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Back to Can You Engineer Serendipity?, with Evan Baehr & Chris Taylor.

Why Is Fridge Starting to Charge Event Hosts?

Chris Taylor says a big benefit of being a Fridge member is throwing events in the space for free once the group is above 10. The member brings the food, the alcohol, and the staff, and where it fits, invites the other members. Programming is now starting to be member led. He still runs a lot of the core programming, and members do things and invite other members.

His early rule kept staffing off the house. The member had to leave the room the way it was found. Nobody knows how to do that. His staff can flip a layout and put it back before morning cowork. A random member cannot, and the worry about whether the room would look right in the morning was stressing them.

He is flipping the rule. He says Fridge will probably have to charge a couple hundred bucks to have staff on site so hosting stays easy, especially when the night benefits other members. The fee steps off his no-staffing stance, and he said they were working on the change that week.

Transcript

Can You Engineer Serendipity? ·

Austin Next

More from this episode

  1. What Is Rosedale?Rosedale is a physical room Zac Solomon runs for serious, non-dogmatic argument. The project started very niche.
  2. Why Do University of Texas Grads Work in the Bay?Evan Baehr says top CS students at UT and the Austin companies that want engineers keep missing each other.
  3. What Is Serendipity Manufacturing?Chris Taylor says serendipity manufacturing is mostly the room.
  4. Why Did Less Writing Make a Writing Club Happier?Zac Solomon says a writing club is really about talking to other people. People use the writing as the excuse for showing up.
  5. Why Do Big Spenders Love the Free Golden Ticket?Evan Baehr runs a for-profit membership with a very high price and a free version called the golden ticket for extraordinary people under 25.
  6. Why Did a Member Mop the House Floors Unasked?Zac Solomon is the only employee, and the members already got the picture.
  7. Why Does a Small Austin Club Survive Losing Half?Zac Solomon calls a small rented room probably the most sustainable way to run a community in Austin. He is a little younger and takes very minimal risk.
  8. Are Sweet Greens the Way of Texas?Evan Baehr says an experience of Texas made of Sweet Greens and La La Land is not the way of Texas.

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