For an engineer, make this machine is a beautiful experience,
and do everything possible for the perfection,performance, usability, security.

This machine no reemplace my actual life form, but fills an important gap in his.
if I think make the machine for a business, then I need work for this true.

philosophy: I can buy My machine, but love it like?

Sign business question
 

Ken,

do you have any suggestion where to look for somekind of definition of what's a sign business can look like.

Thanks,
Yves

Gerald,

I'd like your opinion on this one, do you think an MM can do stuff like Aspire from Vetric seems to enable us to do or am I dreaming awake.

Just in case this helps, for me this kind of work implies (very) limited production and or single item kind of work.

Thanks,
Yves

Aspire is 100% suited to MechMate, and vice versa.

I saw the break even analysis, but one more item that should not be forgotten. Cash Flow analysis.

An old professor told me: all sins in business can be forgiven, except running out of cash.

Probably not true, but the point is well made. If you every run out of cash, even if you have 'receivables', you are out of business. The USA Small Business Administration says that the #1 reason for business failure is being under-capatilized. I have known businesses that had to much cash that 'burned through it' before they could start generating enough cash flow.

Receivables are OK, and cash is better, but if you have to many recievables, and not enough cash, sometimes you can 'factor' them or 'sell your recievables' (at a discount) to generate cash. Not the best way to go, but it works for some businesses (textile industry is famous for this).

Some ways I don't like, but works, to get 'a loan' is to borrow from your suppliers (but pay as agreed, good suppliers are great to have, so don't abuse them!).

Banks only seem to want to loan to companies and people that do not need money, so develop your relationship with a bank early on.

...

Now this is the pot calling the kettle black, I am just trying to figure out a reasonable business plan. But I know that a business comes first, CNC router just needs to support the business. Getting a CNC router (for a business) without knowing what you are planning on doing with it is a bad (business) plan. But a hobby doesn't need ROI. Satisfaction gives that.

....

ROI is another thing that needs to be remembered in the long run. Return on Investment. When I worked for an oil company, they would not even look into any project that didn't have a 18+% ROI at a minimum. Basically it is close to a 5 year full payback of all expenses (including cost of money borrowed). This includes all salaries (or draws if the owner).

....

Now I need to realize I, like many, are getting a CNC Router, than figuring out how to make money with it. It will probably not pay back like a business that focuses on the financials first. My hope is to turn it into $$, but I know that I am not doing it 'right'.

So any suggestions on how to make $$ with a router is appreciated! :)

A breath maybe, fresh one? I doubt.
 

Hi Yves,
I'm looking too:D...

On this, I think 1) accuracy is not that critical in sign making 2) MM eat complex figures for breakfast:D 3) surely customers will appriciate the speed. 4) should do away with after sales services.

Another idea, glass/stone etching? But I don't know how that is done.

From where I'm from, one may think how tech business can one expect in a 3rd world country, but there are actually plenty... eg, I just located a material stockist providing laser & plasma cutting service nearby... and found out a stone throw away, there is a 3 warehouses full of CNC machines for punching, milling, lathe, cutting... the full out-fit doing OEM parts fabrication/machining.

How can we find a niche to survive with these giants around???

My 2 cents

Ken,if you can`t beat them join them, get clients to know your set-up a one man set up gives a better service at the end of the day.

Signmaking is not a great idea for turning a MM into profit. There is heck of a lot of non-MM work that goes into designing, cutting, painting, finishing, installing signs and you are competing against graphic artists with vinyl-cutting equipment. But, it is a way of getting in some business and it is better than nothing. Our son started out doing signs for stable doors with the horse's names on them - spent too much time laying out, sanding, varnishing, while the machine sat waiting for work.

Hennie is hitting the nail on the head!

A MM-based business is still about the service of the people, not the machine.

The only advantage of the MM in the business is that you built it cheaply yourself and that you can maintain it yourself.

Your customer is not bothered with the tools that you use - he pays for the service/product that he gets from you as a person.

You have to find a niche market. If you work in a commodity type environment, the price is determined in the market. Like cutting steel, he customer phones around, gets three quotes, takes the lowest.

What is important is the way you compete in the market. That could be price (bad one), product features (good one, especially with a MechMate), short lead time or high quality product.

The other one is the value proposition. Value is defined as Performance/Cost. Either increase the performance or reduce the cost.

