Craft Blank Based Business Start Up - Advice Req.

[NCEternal]

First post - be blunt - Will never give up, just need to know what way to run.

I'm in the middle of self-funding my little business dream and while its generally going quite well - tested run times for projects, worked out costs and prices, set up trade accounts, building a small social media following (13.5k and counting across two platforms), buying bits here and there, little savings pot there for things like materials, marketing, site running costs, etc.

I'm almost at the point where I can register and begin trading, however...

At home, I have two children with significant additional needs, which restricts my time to 9am-3pm then 10pm-2am during the weekdays, the weekends are on rotation, so the kids are away every fortnight, and also for 1 week during summer and Christmas holidays. I have to start this from home, as I neither have the funds, the credit rating or the time to take on a lease of any kind. The best I could ask for would be a fortnightly craft fair or other similar situation, so a combo of selling at craft fairs and crafting, marketing and selling, packaging and posting any products from home through a website would be better(?).

The business is a craft blank supplier, and custom laser cutting and engraving service. I (plan to) sell pre-cut shapes, made from wood, card or paper to begin with and later acrylic and various other materials, once i have enough profit to reinvest into better laser cutting equipment. At present, all items are blank, for the customer to DIY themselves, or for a custom order example - branded coasters, keyrings, signs, etc. I don't seal, paint or decorate anything beyond examples of what can be done with the product for photo's and other media.

I do any cutting or engraving when the kids aren't home, realistically around 4hr cutting time 5 days per week. In 4hr, I can get 50 or 5 things cut or engraved, pending complexity. Obviously the more detailed and specific something is, generally the higher the cost, which makes up for not being able to produce as many. When I've scaled up, this will increase to 80-100 items per day at low complexity, or roughly 15 more complex items, potentially more, and I'll be able to make much bigger items too.

Hopefully I've given you enough of an explanation so far, questions coming, I promise!

If I were to open up online tomorrow, I know I couldn't handle everything by myself once/if the orders started rolling in. The time I have, I need for design and manufacturing.

Should I be looking for a business partner, or otherwise hire someone to do all of the other things? Or looking for another business to design/make things for them to sell (where would I find those?).

When it comes to niche products... where do I start? This machine can do SO many things, and design is limited only to the imagination and it's been quite difficult to decide what to focus on. This is partly the reason for the craft blanks: Basic shapes are easy to cut, are consistently in demand and as they're quick and easy even with custom or larger orders, they can be fulfilled easily at speed. So I reduced to small signs (welcome, seasonal or commercial), basic shapes, seasonal craft shapes such as ghosts, pumpkins, etc. for halloween, your standard christmas shapes, easter... so on. Should I stick with this for now?

This is where it's at for now, however I want to add another layer in. I'm a qualified wedding planner and event organiser who has never planned a wedding or organised an event bigger than a childs birthday party (multiple, not just my own children). I'm also autistic and ADHD. I want to plan private events such as birthday parties for other neurodivergent people. In my experience, planing, organising and executing mentally disabled children's and adults parties requires significant additional considerations from the decor to the catering. As a special needs parent, I know what it takes on the daily, never mind deal with a birthday which is often overstimulating and mentally draining for both the host and birthday person. These would be fully custom events, I'd make everything, organise any catering or entertainment, transport it there, set it up, either provide a host or provide a "how-to" for the host, and go back and clear it all away when they were done. Afterwhich, I'd then have X amount of pieces to re-use, possibly hire out to others, or sell.

I definitely can't do all this by myself. So how do I get someone else on board? Better to partner or employ?

There's probably a thousand other questions I should ask but I'm really just looking for advice on what to do, if it sounds like it's worth it... The research says so, the test audience reacted very well, I've had maybe 2 businesses have me make products for them, one was a lady who sells wooden jewellery who received 260 pairs of earrings - severely shorted myself and made next to nothing, but it was worth it for the test, the experience and the knowledge there might be 200 odd people walking around with my earrings on. The other asked me to make journal covers and backs, simple cut with rounded corners and holes for A4 paper, who came back and ordered quite a few other custom products. Both were very time consuming.

