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by wespiser_20182 days ago |

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Unless you can turn the process into something you can delegate to an employee or set of employees it will not scale up to be a business.

Anything gated by the founder's personal availability is what the VCs used to call (dismissively) a lifestyle business.

by boothby7 hours ago|

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I've been contemplating the nature of the rat race lately. If you can do it all, and you're enjoying what you're doing, why should it scale? If it's your side business, I presume you want it to remain that way until there's enough demand for it to be your main business -- and even then I wouldn't want to scale beyond demand.

by marcosdumay6 hours ago|

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> why should it scale

Because you need your business to be big enough to pay your bills, not just theoretically net positive.

I have made some designs that I thought of selling too. For something like that to work, you need thousands of customers over the time.

It's ok to spend an year or two of weekends working into something that can replace some of your main income. It's really not ok to do that for something that can't.

by boothby5 hours ago|

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It sounds like you're wanting the the side-project to take over and replace your day job. Which is fine, but different from what I've been picturing for myself. Nevertheless, with that being your target: suppose you've grown big enough to pay the bills. Does the business still need to scale?

I see that as a bit of a trap, because people pass on what (to me) seems to be fulfilling work that could support a modest lifestyle and make big-growth choices that either crash them out or saddle their business with debt its market can't sustain.

by cortesoft3 hours ago|

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If the whole point of starting your own business is because you want to get out of the ‘rat race’, doesn’t it need to at least pay your bills? Otherwise, you are still in the rat race, just with even less time.

by marcosdumay4 hours ago|

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Not replace, but it should free enough time to run it. There's a minimum scale for something to actually free some time.

> suppose you've grown big enough to pay the bills. Does the business still need to scale?

No, that's the acceptable size.

by wespiser_20186 hours ago|

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I agree, and a big practical reason I walked away was that I was spending my weekends and nights doing this, and there were other hobbies/interests I wanted to pursue. After so many order, it was also getting pretty boring to print the same thing out, over and over, but I could have always raised prices and decreased order that way.

I'm still 3D printing, but now focused on problems like dog and kids toys where I can give away the results.

by renewiltord2 hours ago|

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Why to scale? Because hours of work for $300 is not worth it lol.

by AndrewKemendo7 hours ago|

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The biggest thing I’m confused about is where the order demand was originating

“ This 3D printing business started with the help of my dog, at the time a puppy, and his desire to see my neighbor’s puppy. We (the humans) began talking, and as we ran through a conversation about dogs, the topic came to his trading card business. He’d source cards all over the internet for his daily WhatNot auctions with thousands of followers. Impressive—not only a home business doing real volume, but a lens into a world I had no idea existed.

I eventually noticed he had a 3D printed card stand, and with a printer at home, I offered to make him one myself. “Great,” he said, “I can sell them.””

So a guy selling playing cards started selling the things you 3D printed?

Is that the business?

by wespiser_20187 hours ago|

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Yes, exactly. It was through a neighbor. He had a functioning trading card business to start with, I sold my first order to him, then his clients started asking for prints.

I'd argue that's a "business", there were sales, supplies, a bottom line, et cetera, it's just the front-end part of the business was in collaboration with someone else.

It was pretty random, but there's all sorts of other 3D printing businesses like this for D&D supplies, tool attachments, et cetera.

by AndrewKemendo6 hours ago|

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Thanks, that’s definitely a business, I just had to kind of infer it and that’s why I asked