurring month-to-month invoices from your members via bank account or credit card. We have a robust CRM for capturing leads automatically through website integrations and collecting membership requests. We have a front desk tablet for visitor requests, conference room booking, and more!
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Coworks is the ultimate end-to-end solution for managing a workspace of creators, makers, entrepreneurs, or any workspace!

What are you waiting for? Sign up now!