And I'm going to leave it here as I could literally talk about this all day and night!

Thank you in advance!

 

[Porky]

Hi @NCEternal
Firstly, a big warm welcome to this forum.

I can tell from your OP you have a lot going on here. Many, many ideas.

What you need to do is put a basic business plan together. I would work it backwards from what available time you have each week for this business and what you can actually do in that time.

I would stick to one product you can do first (no idea but if it was say engraved message tags on key rings for weddings/anniversary say) you could start by doing just that one line, listing on Epsy or whatever and start supply at low level. As you build and you understand what works and what doesn’t start to increase your product lines and volumes. If you have worked out how long to make x and post out then you can limit it to 30 available or whatever it works out at.

Don’t rush at loads of ideas at once, Jack of all tradesand master of none, find your niche, work on your USPs what would make someone buy from you over others.

If you have some traction, revenues coming in, you could look for someone part time to work for you good at the areas you are not so strong at further down the line but with any of these cottage craft industries it’s probably hard to find someone else that shares your passion, but before any of that you need to get the basics working.

Nice clear focus on one thing to start with is my best advise. But the very best of luck to you, read many of the other threads here for inspiration, knowledge is power as they say

Take care,
Pork’s

 

[DoolallyTap]

I can't quite work this out! the message is a bit contradictory..
What do you want to register, sole trader status or Ltd company?
It seems you have a machine and done some work, you worked out costs and prices and then sold earrings for nominal profit, so you did not work out your figures very well!
What are the social media sites called? have you really got 13.5k followers?
Take your finished products to craft fairs or elsewhere, test the market, build a website, how much cash have you available to invest?
How much research have you done? I easily found wood pumpkins 10 for £2.09, that's .21p each, leaves, animals, acorns, .10p each. Research is so important.
unable to cope if you open online? how do you know this?
You say you are cutting 4 hours a day so presumably you have plenty of orders, or is this what you anticipate doing?
As always, a business plan, a cash flow forecast, a profit and loss forecast are the starting points to prove if the idea is feasible. You will not find a business partner without some background financial planning documents. Can you afford to employ someone, £25-35-45K per annum, now?

craft blanks/event organizer, choose one, you cannot do both.

 

[fisicx]

Hi @NCEternal and welcome to UKBF.

An awful lot to unravel in your post. Took a couple of reads to work out exactly what you are asking.

The first thing is to stop bouncing around with ideas and decide on just one thing: either craft supplies or party organising.

Which ever one you choose, the key to your success is going to be marketing. And both (for now) are going to be very local. Your social media could be a good initial source of leads but they will soon dry up. So maybe get yourself some experience in marketing an learn how to get new leads.

 

[IanSuth]

Contact all those you know from when you took you qualification (i am sure you are in some social media groups with them).

Offer something like custom engraved placename holders for the wedding breakfast - you will know what would work there and the price point. Surely that would be a decent niche that you have an inroad into and the skills/equipment for.
You also have the option of a simple 50 identical tags with the name of the wedding couple on or pay for for individual guests names or a hybrid of x plain plus y personalised for top table - choice of shapes/material to suit the wedding theme

 

[pentel]

Re laser cutting you should be charging around £1 a minute for cutting time.

 

[Ozzy]

A massive +1 to @Porky reply above. You do need to take a step back, I could almost hear your inner conversation as I was reading your post (I'm a volunteer supporter/coach/mentor for people with ASC/ADHD and more, so get it).

Focus on what you can do now, and build up from there carefully. You do not want to implode and then it all collapse because it runs away from you, everything Porky is saying in their post. Definitely do not bring in a business partner, just don't, bring in a freelancer or part time help if you can. I don't know how old your children are, but can they get involved too as a bit of together time, I know you say significant but I've been with children with 'significant' and they have created some great craft.

Mainly, the take away I hope you take away, is slow down a little. I know it'll be a challenge to do that, but that is what you need to do and take Porky's advice above is my suggestion.