Respect, efficiency and transparency are the space core values which linked the 6 team members.

• the respect, for other people and for the values of the lab, is essential for this team working without hierarchy to create a good atmosphere and to make good decisions
• the efficiency, based on priorities and impact in their actions, is their key value to reach an economic sustainability
• the transparency in their communication is essential to maintain confidence among their team and community and to make them grow together

Among the team, you can find Roberto Gallo, the funder, and his sister, Diana Gallo, the 2 associates. If Roberto started to create the Fablab alone, he was soon joined by his sister whose skills are complementary. If his Fab Academy instruction enables him to teach digital fabrication, he is also in charge of the business development. Diana handles the accounting while helping him to develop the team and community spirit thanks to her psychology diploma. Fabio Lopez, former member of the Fab Foundation, completed the original team by helping them punctually on social and large-scale projects.

5 months after of the opening, the increasing number of projects gave them the opportunity to hire a new members:

• Alex Tocagón : this mechanical engineer is the fabmanager and his technical training with Fab academy made him capable of making any type of projects
• Andre Pieto : his design and digital fabrication made him a valuable asset to guide users from their idea to the project design
• Valeria León : right-hand woman of Roberto for the business development, she is also in charge of the communication and events organisation

The role of each member is not fixed. Roberto, who played the role of coach, guides them through the daily activities to develop their skills and to adapt their position to their preference while looking for efficiency.

“People come by curiosity o because they are looking for skills to make a project”.

In only few months, the Fablab Zoi succeeded to attract a diversity of profiles and types of project. Here you can find each week 10 regular users and each month 25 punctual ones such as engineers, architects, artists, hobbyst, students, association, members of Torno or big companies. If the Fablab works on investigation project such as the one for Republica del cacao who asked them to develop a controlled chamber to grow Cacao in Quito, they also guide users with smaller projects such as data transmission. To empower users and make them discover digital fabrication, they frequently invite members of their community to dedicated workshops through WhatsApp. The word of mouth naturally completes workshop sessions with new faces.

To attract users, the team can rely on Roberto Gallo strong network. His appetite for challenges and his designer sensibility enables him to convince people to trust his team to tackle new valuable projects. The experience he designed, by guiding user making the right project (design thinking,…) while learning new skills, make the users come back or recommend the lab to their contacts. He also offers them free materials thanks to partnerships with providers (Trotec, …), financial support with bank alliance and contacts with start-ups, companies and public entities.

To bloom this recent community and to connect it to the national red, maker events such as Fabatom are organized to offer to Equadorian makers the opportunity to share and communicate about their projets. The public entities (Fab Foundation, Conquito, MIC, Impaqto or Universities) linked to the lab are great allies to organize such events and the lab involvement in the LATAM maker red with projects such as Fablat TV is key to spread the maker spirit.

And it is just the beginning! If the Fablab aims to play a key role to gather and strengthen the maker community in Ecuador, it is also in discussion with Peru to build a shared lab at the Ecuador/Peru border. A great example of the limitless maker spirit ;-)

6 months after its creation, the Fablab reached the breakeven and started to make benefits. The secret of this success lies in strong and diversified alliances and an organic development.

At its creation, Roberto Gallo didn’t have enough savings to buy the 40 000$ machines which are now in the lab. Thus, he looked not only for a space but also for machines to rent. He found the perfect mix in Torno coworking space, where he offered to a previous tenant of an unsuccessful business based on laser cutter to rent his studio and his machine. Its ideal location and the network of Roberto attracted people and projects with only 3D printer and laser cutter. 3 months latter, Torno members offered him to buy a CNC machine to help them making furnitures for one of their client. He also signed partnerships with material and electronic providers (Trotec, Estratasis, Pelicano, Autodesk, Rhinoceros) to cover part of his daily costs.

To make profit, he tried different strategies. He first started with workshops and Fab academy courses but he soon realized that the incomes are smaller than the real costs if the number of participants are not sufficient. Even if it doesn’t provide sufficient incomes to start a makerspace, it stands for a good investment to attract people and develop a maker red. In fact, the LATAM and Ecuadorian red was for him a precious asset to quickly find solutions to his client projets. It enabled him to start earning money with small and medium projects but what make the difference was the big projects and investigations with companies. He also started buying large quantity of components, inexistent in the country, to sell them to the Ecuadorian makers.

All the benefits were invested to grow the space according to the needs (meeting space, …) and to hire new members. The next step will be to sign long-term contracts with universities (training, space creation) and companies (investigation, machine designs) to ensure a fixed income.