Its over......

[cadman]

Well, today is the last day of business for me. After 9 years of self employment I'll be shutting the doors and putting up the equipment for sale. This has been the best experience of my life but now I prefer a steady source of income. I will be keeping a lathe, mill and a lot of other equipment to fill up my garage and I'll finally be able to start on my router.

If I could go back would I do it again? Definitely.

[mxtras]

Man - sorry to hear it.

What advice can you offer those of us that are just getting our stuff going? Any insight?

Wish you the best in whatever you choose to persue.

Scott

[ViperTX]

Cadman....what exactly were you doing as a business....any business contacts you wish to share....what were the monthly revenues.....questions....nothing, but questions.

I suspect that someday, you'll long to be on your own again.....the corporate world is not a nice place at this time with all the "offshoring" going on....

Good Luck!

[ynneb]

He he, Cadman, I have recently done the same thing, and feel the same way as you do. I dont have any regrets, love the work, but need regular bucks.
Good luck with your future persuits.

[cadman]

Thanks guys.

Without going into too much detail, for the last 9 years my wife & I had a machine shop. The first 2-3 years we did well, then things started changing and became a bit harder. In 2000 we let our last employee go and I did everything myself since then. The last 5 years were just a long struggle and at some point (last month) I just said forget it.

Fortunately I have a couple offers to do what I've been doing (programming, cad, machining) and actually get paid.

I do have some advice and pointers for anyone who wants to go one their own in manufacturing:

1. Don't quit your day job, yet. You've probably heard this many times but it is true. At some point you will know when its time to make the plunge, but be careful.

2. Research, research, research. Really know the market/business you are getting into. Talk to other business owners. They will have information and advice thats worth more than gold.

3. For you guys who want to start a job shop, unless you are in an area that can support another job shop, do not get into this part of manufacturing. In my area of Southern California, Orange County, there are hundreds of job shops looking for the same work and the margins on this type of machining are generally not very good. I did prototype, R&D, molds (layup, thermoform, RTM) and art related machining, so fortunately I didn't have to compete with them.

4. Working for yourself means you will be putting in more than 40 hours. During the last 5 years I was at the shop 10-14 hours a day, 6-7 days a week, sometimes going for 3-4 month stretches of no days off. I put in more than a few 24+ hour days. At home I was programming. So basically I no longer had a life.

5. There are 3 types of employees. Good, just there for a paycheck, and good for using as horror stories.

6. The overhead for shops is usually high, so you must be able to withstand financial stress.

7. Experience. If you are going to start a machining related business you should have real machining experience, not just a year or two of cranking handles and not just a couple years of community college machine shop/programming 101. CNC machines and cad/cam software do not know how to cut parts. They only do what you tell it to do. Out of all the employees I had, the only ones that knew what they were doing had a machining background. I myself had almost 11 years when I started the shop.

8. Perserverence. Put forth all your effort and with a little luck you can be a success.

I could go on and on but I'll call it a day. Keep in mind there are exceptions to everything I said and I wish good luck to anyone willing to make their mark. Like I said in my first post, I would still do it all over again if I had the chance, and if I was a few years younger.

cadman

[sendkeys]

Originally Posted by cadman 7. Experience. If you are going to start a machining related business you should have real machining experience, not just a year or two of cranking handles and not just a couple years of community college machine shop/programming 101. CNC machines and cad/cam software do not know how to cut parts. They only do what you tell it to do. Out of all the employees I had, the only ones that knew what they were doing had a machining background. I myself had almost 11 years when I started the shop.

hahahhaha I just started a two year aas "degree program" at the local community college for manufacturing. It was going to be my 'back up degree" if my business i am doing now stops working out. But looks like it's not going to be worth anything hehe. I guess maybe if my local university gets on the ball and sets up a program, i can get a masters?

Heheh looks like i am in the classic "everyone wants experience but no one wants to give it"


(sorry to post out of context, everything was great advice but i had to say something)

[cadman]

Yes, that is the problem with an industry like manufacturing that values experience, but practically requires it to get it.

Whatever you do don't drop out of your college program. Knowledge is still knowledge and it is worth alot. Always remember there are exceptions to everything and many times the ability to push ahead regardless of experience, or lack of, can make the difference.

[whiteriver]

I feel for you. I'm in the same boat. I started my business 9 years ago and did well for the first few years. Every year I take a 25% drop in wages. Droped from 100k+ to less that 30K gross. The net now is garbage. I build Air sampling containers for Nasa, CARB, EPA, DOD, DOE, etc. But now with the war on top of everything else the government is not cleaning up the enviorment. Guess buying bombs and coffins is the wave of the future.
So I bought a cnc router and retroed it to work up here in the boonies. (No 3phase) Have made a few grand with it but No one in Idaho has money. Now i'm retroing it again to do large carvings in foam and wood. Almost done. Have had no work for the last 2 months. Hope to have the router finished next week. If I can't start making steady money with it then I gotta go back to work for the man. And with no education and Chrons disease it will be very very difficult up here in North Idaho. Wages suck and cost of living is high.
I'll get off my soap box. Wish I was a salesman.

Donny

www.whiterivermfg.com

[MikeAber]

Cadman,

I understand your situation completely!

I owned and operated a 2-Way Radio Shop for over 25 years. As an FCC licensed technician I was sure I was set for life until NEXTEL, Sprint, Cingular, and Verizon put me and everyone else in the business out of work. I went to college for two years and learned the Computer trade at night while taking care of fire engines, busses and anything else I could find during the day. Then when I finally completed all the tests and became MCSE, CCNA, A+ and Network+ certified the dot.com's went bust and all the high pay jobs died.

I now work at the same community college I took all those courses at as a Computer and Electronics Specialist who gets to play in the machine shop as well. There isn't a day that goes by at work that a student doesn't ask the question "What classes should I take to get a job?"

One thing I learned thru all of this is that you need to do whatever your passion is, no matter what the pay is.

If you love doing whatever it is you are doing, people can tell right away, and employment -regardless of experience- is no problem.

You will love all the free time you have to do the things you want to do, make sure you do some of the things your family wants to do with you as well. They paid the same price you did to "be in business".

I need to do a reality check sometimes as I can't believe I get paid for not working on holidays, sick days and vacation days. I also can't get used to the fact that I no longer need to worry about the SBOE, IRS, and Workmen's Comp. every month.

Working for someone else is a vacation, especially if you love what you do.

Mike

[cadman]

[QUOTE=MikeAber] make sure you do some of the things your family wants to do with you as well. They paid the same price you did to "be in business"./QUOTE]

How true. There was a definite price to pay with the marriage, but its nothing that can't be worked out. What made this somewhat difficult was my wife & I have worked together and seen each other every day for over 19 years, 10 years when I worked for her dad and the 9 years in business.

whiteriver (Donny) - I have to say I have a tremendous amount of respect for guys like you who go into business in areas of the country that do not have a large manufacturing economy. I really wish you well and hope you can pull through.

cadman

Dale

[cadman]

There is one more piece of advice I'd like to add to my list above:

9. Take a business class. You have to know the business part of a business. I was lucky. My wife had run the office for her parents since she was 18 so I didn't have to worry about that end of the shop.

[shootingarts]

I went back to the vo-tech many years ago after owning several small businesses. The school had a guest speaker and called us all to the auditorium to hear him.

He started his speech. "Some of your will work in industry, some in commercial establishments, and some will be fortunate enough to own your own businesses . . . ." At this point I had several hundred heads turned towards me since I had exploded into laughter! I thought he was joking.

Hu