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Comment by dangrossman | Hacker News Reader

I bought some production equipment (laser cutters, printers, heat presses, etc) and manufacture physical goods out of my home. Feels closer to coding when I first fell in love with it -- making the whole product from start to finish, selling directly to the customer, retaining all the fruits of my labor, etc.

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I see multiple comments asking the same thing. Some time ago, I Asked HN the same thing: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage? [1]. Many great answers.

My dream is alive, but no progress yet.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32141962

I’m not sure how to figure out if there’s a profitable market I can tap with the thing I want to make.

As an example, I created a modified level so that my wife could set tumblers up for full wrap laser engraving. I’ve been trying to figure out how to sell the tool but maybe there is not much of a market to sell to.

I’ve tried my own website, a free DIY version as an email collection tool, becoming active on laser forums, the finished level on Etsy, and now a DIY kit on Etsy. I can’t seem to sell them. I’ve met similar issues with other items I’ve designed. So, “scratch your own itch” doesn’t seem to create a market fit for me or I have trouble finding that market.

Halp!

Have your wife do a youtube promo on it, and sponsor some laser engraving videos?

I know the guy that sells a tumbler level for the xTool P2 to do full wraps. He does some online classes too. He found his customers by being active in the P2's Facebook groups from when the product first launched. I don't see any evidence it's generating more than pizza money for him. I think that's too niche to be anything more than that.

I think the structure is the worth here. I felt great when doing a stupid min wage delivery job for the same reasons you listed. Making the whole thing, direct customer interaction, no intermediate no structure. You carry the weight as you see fit, free to do better if you can. So much misery comes from the endless negotiation and fake social protocol sucking life and energy out of you.

What sorts of things do you make? How long did it take you to learn and get proficient?

Could you expand? That's close to what I've been thinking about in terms of my future.

One thing that I worry about is that there seem to be quite a lot of competition in the space and to give clients I feel I would have to go through an Uber of laser cutters. At least that was an impression I've got after ordering a few parts through something like that.

How did you start our transition to it? What is your specialty? Etc.

I just checked his hn profile, and was interested to see that dan is the same person who did improvely, which was mentioned by him on multiple hn passive income threads.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dangrossman

https://improvely.com,

How do you like it? I find myself gravitating to this as well. The little projects I've made have been outrageously fulfilling, like the first days when I was writing code.

I think if you found a niche (like Shop Nation did on YouTube/Etsy) you could do quite well?

Do you find the lack of a boss and the BS of a typical corp job freeing?

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