The Diary of DIYTogether Incubator Groups

This is Chapter 1 of “The Diary of DIYTogether Incubator Groups.” Click here to read Chapter 2 of “The Diary of DIYTogether Incubator Groups.” 

By Amy Schroeder

It’s about time I wrote about all the DIYTogether stuff that’s been swirling in my brain for five months. I just needed time to gain clarity.

Before I pound out the first chapter of the DIYTogether Diary, here’s a quick definition of DIYTogether Incubator Groups:

The DIY Business Association invented the concept of DIYTogether Incubator Groups in early 2011 to create communities of entrepreneurs with various skill sets. Why? To help them grow their individual businesses and/or start new companies and collaborative projects.

DIYTogether Incubator Groups are part of the DIYTogether Movement that we’re developing at this very moment and will continue to build during the DIYTogether national tour of conferences in 2012. We’re also creating an online DIYTogether community as part of the next wave of social media.

Lunchtime at the Brooklyn DIY Business Association Conference on June 26 (photo by Eleanor Templeton)

Off to a Solid Start: #BKDIYBA

As a subscriber of the get-out-there-and-make-stuff-happen brand of entrepreneurship, I quit my day job in mid-February to work full time for the DIY Business Association, an idea that came to me on the subway.

Realizing that in-person communication is key to biz development, on June 26 we hosted our kickoff event, the Brooklyn DIY Business Association Conference, featuring 30 speakers, including Design*Sponge Founder Grace Bonney, ModCloth Co-Founder Susan Gregg Koger, and Amy Winehouse bassist Gregory Jackson. (Check out the event recap, photos, and media coverage here.)

Toward the end of the all-day conference, we carved out nearly an hour for attendees to break into 20 DIYTogether Incubator Groups. I organized groups by coalescing the 200 conference attendees’ various skill sets and matching shared goals wherever possible. The concept is kind of like matchmaking—but on a professional level.

The #BKDIYBA registration required attendees to fill out online surveys indicating their top skills (writing, photography, Web design, etc.), entrepreneurial goals (whether they wanted to grow their businesses, start new ones, etc.), and who they hoped to meet (financial consultants, potential business partners, graphic designers, etc.).

What Worked:

• Awkward Conversations Averted: While we’re fans of traditional professional networking events, meet-and-greet-goers often describe approaching strangers as an uncomfortable mixture of shooting in the dark, awkward introductions, and hoping for the best.

To counteract the quirky vibe, we encouraged #BKDIYBA’s DIYTogether Incubator group members to jump into discussing “what they do and what they need help with.” People connected, traded ideas and advice, and some continued to meet in person and link up on social networks.

• High Demand for High-Quality Ideas: One of the best things to emerge from the crap economy is a willingness to trade knowledge and experience for someone else’s knowledge and experience, which was definitely the case at #BKDIYBA. In other words, the concept of competition was foreign here.

Room for Improvement:

• Lack of a sophisticated technical system: The group-organization process was done “by hand,” meaning that after reading the results of every attendees’ 20 e-survey questions, I busted out Excel to compare and contrast people’s requests, utilizing my personal experience and opinion to create groups of anywhere from four to 12 people. But every problem eventually leads to a solution, right? Just give us time.

• Need more facilitators and time: Three-quarters of DIYTogether Incubator Groups were led by volunteer facilitators, ranging from Loosecubes Chief Happiness Officer Anna Thomas to Meredith Keller of Smallerbox. Luckily, a number of the facilitator-less groups were wrangled by DIYBA Advisory Board Member Samara Kaufman, but in an ideal world, each group would have its own facilitator to steer conversations and help design the group’s next steps.

Also, the allotted time of 50 minutes was sufficient for introductions, project explanations, and a few sentences about what they need help with, but there’s only so much advice-giving, strategic planning, and contact-sharing you can accomplish in 50 minutes.

