[GNUz] netcafe news

[Nick Rout]

Molten Media provide a useful service to the community in storing, and
sometimes making useful, heaps of old junk that no one wants in their
house or their landfill. However their level of service and computer
knowledge is somewhet less than desirable IMHO.

I am not sure what this "lease space" is, but IMHO their premises are
very dingy and a bit off the beaten track - a cafe requires foot
traffic, foot traffic, and one more thing - foot traffic!

I am not aware of how you plan to generate revenue from this place,
other than the sale of coffee. Some ideas, and my reactions, are:

1. tutoring - pay by the hour or the class - problem is you need someone
to do it, and thats not the person sitting at the front desk, as they
need to be keeping other customers happy.

2. troubleshooting & repair, ditto, but at least it can be done in the
evening when front of house is closed. However we all know how long you
can be screwing about with any computer getting it going, can you match
the hourly rate and overall bill to customer's expectations on price?

3. Selling media (CD's, DVD's distros etc) - but thats peanuts,
impossible to really make money on.

I like the community style of gnu and linux, but when you get into
paying a commercial rent, you gotta bring some bucks in. What is a
sponsor going to see for his $300 per week (and thats not the end of the
costs). I am willing myself to put in some time on legal work, looking
at a lease or whatever, but not unlimited hours.

But first I'd like to know the "business plan" - it doesn't have to
reflect a "business model", but it does have to be "businesslike".

Cheers.

On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:49:24 +1200
Rik Tindall wrote:

> Hi folks,
> 
> Recent chats revealed a heap of interest in using Molten Media's lease 
> space to set up a *nix workshop with public internet access etc. 
> Prompted for an update, I made the call again today (1. tardiness 
> prevails in some regard there).
> 
> 2. Any "Linux-based" exercise within this "community trust" would create 
> a direct "conflict" with their M$ work. [?!]
> 
> 3. For $300 per week, any lessee can pretty much do what they like. They 
> are amenable if we can find (them) that level of funding.
> 
> 4. A formal response to the sponsorship-based business proposal I put to 
> MM on 28Feb06 may be forthcoming next week. But MM _won't_ be the 
> sponsors. [I have yet to offer them all the revenue raised by project 
> services & product.]
> 
> Any suggestions (or likely funders) out there?
> 
> Cheers GNUz,
> 
> -- 
> Rik Tindall, InfoHelp Services <http://www.infohelp.co.nz>, on:
> Ubuntu GNU/Linux 5.04 free OS, 2.6.10-5-k7 kernel, GNOME 2.10.0 desktop
> OpenOffice.org 1.1.3, Mozilla 1.7.12 email client & web browser
> GIMP 2.2.2 graphics, gedit 2.10.2 web editor, gFTP 2.0.18 file transfer
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Nick Rout <nick@rout.co.nz>