Someone new to the world of entrepreneurship will notice right away that entrepreneurs have an interesting way of speaking. From “unicorn” to “bootstrapping” to “foodpreneur,” entrepreneurs use a lot of strange language to describe what they do. By combining words, or by assigning new meaning to old ones, they have created a whole new vocabulary to better communicate their needs and ideas in an ever-evolving ecosystem. The EntrepreLingo Series is an effort to fill our readers in on some of the weirder—or less straightforward—terms you’re sure to hear in an entrepreneurial environment. So far, we’ve covered: A, B, C, D and E, F through H, and I through L. This week, we’re taking a look at M and N.

Makerspace

A makerspace is a co-working environment specifically for craftspeople. Makerspaces usually feature designated work areas and provide members with access to expensive equipment—such as woodworking tools, CNC routers, 3D printers, etc.—for a more affordable membership fee.

Market Penetration

Market penetration—part of the Ansoff Matrix—is a low-risk method of business growth; it occurs when a company successfully enters a market in which similar products or services already exist.

Mentor

A mentor is an experienced businessperson who offers his or her knowledge and advice to less experienced entrepreneurs. Mentors are volunteers and do not have a vested interest in your business.

Mezzanine Capital

Mezzanine capital is a type of financing in which the lender is given the right to convert any debts into equity interest or ownership in case of default. Mezzanine capital ranks higher than equity, but is still subordinate to bank loans and secured loans.

Microfinancing

Microfinancing is for low-income entrepreneurs who do not qualify for, or have access to, traditional financial services like loans or insurance. In microfinance, entrepreneurs receive funding in small increments from multiple lenders. The loans are then paid back over time, much like with a traditional loan. Kiva is one example of a microfinancing platform.

Micropayments

Micropayments are digital payments that are so small, credit card companies cannot process them; they can range from fractions of pennies up to several dollars. Micropayments are made through micropayment processors in exchange for online apps or services.

MoM (Month over Month)

Month over Month comparisons reflect changes that occur from one month to the next; comparisons are calculated by subtracting the previous month’s numbers from the current month’s numbers, then multiplying that value by 100 to get the percent change.

Multi-Sided Platform (MSP)

Multi-sided platforms facilitate direct interactions between two or more sides of the market—the vendor and the customer, for instance. Etsy, eBay and Facebook are all examples of multi-sided platforms.

MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

First introduced in The Lean Startup by Eric Reis, the minimum viable product is the product with just enough features to allow you to learn the most about your customers with the least amount of effort.

NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement)

This is a legal document between two or more parties that outlines confidential materials or information that the parties wish to withhold from outsiders. NDAs can protect anything from proprietary information to trade secrets.

Niche

Your niche is a subset of the market in which your company exists. Market niches are specialized and form as a product changes to satisfy a certain need in the market, or as the price range and production quality change to better serve the target demographic.

See something we’ve missed? Leave your contribution in the comments below!

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Matt Kenigson visits the 2016 Maker Faire Producers Summit.

Make Nashville originally started in 2012 as a co-op to gather makers to share their projects with fellow creatives and create. By 2013, the first Nashville Mini Maker Faire was organized. Now, Make Nashville, with its nonprofit designation in hand, is setting its sights on a big goal: a community makerspace.

We spoke with Matt Kenigson, president of Make Nashville, about where his organization is headed and what the spirit of the maker movement is really about.

What’s the current status of Make Nashville? In 2015, we got our nonprofit designation in December, and the 100 Founders fundraising campaign for the makerspace was a resounding success. T. Scot Clausing, a great benefactor, stepped up after 2015 Nashville Mini Maker Faire to double all of those donations from our campaign. We had a good year.

As far as 2016 goes, we are off to a big start already. Internally, we had our first board retreat and set our five-year strategy as well as our shorter-term tactical goals. We also stood up a number of committees that are now absorbing and focusing the work of the growing number of folks working hard to make Make Nashville a great organization. We are continuing to meet every week and working on the opening of the makerspace as well as our meetings, workshops, events, and partnerships.

