How I Make Money Laser Cutting: A Beginner's Overview
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 เม.ย. 2020
- Product Designs and my Laser Cutter Documentation:
www.furtherfabrication.com/re...
Hey everyone! Hope you're all doing ok in these challenging times.
In this video I talk about my experience making money and running a small side business using a laser cutter.
Instagram:
/ further_fabrication - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
This video is GOLD. Real advice no BS.
100% agreed
Say good buy to the skilled artist
Mostly very obvious business info and really nothing related to using a laser to make money. Well done, but probably titled incorrectly to say the least.
klaus os say hello to an artist with a different set of skills.
I agree Radek. I understand the positions/sentiments of some of the other in this sub thread, but I think the point is that while these points may be obvious to experienced small business owners, it is great advice for someone just starting out. And, for those having to pivot from a previous business (due to impact of Covid), it shows that very similar principles apply to multiple areas of business...which is good affirmation and a confidence builder in uncertain times.
So, I own a laser for a while. Launched a product and continued down that rabbit hole :) . I have been browsing the interent for hundreds of hours. Just finding things that would speak for itself or useless/fake/1-in-a-million-chance-business-cases. Now everything I have learned the hard way the last few years is all in your video. Very well done, great video. definitely a must watch for laser cutter businesses.
Thank you for including some real examples in there with actual numbers! Over the years, I've had a lot of "fun ideas" that I talked myself out of after going through the number exercise. You did some of the leg work for me, so I appreciate that! Fantastic video!
Classy guy giving legit advice. A TH-cam gem.
Thanks for this. No BS, this is so applicable to anything someone can make. This was presented so clearly how to proceed with an idea for any creative endeavor, not just laser cutting. Really appreciate the content.
Having worked as Laser operator for a company over in Australia for the past 20 odd years, we've found the best solution for customised "products" (more so) the service of providing a customised product, is to have a set minimum price for all jobs, that way you're able to absorb the costs and still make a profit. It can be a bit hit and miss and some jobs are little profit and some are high profit. It that way though gives the customers an idea of what something will cost down the line in the future etc. A lot of the customers more often than not are willing to pay big money for a one-off, customised part etc. Loved seeing your perspective on it all nonetheless and you provided some very insightful information!
I am currently working for a laser cutter company. Really appreciate your creativity! Our company develops and design laser systems for small businesses for over 20 years. We do hope there're more of you get interested in laser cutting technology and we can explore the business possibility together!!
I just started a small laser cutting and engraving business in Rwanda and you sir have just made my job A LOT easier! I am incredibly grateful for the information you have shared here. I have also watched the DIY machine series and I can't wait to get started on a similar project soon too. Rock on, dude!
maybe i can help you, please add my whatsapp:+86-13285336692 mail:Jessica@danuomachinery.com
I'll give you the detailed machine information
I'll give you the quotation
Thank you! Sometimes just hearing/seeing the steps and pros and cons we may or may not have already known are the kick in the butt we all need!
Very straight forward vid Rob. Thanks for someone trying to get started this is the kind of information that is needed the most, but most people overlook.
This is the best video I have seen about starting a laser cutting buisness! I have been looking for information about this for so long! You hit it right on the head! Thank you!
This is a great video for anyone wanting (like myself) to build an at home business based around a laser cutter, whether self designed or purchased. You have done an awesome job with your laser cutter and I only wish you had these videos available when I started designing my machine. I originally bought a K40 and wanted something more realizing the limitations of the K40. I soon after started designing my own and yours puts mine to shame! Great job man! I appreciate your perseverance in following through with this whole project and creating the subsequent videos. I subscribed many months ago to see this very video! Keep up the good work! And "Radoslaw" is right, no BS and only real information to get a business off the ground.
Straight forward, clear advice derived from experience. Couldn't ask for anything better!
These are the sort of videos I wish most would make whilst explaining things. Just on the fact alone you are willing to let people use and sell your designs, you got yourself a new sub, well done mate!
Im very grateful for the time you spend to help me and everyone!