But the big thing is keeping the cash flow running. Asking a 1/3 deposit to cover the material cost makes good sense and insisting settlement on delivery keeps the bank manager happy.

A book I can recommend to any business owner is The Goal by Goldratt. Makes good, uncommon sense.

Hennie, You are spot on...

Gerald, you just confirm my needs as well:mad:

Customer needs are
1) Best Price
2) Best Quality
3) Fastest Delivery

Eventhough we all know you can have it all. We want it all...

Sun zi Art of War
 

Gerald, Sean,
I love you business strategy.


Avoid confrontation with one's weakness and exploit one's strength to the limit.

Abstract
"故善用兵者，屈人之兵而非战也，拔人之城而非攻也，毁人之国而非久也，必以全争于天下，故兵不顿而利可全 ，此谋攻之法也。
故用兵之法，十则围之，五则攻之，倍则分之，敌则能战之，少则能逃之，不若则能避之。故小敌之坚，大敌之擒 也。"

In 1910, Lionel Giles, translated :
"Therefore the skilful leader subdues the enemy's
troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.

With his forces intact he will dispute the mastery
of the Empire, and thus, without losing a man, his triumph will be complete. This is the method of attacking by stratagem.

It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten
to the enemy's one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two.

If equally matched, we can offer battle;
if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him.

Hence, though an obstinate fight may be made
by a small force, in the end it must be captured
by the larger force."

Very Oriental of you ;)

Signmaking
 

Gerald,

if that is sign making, then I'm not realy interested, I'm already earning to little an hour with my furniture thing.

By the way, I should mention that my first rational to build a CNC was to have a very versatile tool that could be used instead of few others and in the process save some floor space. I saw in a thread here somewhere, that (I think it's you) someone even intended to setup one on a wall.

If I stick with this first idea then I wouldn't care so much about a second business idea but I would try to make it as small as possible but large enough to do what I want it to do with it and of course the lowest cost possible without going on the cheap.

1- Raise panels => grooving, carving, etc.
2- Lathe/Indexer stuff
3- I don't know the name of this kind of work in english but it involves cutting curve patterns on pieces that is usualy done on a band saw or equivalent plus a lot of sanding.
4- Surely I would do mortices and possibly tenon as well, especially if I put the MM over the pit. My shop was a pump house, the water basin is deeper then the shop is high.
5- Dovetails of various kinds
6- Moldings
7- Surely I'll come up with a lot of other uses for it.

I'd be curious to see and or ear if someone is using her/his MM to do this king of more "traditional" woodworking stuff with it.

Yves

Not to compare this to "The Art of War", but in finding a niche market, I have a friend that says

You can have it
Good (quality)
Fast (the faster you go, the more it costs)
Cheap (low cost provider)
Pick 2

Since as a small shop you cannot normally compete on 'cheap' versus the Wal-Mart or manufacturing giants, the 'Fast + Good' model seems to apply for most of us.

For me at least, design takes time. A CNC can give the 'fast' once we are used to using our tools, can be done. One industry that will pay for quality design and rapid delivery is the 'engineering prototype', where function and design are more important than cost. Getting 'in' with designers, architects, and engineering firms has served some well (Zomeworks in SanFrancisco is on I have heard that does well).

Furniture designers or stage set builders do one or a few of an item. Stage builders like to modify and DIY or at least finish it themselves.

Now what I would like to do is to have a 'product', cut and ship flatpack, that could be sold by others (or ebay and the like). Standardized 'flatpack' furniture like Ikea is a mostly 'taken' market in large areas. But if you develop a clientèle and retailers in your area it might be doable. You still need to 'develop' and do prototypes. Personally I want to stay away from 'finishing'. Just not my thing.

Like mentioned before, signs provide some a good living, but it is not a 'cut and forget', there is lots of individual design, service, installation, finishing, etc that goes on. Unless you are much more of a sales person than I (not hard to be that) this is not your niche. One friend paid for his CNC machine just cutting letters for another sign shop that was over loaded. Not everyone can be so fortunate.

Artists of various forms might be a source of revenue. But if they get to be of any renown, and regularly need your service, they will probably get their own CNC machine. Still, if they are going to produce lots of pieces, you might provide them their 'production' service.

Just a few thoughts.

No Finishing please
 

Sounds like sign making require too much work outside MM. I'll keep my eye open for unfinished produce...

