Independents Hall

[Independents Hall]

Independents Hall

Announcing: IndyHall Labs Posted: 21 Aug 2008 03:08 PM CDT IndyHall has grown in amazing ways that we never could have predicted over the last year. Our community has come together and not only helped create a place for people to come and get their work done, but they also began figuring out fantastic ways to productively collaborate around ideas and projects. We’re excited to announce part of the next evolution, which itself will continue to evolve as a community-powered initiative. This new initiative is called IndyHall Labs, and is the brainchild of Jason Allum (creator of team RipIt) and myself. As I said, the project itself is evolving but has been in motion for about 3 weeks now, in it’s first “sprint”. Without getting into too many details about the moving parts of the program, you can think of it like a yCombinator/DreamIT/Techstars, but on a smaller scale and pointed directly at indies. But, why? Well Jason and I have talked at length about this topic, but let me break it down for you. Some concepts we identified: The crew that works at IndyHall are smart. They’re best of breed at whatever it is that they do. The crew that works at IndyHall works hard. The majority of them are acting as service providers of some sort, and rely on client-driven income to pay their bills. Every thing they have, including their IndyHall memberships, is powered by client work. It’s a recurring theme that everyone wishes they had some form of passive income. When you’ve got smart people distracted by client work rather than working on the thing they are passionate about, nothing gets the amount of attention that it should be. It’s hard to create something that generates passive income without finding outside investment, or starving themselves/defaulting on bills until the passive revenue stream begins. Something needs to bridge that gap, or at least be there to help That’s where the idea for Labs comes in. We’re talking small-stakes investment in high-potential, quickly executable ideas. Itch-scratch ideas. Do one thing and do it really, really well ideas. We’re talking 4-8 weeks per project. We’re talking majority stakes + cash investment in the project for the entire production team, delegated by the project lead. We’re talking organic team formation. We’re talking peer mentorship and advisory. We’re talking a community of support and word of mouth marketing. All of the good stuff that you’ve seen produce things like MultiFirefox, iSepta, RipIt, and a slew of other concepts for projects and events. We’re talking about incubating an individual, forming a team around an idea, and helping that person work towards having a viable product generating passive income. Incubation with a focus on community, and not on business services. Incubation with a focus on helping indies grow themselves just as much as it is focused on growing a project. IndyHall Labs is About Removing Boundaries A little bit from a post by Dave, our first project lead: IndyHall is a coworking community and space, first and foremost. But incredibly, all on its own it’s become a self-sustaining collaboration incubator. Some of the coolest and most innovative projects have been coming out of IndyHall collaboration. It’s basically a think-tank without borders. If I’m working on something that Person B is not, and I’m stuck, Person B is there for me - no cost, no charge, all love. Eventually these people come together, and project teams are born. It’s happening more and more often. If you’re not at IndyHall, you’re missing out. Not just open collaboration. Open source. We’ve got every intention of being as transparent with this entire model as possible: we’ve already been posting napkin sketches, whiteboard sketches, brainstorm session videos, and other bits of the process to the IndyHall Labs website. In addition, we want to share bits of useful stuff produced along the way, just like it gets shared here at IndyHall. That’s why we’ve started an account at GitHub for sharing source code for useful chunks of the projects we’re creating. Everything is being shared under the BSD license, so you can do whatever you want with it. It’s our gift, to you. And the best part about GitHub? If you want, you can make it better and share it back with us! The first bit we’re sharing is a little bit of Cocoa code that encodes/decodes JSON data. Not a nerd? Don’t know what that means? Don’t worry. It’s cool, its fast, its easy, and its free. That’s all that matters. Come Play Along. Keep an eye on the IndyHall Labs website, watch the videos and, of course, the IndyHall Twitter account. Ultimately, the goal is to involve the community in the production of some of the sickest products to come out of Philadelphia. Grab our RSS, comment on the blog, give us your feedback. Once this first project is launched, we’ll be looking to recruit another project lead. Could it be you? Oh, and of course I’d be remiss to not warn you: look out for many more launch parties in the near future.