This is priceless information, I wish I had know the cons of a service based business before I started. But you've laid it out pretty well.
This is one of the best and well presented videos that actually contains sensible and practical business sense information! I’m not Even someone who has anything to do with this type of craft or anything. I was just watching this video randomly and was really taken aback by your display and presentation! I really enjoyed your video and actually peaked interest into this type of craft. Thank you so much for sharing actual real information as well as business acumen with the world. May you be blessed for your truthfulness and honesty! I will watch your videos from now on. You have a loyal fan in Fort Worth, TX!
The best video I’ve seen in a long time... great work, and thanks!
Thank you for sharing. This was very helpful! (and I loved the sound of the rain!)
Dang. Why didn't this video exist 5 years ago when I had to learn all these things the hard way. Great video!!
Excellently verbalized. Clear, concise and to the point! Well done.
unbelievably clear and open explanation. brilliant video.
I just acquired a small 3d printer that included a laser engraver. That raised my curiosity on the laser engraving/cutting. I watched your whole serie on the development of the diy laser engraver/cutter, and I learned a lot. Eventhough I may not build my own, now I have a good idea of what is involved and the possibilities for it. I also loved your explanations and how good you organized the messages. Awesome content!
I lived in Puerto Rico. I'm in the other side of the world, but also an island with the same issues of the shipping. Therefore I feel your pain and I was identified with your mindset.
Rob, real nice of you serving others with your knowledge. Happy Easter.
thanks, this was the best video about making money in laser cutting far better than most ive watched. Im really considering adding a laser cutter to my already existing business, again thanks for such a great video.
The content is so rich. Really appreciate your work mate!
Absolutely amazing video! This covers so many topics that have been floating around in my thoughts that I haven't been able to put words to. Would absolutely love a video on product design. Thank you!
Wow, that city looked amazing! I wanna hear more about that stuff.
Thank you for showing real pricing concerns. Craft people tend to ignore many things, such as production time, laser tube wear, and air filter replacement. Your presentation helps everyone stay profitable. Know your design and production costs, have fun, and serve the customer with a quality product or service. Your channel will get us there!
Maaaaate! What an incredibly insightful and well-delivered 15 minutes of wisdom. I dont think ever seen such a transparent and all-encompassing overview of this kind. Thanks very much dude, just the ticket when deliberating whether to invest in a cutter. :)
Took the words out of my mouth!
Wow! You crushed it! Well done! Genuine and very solid/sensible advice!
Best ever speech about practical small business entrepreneurship.
A boom of useful information
Really appreciate the build guide! Just purchased the full set of plans and hope to get started when I'm back to work.
Thank Rob
Added this to my bookmarks.
Beauty work!
Love sci fi and totally saw Blade Runner. You guys did an amazing job!!! The city and scenery were awe inspiring.
As a marketing person I appreciate your approach on this subject. (NEVER compete on price, hone your craft and always be telling people what you do)
Appreciate the honesty and the valuable information!! much appreciated mate !
Great video ! I’m a professional musician in the
Los Angeles area, and currently starting up a woodworking business to help me get through COVID 19. Your video is full of practical info and explained clearly. Thanks for taking the time to produce this.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience in such a basic and detailed manner while broadening our horizons.
Fantastic video. I've been running a laser cutting based business for about 7 months and was doing it part time for a couple years before that - - everything you are saying is bang-on. Thank you!
Cheers mate. That's awesome, stoked to hear you've been able to go full time with it!
Very insightful! just bought a glowforge 3d laser machine and have been thinking of indoor signage...... watching your video has actually taught me other areas of interest! Cheers man!
Thanks for all the advice man this is gold!! I am waiting for my 80 watt laser to be delivered... so nervous. This video calms those nerves by providing some inside scoop on how to make some profit !! Much appreciated mate!
Thanks for sharing your experience with running your own product design business. I'm literally at the beginning of the same journey, about to finish my NEIS (New Enterprise Incentive Scheme) and start my product design business, both as a service and making my own products to sell, so your video was immensely helpful.
