In online gaming, a ‘Whale’ is someone who plays far more than the typical player. It’s not unusual for 2% of the player pool to account for 95% of all usage.
The same thing is true at a local gym (or Makerspace). All the money is made on the customers (members) who pay and never come or come very infrequently – the folks who are at the gym or the facility for 5+ hours a day use far more resources than you could possibly charge for if everyone acted this way.
The management of ‘Whales’, then , is a delicate balancing act – the people who love you the most are also costing you the most! If you have too many of those that take too much from the ‘buffet’, your economics are shot. Not good.
In a traditional business, one where people pay based on usage, a ‘Whale’ is the difference between profit and loss. The person who eats at your restaurant once a week or goes to your movie house once a week … These are your best customers! This is great data that gives you the chance to find these people who are truly your best customers, and to treat them accordingly. A business that gets this right will, outperform a businss that doesnt by a significant amount.
But there are also ‘Whales’ when it comes to word-of-mouth. Most people tell no one. A few people tell a friend or two. But some people tell everyone. and they do it with authority, with leverage and with persistence. A ‘Whale’ like this is priceless. You can’t create this type of ‘Whale’, but you can dissuade them and disappoint them by merely not caring enough to notice.
So how does an organization manage the 2 types of ‘Whales’? I would say the word-of-mouth Whales that are important, need to be seen, lead, respected and nurtured.
The ‘whales’ that disproportionately use resources are another management challenge. Perhaps, they need to give more quantifiable volunteer time?
You post your rates. If a gym offers a rate of say $75 for unlimited access, they don’t have a legal right to then say your using the gym too much. It is fraudulent advertising… If you want to ‘charge’ more for more usage, your rate plan needs to do that openly.
Also a ‘whale’ in the gaming sense, is given many free perks (some costing thousands) precisely because the company understands that they attract other business by their playing. In many case the same goes with DMS. We post and blog about many of the projects and work done by our ‘whales’. That seems to be a fair return.
I would also say that our whales, don’t actually ‘cost’ the space anymore then a member who never shows up. All of the fixed costs (electricity, etc…) are just that fixed. The operational costs (consumables) are either negible or we ask members to pay for their usage. So I really don’t see how a ‘whale’ costs us any more.
Unless they are a thief, which is an entirely different problem.
I would add that the difference between a gym “Whale” and a Makerspace “Whale” is that a Makerspace “Whale” is more likely to be a volunteer, fix things, teach and recruit new members which is an important thing in a place that is run by volunteers. I’m not an expert but IMHO, you can’t compare a Makerspace to a gym exactly because unlike a gym with paid employees, volunteers are vital to the existence of DMS. People who use DMS a lot are probably often putting in more than they “cost”.
The fixed costs are paid equally proportional to every paying member. They are not really ‘fixed’ as to usage. A ‘whale’ that uses the space more or machines more actually costs DMS more in ‘variable’ costs. The biggest being electricity costs which are not fixed and the biggest expense. Also, there are always capital expenditures. Tools and their maintenance costs. The ‘whales’ use them more so they cost the space more. Tools purchased for an individual project and then rarely used., etc…
Common sense seems to indicate that unlimited membership growth will produce more ‘whales’ in a finite space. So what would be the next step? Bigger space and higher costs.
It might be time too look into a usage model just like what is being implemented per tool use.
They are fixed, because we pay the same amount (basically) whether we have one member or 10,000. Our rent is fixed, our electricity is fixed (do you turn out the lights and AC when you leave), the insurance is fixed. Being at the space more doesn’t affect these costs at all.
Using the lathe for 8 hours doesn’t increase our electricity costs in any appreciable way. In fact I would argue that someone leaving the garage door open for 10 minutes probably costs the space more in electricity then someone using the lathe for 10 hours.
If we change to a usage rate plan, we will essentially reverse our growth rate, and very soon will likely need to significantly increase rates since we rely on our membership numbers to keep the doors open. I thing your basic premise that the heavy users cost the space more is fundamentally flawed.
What costs us most are new users and those who break tools because they think they know how to use them. Our heavy users are the most likely to know how to use our equipment properly.
That may be true and we all know those that do, but quantifying might be interesting data. This leading to recognizing these volunteers in a more formal way. I think it would go along way to enhancing more volunteerism and thus, creating more value and improving the culture.
Our usage model already charges for consumables, so we already account for ‘heavy’ usage. Such usage doesn’t change our fixed costs, including electricity, in any appreciable way. Talk with Stan about electricity usage. It varies by season, but is fairly constant otherwise.
There is another aspect of usage and that’s access. There is also normal maintenance costs. ‘Whales’ always effect these more than any other user. How often do people wait or unable to use the facility as ‘whales’ are working?
Difficult to quantify I know, but everybody knows the heavy users are ‘costing’ the space more than others.
The history of our breakage would tend to indicate otherwise. Most of our maintenance is needed because of the inexperienced users, not the heavy users.
"everybody knows’ is not a valid argument. I am part of everybody, and I tend to think that our ‘heavy’ users tend to cost the space less on a per capita basis then our occasional users, or most especially our newbie users.
Don’t people have to pay to use the laser or plasma cutter to reimburse for electricity used? I don’t use those so I don’t know for sure but I thought there was a charge for tools that use a lot of electricity. I agree that this probably already (mostly) reimbursed through consumable charges, I guess the argument would be whether to charge some kind of usage fee for more machines if it takes significant resources to run them.
As far as laser is concerned, and I don’t know the exact numbers as I have never analyzed trailing twelves to see how it’s operated, but the per minute charge is greater than the maintenance costs. Thus, creates a surplus that stays in laser and not sent to the general account. Therefore, the per minute use charge is a money maker for the committte as well as for maintenance costs. Those profits are controlled by that committee, I’m guessing every other committee that charges for consumables greater than their costs are also utilizing it as a fund raiser for the committee use.
Not publically, but the rumour was that it was created because of two ‘incidents’. One where a member ran like 3000 copies on the then new copier, and another where a member consumed most of a roll of mig wire in one session.
We do charge for the MIG time. We don’t charge for plasma time. We don’t charge for TIG time since that time is negligible. I for instance bring my own consumables for both plasma and TIG.
