incuTANK: Sharing ideas and innovation.

The idea has really developed in my head, so I will begin with a bit of background, or if you would rather just read the idea skip down a bit.

The origin for the idea started about a week ago in Hamburg, Germany when I was in a bar called 3 Zimmer Wohnung, literally meaning; 3 room apartment, and that’s exactly what it was. It was a bar that felt like you were in a friends apartment, with one lounge room with lots of bookcases filled with interesting books, another room with a foosball table, and in the kitchen you could get cheap beers, that the bar tender pulled out of a fridge. It was pretty much like being at a house party; it didn’t really feel like a bar. At first I thought it would be a great idea to try and open a bar like this somewhere in Boston or Brooklyn, but I let the idea simmer in my head for a while. I figured getting a liquor license would be difficult and expensive, the bar competition in Brooklyn or Boston would be tough to beat, and lastly I don’t think it’s really inline with my long term personal goals to open a place that focuses around drinking.

I then started thinking it would be cool to have a place to just chill and hangout with friends in an environment that promoted meeting new people. I started to think of the things that made for a nice interactive environment, and I realized they were the same things that I found inspired me. Then it all came together, I wanted to create a place where people could come together to hangout, let their creative side run wild, learn new things, and have exposure to inspiring tools that are not part of their daily life.

The idea: Open a café and fill it with items that inspire. Think of it as a café based on the break room at Google - a place to go when your brain begs you to stimulate it with something other than your computer monitor. A room with easels and every color of paint u can imagine and blank canvases waiting, inspiring wall art and music allow for a creative work environment. A mini-library filled with books, magazines and newspapers. Another room filled with musical instruments. A place where one can easily go for a coffee and meet some interesting people, or go after a long days work to activate the creative side of their brain. Companies could even organize a team to go for a couple hours during the day, to refresh their minds. It would also be great to bring in young children for fieldtrips or specially organized “creative sessions” where they can explore the different ways they can express themselves and exercise their brains. Similar to Tito’s portable office post people could come here for a new environment to get there work done or perhaps even seek collaboration with others.

What makes this really attractive is many city dwellers enjoy a lot of these things but it isn’t feasible to incorporate them into their lives because of space or financial limitations, but by the power of numbers, it is possible. For example if you want to paint, it is very expensive to buy various paint colors especially if you only want to use a little of each color, but if many people are painting it is much more cost efficient to have every of color of paint. You can apply this same reasoning to magazine subscriptions, instruments, etc…

Because this concept is a cross between a health-club for your brain, and a café I figured the revenue model would work best as cross between membership fees, and set pricing per purchase for food, and special items like a canvas. Having a membership fee encourages people to return a much as possible, helping to boost the sale of food and drink. The membership fee also helps maintain the quality of our environment.