Great video - concise, and explained with so much experiential leanings - big thank you!! You covered the Entrepreneurship module of my MBA in 14 minutes
Hi Rob. I build laser cutting business here in Indonesia since 2016, without owning a machine (its super expensive). Basically i just act as intermediate between the machine owner who doesn't know how to get a client and the client who didn't know what queries to search for in google. That's the reason i jump into SEO. Now i mostly in page one for many related laser cutting keyword. Which converted into 250 leads every months. Lately im considering to owning my own machine, and i'm gratefull your video pops on my feed. And supprisingly you have a really good content, and its all make sense after you explain your background. It has really good structure, and communicate everything clearly. I start to watch all your video, and probably gonna ask more about the building process. Great content!
the rain noise in the background is soothing
great job doing the video!
You sir are a gentleman and a scholar for doing this video...very informative. I'm going for it...ordering a laser cutter in next couple of days. Many many thanks for taking the time to help complete strangers out. Subbed.
AWESOME THANK YOU VERY MUCH !!! Very generous of you to share valuable insights and information good luck for your future 👌
Absolutely fantastic video! Straightforward!
An amazing amount of great info in under 15 minutes!
Amazing video. Very grateful for your insights, this was exactly the type of advice I was looking for.
I don't normally comment on videos but thought it necessary to show some praise to @furtherfabrication for such on-the-spot video content. Rob gives an honest break-down of the industry for those of us gathering knowledge. I'm now a subscriber. Thank you!
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us.
Excellent content provided, it summarises my years of experience in starting a business. It's very accurate, complete and to the point. Rare such really truthful and useful videos.
Great stuff! Glad I found this channel! Im looking to get into more metal fabrication work but this is very relevant
Thank you for taking the time to make this video, enjoyed listening to what you had to say.
Nice to see you again Rob!:)
Thank you so much for this video. Price war.. This is the worst thing what freelancers and small buisness can face on all markets. Specially when people gives prices so low that make collaps whole comunity.. besides customers who are super happy, but this ruine whole others. It's time to value yourself, for engeged time for growth and increase quality. HIgh quality is always relats to bigger price.
Best regards from Poland!
Thanks for taking your time! Really great great advice.
Hey, thanks so much for making this video. I built my own laser cutter a while back and have been toying with the idea of starting a small business around it. This video really helped explain some of the ins and outs of what that would entail. I'm from South Africa btw. I would love to see more content like this. Cheers mate.
Fantastic and incredibly generous advice, thanks for sharing!
Absolutely brilliant & wishing better for you & with quality like this the futures best is well deserved for you, top job & thanks for sharing your knowledge & experience 👍😉🥇
Very good advice, I make lot crafts by hand and looking at a laser machine. Your spot on about doing personalised custom work, I stopped doing it because while some customers are ok to work with some kept changing design which pushed up my own costs and really tests your patience and can be time consuming, their satisfaction was great in the end but found it frustrating at times. It affected my workflow and creativity. Thanks for advice as I been just cresting ideas and selling which is better. Good to see how you price your work. Good man.
What a great video. Thanks for posting and helping those who are interested.
Your expertise in this field really reflect in your very thorough explanation, cheers!
Very good video, informational without being boring, lots of good advice!
Going to point this video out to my digital fabrication class. Great info and well delivered.
dude you have my dream job, im also an industrial designer, i really want to work doing props for movies and live in new zealand, youre so lucky!
What a great video, I'm a hobby blacksmith looking to really start making money with THAT and I was amazed at how applicable this all was. I found my way here as I'm looking to invest in some kind of cool machine I can make stuff with as I get really tired of my boring machine operator day job and close in on the last of my student loans. I have connections across the 3d printing world so that sounded a little pedestrian and laser cutters have always interested me more as a tableotop wargamer where laser cut MDF scenery of the HIGHEST quality is abundant. Thanks for uploading this top notch content.
Very professional break down. Thank you.
Very helpful comparison. Thank you for sharing with actual data on costs and profits.