DIYTogether Incubator Groups at Get Funding ASAP! at the Loosecubes HQ (photo by Eleanor Templeton)

The Second Go-Round of DIYTogether Incubators

The Brooklyn DIY Business Association Conference was such a success that I wanted to follow it with another event as quickly as possible. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to produce something as large and lengthy as #BKDIYBA without months of planning.

Hence the birth of the first DIYBA Micro Conference, Get Funding ASAP!, a smaller, shorter version of #BKDIYBA. The three-hour September 10 event at the Loosecubes HQ featured seven panelists, including IndieGoGo CoFounder Slava Rubin and “angel investor trainer” Natalia Oberti Noguera of Pipeline Fellowship. (Read “5 of IndieGoGo’s most successful campaigns” for crowd-funding tips.)

Following two panels and a 15-minute beer break, attendees spent the final hour of Get Funding ASAP! in the second coming of DIYTogether Incubator Groups. This time around, we took a different approach that involved less organization than at #BKDIYBA.

What Went Right:

• We recruited another crew of group leaders, ranging from The Marketing Mentor to The Creative Enabler, and no one turned us down. Everyone happily volunteered their time to facilitate groups.

• One of the panelists, Sara Bacon, founder of Command C Design and Greenpoint Coworking, offered her coworking space for follow-up incubators for the next four Wednesdays.

Room for Improvement:

• Holy crap: ASAP! attendees were just as awesome as at #BKDIYBA-goers and included Domino Project Art Director Alex Miles Younger and Mogulfish Founder James Maule. But because we didn’t issue meaty surveys, we knew little more than people’s names and contact information.

• A large loft full of confident, talented people talking about ideas and entrepreneurship gets really loud, and many participants find themselves struggling to hear what group members are saying.

Greenpoint Coworking in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

 

The Greenpoint Coworking Experience

From September 14–October 5, I invited the 50 or so Get Funding ASAP! attendees to a four-week series of free DIYTogether Incubator Groups at Greenpoint Coworking in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, from 11 a.m.–noon.

The results? Mediocre.

Because I promoted the incubator groups to a relatively small group of people, the first meeting, only two people came. The second week, five people attended; the third week I met one-on-one with Gen Y activist Amber J. Adams (one person signed up but didn’t show); and the fourth, two people planned to attend but canceled due in part to a DailyCandy press opp—can you blame her?).

What Went Right:

• I got to know some of the Funding ASAP! attendees better (Alex Miles Younger and Generation Y activist/documentary producer Amber J. Adams). In fact, Amber J. Adams inspired me so much that I started writing more about Gen Y and interviewing Occupy Wall Streeters.

• After the four-week series, Sara Bacon and I had a meeting of the minds and together realized that we have a way to go, but the key elements for success in the incubator groups are:

Commitment: If you’re not all in, momentum won’t build.

Accountability: Milestones, goals, and deadlines are essential.

Equal Exchange: Everyone has to bring something to the table for the DIYTogether system to work.

As a result, we decided to take a month breather and organize our own three-woman incubator group to experiment on a small-group incubator. (More on that soonish!)

Room for Improvement

• We need systems and processes! The day after the final GPCW meeting, I read “Tweet Science” by Joe Hagan in New York Magazine, and realized that DIYBA isn’t the only one racking their brains to build better systems. The big guys are at it, too.

I have a feeling we're really onto something with these people. (photo by Shaminder Dulai)

 

The Breakthrough

On October 19, I hosted the most “evolved” version of a DIYTogether Incubator group the DIY Business Association has seen since it hosted the Brooklyn DIY Business Association Conference.

I handpicked 10 of the most interesting self-starters I know to Chateau DIY (aka my Brooklyn apartment) for nearly five hours of brainstorming and networking. Because of a minor emergency and a transport glitch, a lucky seven people arrived.

I think you will enjoy meeting them in our upcoming blog series…

Stay tuned. Follow the DIY Business Association on Twitter and Facebook.

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This is Chapter 1 of “The Diary of DIYTogether Incubator Groups.” Click here to read Chapter 2 of “The Diary of DIYTogether Incubator Groups.”