Come to think of all the above threads, If we want MM to pay for herself, we must think of something for her to do, not us!


Hmmm....

Some other things to look into...
 

some thoughts for the 'occasional garage entrepreneur'...

For the 'occasional' CNC job, you might take a look at http://100kgarages.com/
and the http://www.ponoko.com/ sites.

As a Ponoko partnership with ShopBot (from what I can tell) are trying a 'new thing'. Add ShopBot owners (initially they say) to generate a network where 'makers' can have something routed. Basically new customers, for even 'non-businesses' or garage router owners.

For the garage type operation, making 'paying friends' at a local Makers group
like you can find at http://www.hackerspaces.org or even start one in your area.

Do nice 'FlatPacks' Ikea style and sell at flea market types of places? But it takes focusing on sales rather than 'making'.

Do something like http://www.shopbottools.com/project_wizard.htm - Especially with gcode and make designs parametric to make mostly custom items to sell direct or from a 'catalog'.
For some reason this never seemed to take off. I am guessing not enough want to 'share' to make it self fulfilling ongoing effort.

For me, and I assume others, it is not the making that is the problem, it is the marketing and doing the sales.

The recipe for quick profitability is simple: Find craftsmen/factories that are laboriously cutting out shapes from plywood or MDF with templates, bandsaws and jigsaw and then show them you can do that process for them at half the cost with twice the accuracy.

Finding them appears to be the standing issue. Suggestions?

This is what I'm going to find out.

Thanks Gerald.

Suggest you get really friendly with the plywood and MDF suppliers and form a coalition with them. They will be able to sell better if their product can be used more efficiently.

At minimum, see if they will let you leave some business cards on their counter, or an ad on the wall. (Your business card holder should of course be CNC cut ;))

That's brilliant Gerald.

Gereld,
Will proceed exactly as you said..... Now, we are really getting some where!!1:):):)

Cheers

I attended the Maker Faire in San Mateo and met the folks from Ponoko.com
his business is concentrated maily in the jewelry business and he would like to make the leap to CNC machining of wood. Ikea has a presence in lage metro areas but not in smaller hamlets and villages across America.

They started by selling 32mm designed melamine over chipboard. Thermwood has tried building a collective that refers busines to business CNC.
But this approach has been limited in my view to selling consumables to shops. I have wondered about a collective of shops that would be available to cut cabinet and shelving etc.. that would be a Cell type company that would cut out shipping cost. Ponoko uses a platform that is designer driven a designer creates something that can be laser cut. and Ponoko is the store front.. if the design sells great if not it rots on the vine and loses shelf space.

Similarly a company could be formed by an association or cooperative of MM machines. With an invitation to design groups and an Etsy store front.
flat pack designs would be encouraged, the beauty of CNC is a prefinished
slab can be cut packed and shipped. This approach could be a low cost marketing that would pull product out of the shops.

Anyone think this would work?

The ShopBot 1000 Garages is built on this idea. I don't know if they are having any success and currently the only people that can participate are ShopBot CNC machines. They won't talk to you unless you are a ShopBotter.

I like the concept but you have to have a product that is in demand and has a large appeal.

The LinkerLogs has also set a forum to supply them to people interested but I know they have not had any takers.

If you can find the right product or industry, it is some thing I would be interested in.

ShopBot is very much about "social engineering" rather than their machine itself. Forming groups and creating websites is their thing - it is supposed to be the hold hands and feel good experience. Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya.

But somebody has to get dirty and do the darn work. I can't understand why so many people get these CNC machines because they want to break out of the corporate world, and then they set about seeking to build corporates again.

oh my....Amen Rev. Gerald. Amen

I agree with Gerald. For those from the 'corporate world' it seems to be the 'easy fit'. They buy it as a cnc appliance, use it like they want, they still have a 'help desk' to call, and the online 'water cooler' in their forums. Even 'conferences' for continuing training like the 'shopbot jamboree's, etc. ... It isn't quite like a tuperware party, but it does tend that way. ... Not a bad way to go, but obviously not for everyone. It is a more $$ way, imho.

I guess I can understand the small sign shop or hobbiest wanting the 'one source appliance' model with support available.

since shopbot is now in bed with ecabnets from thermwood, they have got a full list of standard products to manufacter with zero design cost.