WOW ... fascinating, didactic and altruistic ... CONGRATULATIONS ... a hug from Lisbon, Portugal, EU
Finally! Honest man with good information... thank you! Those informations are valuable for us who have a plan to start business with laser cutting machine!
maybe i can help you, please add my whatsapp:+86-13285336692 mail:Jessica@danuomachinery.com
I'll give you the detailed machine information
I'll give you the quotation
Killing it Rob! So impressed with your stuff!
Cheers Cam!
OK, this is GREAT advice, especially for beginners. A couple things I would add are first find a niche, if you can. For example, I officiate sports, so I can make unique things officials use. Because I am an official, I know what I am doing and know the needs of officials. From that “initial” step, people start seeing what I can do and this is how my business expands. EXPERIMENT, DO NOT keep doing things the same damn way. Make mistakes; you will be amazed at what you can learn from this which will allow you laser using a new / modified technique with insights learned from an unplanned “mistake.” You will do things you never thought possible, but for the lesson you learned from a mistake. I have been doing lasering for 15 years, and I continually update my technique, my laser settings, use new / different raw materials to laser, look for better ways to do stuff, etc. Likely a first beginner perception is that you are going to make a million bucks your first year; you would be lucky to make 1-2 percent of that. One way to minimize one’s costs is to get raw materials from a business that sells to other business; do not buy raw materials from a consumer outlet. Most businesses will have special arrangements for other businesses. We are a sure volume user and they reward that. For example, I have a relationship with a large fabric store, so I get a 20% discount on everything I buy. I do not buy my acrylic from Home Depot or other big box store; I purchase all my plastic from large businesses who sell to people like me. Look for free advertising. Make a nice gift for the person who cuts your hair; they will display at their business place and other customers will like what they see and ask “who made that?” Give free samples of something to a social busy-body; their word of mouth advertising is very powerful. Make a sincere effort to know your graphics software and how make cool designs. The video shows a design in Photoshop. You cannot (as far as I know) use a bitmap program for anything other than engraving. If you are going to cut stuff with a laser engrave (about 90% of the stuff I do), you need to know the difference between a vector and raster image. If there is a way to cut an object from Photoshop, I do not know how to do this. By far, the most common, useful, and easy to use software is CorelDraw. A laser engraver is, truly, a laser printer. You can “print” anything to it - because it is just another device: a printer. Often, to test a connection, owners print a simple text file to see if it is transmitted to the laser. You do not _have_ to print it, but you could: it would print, i.e., laser, as a raster image. You MUST have the attitude expressed in the video: if you make a mistake, redo it. Do quality work and only sell quality work. Third rate lasering will be a death knell to your business. Also, know what you can and should not be lasering, such as PVC, and other materials. Learn the lasering properties of your materials. Again, I am continually doing / using / experiment with mechanics differently every few months or so. If something is organic, there is an excellent chance you can laser it. Formica / laminate is mostly made from paper. I am one of the few people who figured this out and make a lot of stuff with Formica - and ya cannot use a more durable product than laminate. And, it is a really inexpensive “raw” material.
Finally, Rob has a nice beard and nice slim body, but he talks funny…
Great advice there, thanks for sharing!
Sorry about the accent, I know it's a bit odd haha
Absolutely outstanding, easy to understand plan! Thanks
Best video by far with fantastic advice.
Thank you very much for the insightful and thorough explanation
Years ago, my dad bought his first laser engraving machine. Somewhere during the process, someone handed him a mini book on how to make money with his laser (from one of the companies selling the machines). He got it in his head he could make a full-time income with the laser and after about a year was disappointed when he had not even done enough to cover his monthly payments. I wish this video had been around then. I tried to explain these concepts to him, but it took a while. I partnered with him and helped him turn his laser from a hobby to a business. Primarily, selling products on Amazon. Of course, our “non-essential” items on Amazon are not moving now, but we do really well in normal years. Etsy is a good marketplace for both products and services. My sister and I teach selling on Etsy, and one thing I would caution anyone getting started on Etsy is that the high competition means you need to get creative on your listings. Think of hyper targeted ways to promote your products, not just laser engraving/cutting services. As mentioned in the video, it’s a good idea to have a wide selection of examples...just make sure you have run your costs and time to make it profitable for you. That killed us in the beginning (my dad pretty much charged $5 a project, but it would take him 2 hours to complete- because he was going off the $1 per laser minute but didn’t account for any other expense). Well done!