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[Independents Hall]

Independents Hall

IndyHall T-Shirts: Birthday Edition Designed by You! Posted: 25 Aug 2008 10:27 AM CDT The artwork created by Johnny Bilotta for the IndyHall website has made the rounds: first, this website. Then, IndyHall business cards. Since then, we’ve had a few editions of the IndyHall t-shirt as well as the recent addtion of a batch of mugs! And while we LOVE Johnny’s design, we know that a year later, it may be time to incorporate the stylings of someone new! The IndyHall birthday is a week away, and we thought that it’d be awesome to have a community-contributed birthday edition of our t-shirt. So between now and Wednesday night at midnight, we’re accepting submissions for ideas. You can download the current shirt design EPS for Illustrator, or PSD for Photoshop. We need the back of the shirt available for sponsor logos, but any area of the shirt currently occupied by the current design in the template is fair game. We’d love to see your remix of our logo, to the tune of “Happy First Birthday” or something of that nature. Our favorite, both visually and creative concept, will be printed this weekend along with the sponsor logos on the back and will be handed out for free (thanks ChoiceShirts for donating the shirts!) to the first 50 people to arrive at the Party on Saturday, and the artist’s work will live on in this commemorative edition tee. Upload your designs below, and we’ll see everyone this weekend! Your Name(required) Email(valid email required) Website File(required)   cforms contact form by delicious:days

[Independents Hall]

Independents Hall

Party RSVPs Posted: 26 Aug 2008 01:21 PM CDT Sorry for the barrage of posts today! It was just pointed out to me that our Facebook event was set for Labor Day weekend…2009. You can rest assured we’ll have a big party that weekend as well, but THIS YEAR’s event has been updated. Our RSVPs are now available on Facebook and Upcoming: Facebook Upcoming Again, sorry about the confusion. See everyone this weekend!

Strands kicks in - more people powered partying! Posted: 26 Aug 2008 11:41 AM CDT We’re excited to announce that Strands, a people-powered discovery engine, has stepped up with our largest sponsorship so far of $3000, more than doubling our party funds! Long time east coast tech supporter and lover of all things Philly, Drew Olanoff, recently began working with them as a community evanglist and came to us interested in working togther with Strands for our birthday party event. Join us Saturday Night at IndyHall “StrandUp”! In addition to participating in our party on Sunday night as a large-scale sponsor, Strands will be hosting a pre-party “StrandUp” event at IndyHall on Saturday night, from 6:30 to 7:30pm. We’re expecting lots of people on Sunday Night, many of whom are around for the whole weekend. After the first successful Strandup during Gomedex 8 in Seattle this past weekend, Drew is bringing the event to Philly as a mixer-style pre-party hangout. EVERYONE is invited! You don’t have to be an IndyHall member, you don’t even have to be a geek! Just come and hang out with the IndyHall/Philly crew. This is a great chance for our out-of-town guests to get acquainted. This is also a great chance to see IndyHall if you (somehow) haven’t yet! There’s no strings attached. Only Strands! (sorry, I know that was bad). We’ll bring the snacks (EPIC NOMS), all you need to do is bring your personality and interest in meeting a bunch of people and breaking out of the techie echo-chamber! PLEASE RSVP on Upcoming, or Facebook.

[Independents Hall]

Independents Hall

Sponsorship is back open! Posted: 29 Aug 2008 10:05 AM CDT WOW! We’re so impressed. We know we set the bar high with our goal, but we’re still really happy to report that the sponsorship drive for the IndyHall birthday party has gone really well. To date, we’ve raised over $6000 (40% of our lofty goal), but that gives us a great night of food and drinks ahead of us! But it’s not over! Our ChipIn widget shut off this morning due to the deadline we had for logos being printed, however, by request we’ve opened it back up! We’ll continue accepting your contributions up until the party begins at 6pm on Sunday night, and remember, every little bit helps the night go on, and on, and on!! Unfortunately, the shirts and decals are already at the printer, so we can’t add to that, but you’re contributions will get you a mention/link on the site, as well as a HUGE shout out at the birthday party! And don’t forget, the $10,000 sponsorship opportunity that will result in me getting the IndyHall logo as a tattoo and Geoff shaving his head is still open ;). Huge thanks to our sponsors so far: Reed Gustow Dwight Miller Tony Bacigalupo Robert Hall Maya Northern Anthillz First Round Capital Rachel Sooy Josh Aas Anthony Mari Phil Ives Erica O’Grady Karen Origlio Becky Clawson ChoiceShirts Suzi Craig-Edwards Saul Rosenbaum PodcampPhilly The Hacktory LTLPrints Strands Salas Saraiya NightKitchen Interactive Kara LaFleur Trotter Cashion Carlos Silva Jameson Detweiler Gloria Bell Roz Duffy