Announcing a Group House for Young Entrepreneurs!
The Hacker House is a group house for young entrepreneurs, self-experimenters, unschooled learners, and self-directed innovators from all walks of life. It’s also for adventurers: people who seek excitement over complacency, self-improvement experiments over mindless media consumption, and opportunities to create their own success, fun, and profit. It starts January 2012 in the San Francisco Bay Area, CA.
We invite you to discover our house’s purpose, organization, and details below. If you’re interested in joining, you’ll find details on how to apply at the bottom.
The Basics
Where: Somewhere in the SF Bay Area close to public transportation, and where you will have little chance of getting shot or pan-handled. It will most likely be either in San Francisco or the Peninsula.
What: We’re going to rent a 3-bedroom house in one of the above mentioned locations. The house will initially be unfurnished, but we’ll quickly outfit it with beds, couches, and other furniture from FreeCycle, Craigslist, and Ikea.
Who: Six members, ages 18-30. The minimum age is firmly 18 due to liability issues. Maximum age is negotiable, based on potential fit in the house. Six members is based on double room occupancy in a 3-bedroom house. Members will have a chance to meet each other in order to find like-minded roommates.
Why: Because living in community with awesome people is better than living alone.
When: Starting January 2012 until who-knows-when!
Residency Fees
$700/month is the current estimated fee. (The fee will be finalized in mid-December 2011.)
The residency fee includes:
* Rent
* Utilities
* Wi-fi
* Cleaning supplies
* Basic furniture
* Group dinners (prepared by members)
* A small budget for house activities
The fee does not include:
* Breakfast, lunch, and snack food
* Laundry
Additionally, members will pre-pay $50 in monthly workshift fees. This $50 fee will be refunded to the member at the end of each month upon successful completion of workshift. So the total payment is actually $750/month (but you get $50 back each month). We will also require an initial security deposit of $700 (to cover potential house/furniture damages).
Residency will operate on a month-to-month basis, with a 30-day notice for move outs. Each month’s payment must be made one month in advance. (This gives the house a month to find another member if you decide not to move in.)
If a member decides to move out in the middle of a 1-month period, he or she will need to find another member who can take over the month-long commitment. (In other words: No refunds. Sorry! That’s the only way to protect other members who need to pay the lease.)
House organizer Janet Chang will sign the lease and assume financial responsibility for the rental.
House Purpose
The purpose of The Life Hacker House will be twofold:
1. To live cooperatively with other innovative and self-motivated people.
2. To support each other in our entrepreneurial ventures and life goal projects.
Cooperative Living
“Living cooperatively” is more than just being nice to each other. It’s a specific way to live harmoniously in community. Many people try to start group houses and see them fail due to unclear rules, poor communication, and lack of shared vision. We’ll avoid this fate by using a model of organization developed by student “co-op” houses across the USA (like the following).
Major features of the co-op model include:
* Adherence to the Cooperative Principles
* Democratic house meetings
* The workshift system: a division of labor in household duties that allows member to focus on their preferred duties while also holding them financially responsible for completing the duty.
Entrepreneurial Ventures and Life Goal Projects
We won’t be called the Life Hacker House for nothing. The purpose is to support self-directed innovators who want to make big things happen with their lives. To that end, we’ll expect members to:
* Pursue a set of exciting entrepreneurial/life-hacking projects while in residency. This can be anything from building a webapp, to practicing negotiation skills, to overcoming your fear of swimming, to learning a language in 3 months, to hitting a personal best on the deadlift, to practicing Social Rejection Therapy….etc. The list goes on with many ways to purposefully explore new fields of interest. This will be a house for doers.
* Proactively support fellow house members in their projects through accountability partnerships, skill-trades, mentor-mentee relationships, or informal discussion.
(Bi-)Monthly Group Adventures
Not only will we be cultivating our lives inside the house, we’ll be interacting with the community on a bi-monthly or monthly basis. We’ll be hosting meetups, workshops, potlucks with interesting people, maybe even serendipitous trips to the beach! These will be organized by members of the house, of course. The community house fund will be put to use for these group adventures.
Workshifts
Each house member will owe 3-5 hours of workshift per week. Duties will include cooking, cleaning, food purchasing, house managing (e.g. finances, running meetings), etc. Members who miss their shifts will be subject to a monetary fine removed from their $50 monthly workshift pre-pay. One member will sign another off to signify completion of a workshift.
Want to Join?
We are currently seeking new members to participate in this exciting experiment. To apply, please send an email to janet (at) ihackhealth (dot) com with:
1. Where you’d be interested in living
2. Why you want to live with us
3. What you do with your time
4. What you will contribute to the house
5. Your Myers-Briggs personality type, if you know it.
House applicants will be evaluated based on their experience, enthusiasm, and preparation to meet the above house purposes, and their potential for compatibility based on personality.
In December we’ll do short interviews with each applicant and make enrollment offers on a first-come, first-served basis. In other words: Earlier applicants will be favored!
Move-in week is the first week of January!
Thank you!
-Janet Chang (co-op organizer)
Questions?
Shoot them over to Janet: janet (at) ihackhealth (dot) com
Credits
The idea for this housing community was inspired by Blake Boles’ Adventure House in Asheville, NC.