Our January meeting, themed around Star Wars in honor of the massive success of “The Force Awakens,” had a record number of show-and-tell participants. It included 3D prints of BB-8 parts, a couple of “Rey Guns” (the blaster design used by Rey’s character in the movie), a 7-foot long star destroyer, an R2D2 unit, and much, much more, including Darth Vader helmet chocolate cherry cordials. Those 3-D printed chocolates are now becoming a workshop scheduled for March 5, in partnership with Nomzilla. It’s really exciting!

We’ve already participated in the Adventure Science Center‘s Doctor Who-themed Wibbly-wobbly Way Late Play Date event, as well as their Engineering Day. Upcoming February and March informal meetings will include learning about stop-motion animation and playing with Blender (an open source 3D content-creation program). In April, we’re tentatively scheduled to take over abrasiveMedia‘s space in Houston Station for Art Crawl.

What do you plan to have in your first makerspace? We are still validating what the community wants, but in general we plan to have space for traditional crafting (woodworking, metalworking, welding) as well as advanced manufacture (3D Printing, CNC machines, laser cutting and etching), an electronics lab, a fabric play lab, a young maker area, and space for meetings, events, and performances.  

Who is this space for? We believe that there are six main kinds of folks who will participate in the makerspace (most members will have overlap):

1. Hobby/Casual Makers: range from crafters who make for fun or to share their creations with friends to large collaborative projects like The Full Scale Millennium Falcon Project.
2. Professional Makers: people who make things for resale, such as craftsmen, artisans, performers, and professional artists
3. Families and other social groups: people for whom making is a social activity; a way to bond with the people they care about; making is a means to a social activity: the end result is secondary
4. Inventors and Entrepreneurs: people looking for advanced tools to allow them to rapidly prototype, create products, or prove a business concept
5. Learners: people looking to gain a skill, gain inspiration, or benefit from the knowledge of the community; for some this is a casual pursuit, while for others this could lead to a job or a career
6. Mentors, Educators, and Community-Builders: people looking to share their knowledge, craft, enthusiasm, and love of making and the maker community; STEAM educators; people with a passion to grow the community.

How is Make Nashville’s makerspace different from the other spaces?  We are different from Fort Houston in that their business model is primarily focused on the professional maker community. They also support many artists, crafters, and the maker community directly and indirectly. We consider them great members of the maker community and have partnered with them on various things including advocating for them when they had trouble with their zoning, working with Metro Planning to help shape what became the Artisan Manufacturing legislation, and putting on the Replication Juried 3D Printed Art Show.  

We are different from the planned makerspace at the Vanderbilt Innovation Center in that they’re primarily going to be focused around specific experiential learning opportunities for their students, with more technical tools and analytical tools that are explicitly useful for specific modeling and industrial tasks…

In short, we’re likely to be a space that is a bit more laid back, a bit more experimental, and where a broader range of projects get worked on.  It’s also a place where some who have some amazing ideas will come to steep in the community and relative lack of boundaries (contractual, intellectual, creative).  

Why is a makerspace important for the community? We believe that making is a radically inclusive activity, so we want to make sure that everyone from all walks of life can come and participate:  All ages, all nationalities, all races, all backgrounds, rich and poor, experienced and inexperienced. We plan to introduce mechanisms for folks who can afford it to help create opportunities for those who cannot to participate. We will also have various internships, volunteer opportunities, and maker-in-residence opportunities to allow folks who cannot afford the membership fee to work in exchange for access.

Fundamentally, we believe that making is a transformative activity, both on an individual level (making transforms who you are) and a social level (making transforms the community, city, and region). Our goal is to encourage more people to make and to encourage people to make more. Makers gonna make.  

See our accompanying article about all the maker spaces in Nashville. 

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