Comment by jermaustin1
2 years ago
I'm a little early, but this month, my side project SHOULD hit $2k, all signs point that way. Back in March, I decided to get serious with my CNC, and started designing things, dozens and dozens of things. Eventually I settled on something that felt like it had potential: Rolling trays and vape holders.
I get the wood from my grandpa's mill. I use both redcedar and pine, but I'm currently experimenting with oak (much slower wood to CNC and it is much more expensive as well).
I made a couple for family and friends, they thought they looked great and said I should be selling them. So at the end of February this year, I reopened my Etsy from when the pandemic first shuttered me inside my house, and listed my vape holders first. After a week, I had a few sales, and then I added my first rolling tray. By mid march, I had already racked up 20-ish sales before I told my Facebook friends about it (which is a shitty feeling - selling to people who probably get hit up by MLMs from all the other highschool people you wish you could forget), but that secured 7 more sales, and they started to snowball after that. I'm currently just under $1000 in revenue for the month of April, and everyone on the Etsy forums are saying this is the slowest time of the year for them (Easter + Tax Season), so fingers crossed after Monday, everything just starts picking up steam.
I have a laser/cnc shop as well. I never tried etsy. Are you using just a cnc router to create your products? Does the product price justify the time you are spending for them?
CNC is 75% of the way there, then there is sanding away most of the machine marks, then finish sanding. My current personal best is around 10 minutes per tray, and I make about $15 of each one (after fees and shipping and materials). So My time isn't exactly uncompensated, but its no where close to how much my time is worth as a software engineer with nearly 20 years of experience.
I batch out a bunch of them on the CNC at once (in fact I have to do a boatload more this evening), then while those are cutting, I have a pile of others that I need to sand. About the time I'm done with those, the next will come off the CNC, then takes me 5 minutes to set it up again and keep going. It gets tedious sometimes, but I can basically zone out while I do my sanding and listen to podcasts and music and still be able to hear the CNC start to cut something incorrectly (happens far to often).
Thank you for your detailed response. I just purchased a laser marker (50W) and planning to utilize it for the customized items. I think it might justify my cost eventually. I am also thinking about the software engineering with experience vs handmade wooden / metal things to sell. But I realize I also waste time doing weird hobbies and why not make money while having fun so that would be the justification. Last question if you don't mind, did you try metal or any metal product modification mixed with wood?
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