1) Re: maintenance, some of the spaces DC gov is already paying for…and maintaining empty buildings. Also, infrastructure (coffee pots etc.) and operations (janitorial etc.) would be paid for by DC.gov + other funding sources.

2) Rush? They been thinking about this for YEARS and perhaps the rush is the dozen or so talented people that have reached out to me over the past few months that are out of work, have great ideas and skills and just need guidance/support. That and DC has the opportunity to capitalize in a big way on the ‘tech president’ nature of the Obama administration – I met a guy at your holiday party who came to DC from SF because he liked the DC tech vibe. We need more of that. This will help. Also, Affinity Lab has been a part of this process with the DC gov all along and view themselves as a way to house – for a longer duration – the new companies that are created in this space.

3) There’s no expectation of donation of time/services to the DC Gov. It’s more like DC gov will say: “we’ve got a problem and here’s $20,000. you guys build the solution and if looks promising outside of just a dc.gov use, then we’ll help you sell it to other cities and get funding to blow it out further”.

4) Love your ROI analysis. The take away really is that the DC.gov’s money is OUR money and we absolutely must figure out smarter ways of using it. If funding the creation of $2 umbrellas that typically cost $400 is the way to do it great!

Please let other people know about this, Martin. The spirit behind this ‘un-incubator’ concept is that it would be built by all of us…rather than handed down from on high…

I also wonder about these vacant spaces in DC (especially in SW). Many (I assume) are hundreds of thousands of dollars from being up to code. Also, will the DC Govt be on the hook for maintenance of the building and janitorial services? That alone can run thousands of dollars a month.

Why the rush? Why not get funding to help places like Affinity Labs out? Also, would there be an expectation that if I worked in the space I would *have* to donate my time/service/talent to the DC Government for ROI? I wonder how that exchange would work? There is a bit of a difference in saying you created what you’ve valued as millions of dollars in application as opposed to the DC government actually paying millions of dollars for applications which in themselves have no ROI.

I think when it comes to services like web applications, it might be as simple as supply and demand. The valuation is only on the price paid to acquire the deliverable. If the DC Gov only paid $20,000.00, the applications they got might only be worth $20,000.00. The simple fact that an over-priced agency would have charged millions of dollars to do the same, doesn’t mean the application is worth millions of dollars; it just means that *not* paying millions of dollars to an over-priced agency for applications that have no financial return was probably a good idea.

If I charge $400 for an umbrella and you go across the street and buy one for $2, you didn’t really get an ROI of $398 for simply crossing the street — you just didn’t waste unnecessary funds on something that was overpriced and only worth $2 to begin with.