It's not a lack of talent, interest or heart from the maker community. So why isn't Tampa Bay overflowing with makers and hardware entrepreneurs?
While it can be a very broad term, Inno is using the term "makers" to categorize people in the community who's full-time job it is to create physical products and devices. And plenty of events are available in the area to showcase these makers, who may be hobbyists or just getting their full time business started: Night Market, Indie Flea and Maker Faire, for example.
"It's honestly pretty diverse," said Mo Eppley, a founding member of the St. Pete Makers. "It's snowbirds who have a condo here and a full garage of equipment at home but get bored and want to tinker. It's an entrepreneur who may not want jump the gun and buy equipment yet, or it’s an Etsy woman who will travel around and do a couple day passes this week to make custom directional signs."
Eppley is part of one of several maker spaces in Tampa Bay, which exist as a way for those interested to utilize the tools they may not have otherwise had access to, while building a community with fellow interested makers.
"I think Tampa is a great place with a lot of creative people," said Megan Danak, administrative librarian at Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library, which offers the Hive maker lab. "I think there's also a real spirit in the community. You can do some of the stuff at home, but it's a lot cooler to go to a place learn some new skills."
Experts all agreed it wouldn't be fair to say there is one particular problem — or, on the flip side, one particular solution — to make the Tampa Bay region a place that's known for makers. Instead, there were a multitude of possibilities that could be attacked in the future, starting with the obvious: needing more funding.
"Personally, in my opinion, what I've seen in startup community is when it comes to funding, the people who are offering startup funding and opportunities to put money into companies they're looking for people with established revenue," Bill Shaw, president of Tampa Hackerspace said. "They're looking for high, multiple returns so when you get down to it, a hardware startup will have a different path than apps. The trajectory is different and a lot of investors don’t understand the metrics."
"They're looking for high, multiple returns so when you get down to it, a hardware startup will have a different path than apps. The trajectory is different and a lot of investors don’t understand the metrics."
And unlike some other sectors such as technology, it can be difficult to show just how much impact a maker had on an economy when it comes to job creation.
"When our client goes to say they use Tampa Hackerspace, they do create jobs," said Tonya Elmore, president and CEO of Tampa Bay Innovation Center. "I would agree there's no way to track that. They can't track [the jobs they create] and vice versa. So it's hard to track how many jobs are created."
For others it can be an issue of people simply not knowing, due to lack of media attention or plugging the programs from a government perspective.
"[The makers] tend to be smaller and not household name," Elmore said. "Even our larger corporations like Jabil aren’t branded and that's the maker of some of the large medical devices. But I think we're going to stay true to advanced manufacturing and I think if we do stay with IoT, where products are integrated, that fits well for our model in the future."
And the future remains bright or at least hopeful for the maker spaces and the makers anticipated to grow in them.
"I think Tampa is still finding its identity and we have a lot of really strong possibilities when it comes to our identity," Danak said. "And as far as makers go, the community is a big part of that and we’ll see it grow there."
In a city with as many entrepreneurs as Tampa Bay, we don't always know just who's out there. If you are a maker or know someone who is, feel free to reach out to lcoffey@americaninno.com.