I wish you for your great initiative and future success...❤️ All the best mate..
Hi Sir, This is Hunter from Quick Laser .Kindly send mail to : mojiewen@quickestlaser.cn ,and my WhatsAPP NO is +8613761994748 . I'll share more info to you . Best Regards.
might as well tell us where your Etsy selling classes are offered!
@@ryanrickerts5982 Lol. It's actually a free course, but I need to update it with some Etsy changes. I recently set up a new site to help drive traffic to crafty shops. Feel free to send me a message through that site: craftyuniverse.com/contact/ or even submit your shop (if you have one)! It's free to get your shop listed...just takes me some time to get the post done. I'm just trying to help shops that want/need more traffic. As for the course, if you send me a message, I can tell you the convoluted way I have it set up for free access for now. It's on my 'to-do' list to move to somewhere with easier access...but that's after I update some of the videos. Even with slightly older content, it's all the same concepts. I started a new shop at the end of April (not laser engraving related though) and moved it to the top 3% of shops on Etsy. I'm trying to catch my sister in the top 1% of shops. I followed everything we teach - so it's all still valid. For laser engraving, I'm trying to get on Walmart since they have a new integration with Shopify. Lots of potential right now!
Absolutely great video! Thank you!
Well I dont normally sit and watch someone talking for a long time, but I did find you video very useful, as I am just thinking about getting into laser cutting and a cnc machine, I already have a 3d printer and I am looking to combine all 3 to work for me. Your video was easy to understand and follow, and its great to see this from a fellow Kiwi. Will check out the rest of your videos as I move forward with these thing..Cheers
I've watched your build series and found them very encouraging, Now business entry into Laser Cutting !! Thank you Rob for sharing !
hi，im Gavin, a seller for the Manufacturer of laser machine from china,give me an email and get the catalog.
jqlaser8@jqlaser.com
Damn! there is some really good advise in this which I didn't even think about, Thank you for sharing, much appreciated
Amazing talent & skills Rob! I really like what you're doing. Thank you for sharing your experience in this video. I just subscribed to your video. Looking forward to more videos from you.
Fantastic video. Really valuable advise, not only for the laser market.
Great video no wasted time and very useful information. Thanks for making it!
awsome video thanking you .helped heaps .im also in nz and just ordered a small hobby machine
Rob. Thank you so much for explaining each part..im new to this laser stuff n dont have idea on how to start making money i dont even have a product yet... any other info or ideas are appreciated... your the Best .again Thank you
Thanks Rob for sharing! Much appreciated and definitely valuable for beginners :)
Exceptional well presented that enabled me to clearly comprehend for a 76 year old
Thanks Rob. Good video as always. Very much enjoy your channel. Keep it up.
hey thanks bro. ive just brought a banggood jobbie to get started engraving boards. great vid man.
Damn, that was an amazing presentation. Lots of great advice. You seem to be a very nice and kind person with character. Very refreshing. 👍
What an amazing and informative video. Thank you, and good luck with your work.
You have the most lovely demeaner. Thank you even though this isn't something I would do but I enjoyed your presentation.
I worked, at a pretty high position, for (2) of the most well known suppliers of higher end, gantry based lasers, and I can say that I am quite impressed with your video.
Hey ma. This video is gold. Thanks alot. Am an enthusiast who is dreaming. . This definitely was super for me.
Awesome brother, thanks. Great video, great delivery.
Great video! All information was very helpful/practical. Thank you!
Really informative video. Thank you. Please make more!
This was great, really appreciate your information! Thank you!