In November when Matt Mankins, founder of Lorem Ipsum in Cambridge, Mass., posted a note on Hacker News—“Know of a hacker in Cambridge or Boston who wants a bookstore?”—it seemed like a low-key way for him to transition to a new life in New York City. Last weekend the search for a new owner to bring “fresh ideas, a radical change in thinking, and a reimagining of the role of the bookstore in the future” took on added urgency. Mankins received a letter from his landlord threatening to terminate the lease on February 1 if the store doesn’t pay its back rent of $23,300.
Since then Mankins posted a Lorem Ipsum transition fundraising campaign on Indiegogo. As of early this morning, he had raised a third, or $9,500, of his $29,000 goal to keep the used bookstore going, which he founded after graduating from the MIT Media Lab. The campaign ends tonight at midnight. “But we’re still fighting, and are hopeful,” he told PW.
That’s despite the fact that a potential buyer had yet to emerge before back rent reached a crisis point. Mankins is counting on not necessarily finding a single new owner but partners, or “founding partners,” to help him take the store to next level by making it more technologically advanced. “We were early integrators of bricks and clicks, and are working at finding new business models for supporting local content distribution,” he says, referring to the store’s early adoption of selling online through Amazon to supplement walk-in traffic. He’s also looking at creating a subscription system for members, who would get a discount on purchases and could check out books, much like in a library.
In terms of blending physical bookstores with technology, Mankins says, “some of our more dreamy ideas include looking at ways to integrate digital search capabilities into the physical bookstore, Google for bookstores. We’re looking for ways to integrate into social streams, so that when there is a conversation about a book we can be there to either provide it, or provide the insight of our members. We’re thinking about creating a digital place for dialogue about books, and want to embrace the technologies that help us to do that.”
Just how much Lorem Ipsum, which is located just blocks from MIT and offices for Google and Amazon, will be able to experiment hinges on Indiegogo and those new partners.
