Triple Win Makerspace Brings Students, Schools, and Entrepreneurs Together

by Sarah-Jane Menefee, Director of Communications, Rapoport Academy Public School

Three blocks south of the Magnolia Market is a bright blue and orange, mural-covered building that is home to a hub of entrepreneurship for small business owners, students, and local schools called Triple Win.

The 22,000-square-foot makerspace, located on Webster Avenue, was started in partnership with Rapoport Academy Public School to provide an incubator for student-run businesses. It has grown into a place where students from all local schools can learn hands on skills from business owners using industry-standard equipment through a variety of classes and camps held during out of school time (OST).

Triple Win’s bright and airy industrial space includes a fully outfitted wood lab with CNC machines and laser engravers, ceramics area with industrial kiln, metalworking space with welding machines and CNC plasma cutting, esports lab equipped with gameready PCs, audio and podcast studios, and a long hall lined with makerspace equipment, including wideformat printers for stickers and vinyl, screen printing and sublimation equipment, an embroidery machine, 3D printers and more.

As the name Triple Win implies, it’s not just students who are getting the benefit of working in the makerspace. Local entrepreneur and Triple Win Director, Cory Dickman, has helped lead the initiative of getting local makers to rent space as anchor tenants.

“Triple Win fills a need that local coworking spaces can’t,” Dickman said. “It’s like a blend of a makerspace and an office rental. When I helped get Startup Waco going, it was great because it was this resource for entrepreneurs. But, it was never the right fit for makers. You could rent an office, but you couldn’t bring a screen press in to make T-shirts, if that was your business.”

The space features 14 rentable areas for artisans and entrepreneurs to lease for shortterm or long-term use. These anchor tenants also have the opportunity to offset the cost of rent by offering classes to middle and high school students during the OST trimesters. In this way, the entrepreneur can train students who could potentially support their business in the future.

Dickman says it’s really a triple win because students get to learn from successful business owners while working on real projects that can help them earn real money. Schools win because they get a chance to access a collective of resources including business partners, industry tools, and OST programs that they couldn’t afford without the ecosystem of the shop on Webster.

“It’s almost like we are going back to the idea of apprenticeships,” he said. “The students are benefitting because they can earn industry certifications and get hands-on skills with equipment, and the entrepreneur wins because they are training someone they can potentially hire to grow their business and they are getting paid to do it.”

Though the Triple Win space has grown and changed since it started during the 2018-2019 school year, its mission to serve student entrepreneurs in the Waco area has remained constant. Through the various classes and projects at Triple Win, they’ve welcomed students from Connally ISD, Lorena ISD, La Vega ISD, Waco ISD, and Rapoport Academy.

Rapoport Academy superintendent Alexis Neumann says that vision for the space has always been to bring students and entrepreneurs together to allow innovation to spark.

“Walking through the spaces at Triple Win, you can see our students side-by-side with other area students, staff, and local business owners. They may be working on client projects, student businesses, or product development. It is truly a multigenerational environment of collaboration and innovation that fills a need here in Waco.”

Looking to the future, Triple Win is seeking to fill the other rentable spaces with small business owners and artisans and will also roll out a makerspace membership program in the fall for individuals who want to come and create in the space as well.

“We’ve built this to offer something for anyone who wants to create here in Waco,” said Dickman. “We’re excited to invite more people into Triple Win and to continue to foster new businesses and support existing businesses who need products commissioned or created for them.”

More details can be found at triplewinwaco.com.