What Would You Sell and Why?

[tim]

It seems to me that (IMHO) Chris's original post reveals the reason why most businesses fail within two years of startup.

The classic mistake is to think " I enjoy making widgets, so I will make loads of widgets and sell them at a profit".

However, 9 times out of 10, there is no market for widgets of your particular design. Unless you have a marketing budget to rival IBM or Coca Cola, it is almost impossible to create a market for your product.

Taffy, you are correct.

That certainly isn't why I started my business. Let me be clear - Woodworking is not my hobby - it is my business. I also happen to like doing it - bargain. I am currently on the investment part of my business' life cycle and consequently am ploughing everything back in to the business.

Where I think this thread possibly falls apart depends on your viewpoint:

If you are a hobbyist, then what you do is on your terms and on your time and woe betide anyone (or the thought of anyone) telling you what to do or when to do it. Why, because you get enough of that at work!

If you do this for a living then if you harbour either of those thoughts then you are dead in the water. You are at work and you do what your boss (the customer or market pressures) tells you. If you are good you can sometimes persuade your boss to accept some of your ideas and sometime not but ultimately the job you are doing is still one you have to do and hopeully like.

When i worked in industry, I would have liked the big corner office and use of the executive jet but s**t happens. Try not to judge our decisions by the same sacrosanct rules that all hobbyists (whatever it is - diving, painting, woodworking, gardening) use to determine how they enjoy their past time.

Its a very simple equation for me between enjoyment and money. Sometimes there is little money and lots of enjoyment and sometimes lots of money and little enjoyment.

Take for instance, the roofing - actually for me, being up a roof in June out in the sun all day can't be beaten, in fact I'd prefer it to being in the workshop working on a moulding. Transpose that to December and it switches!

The key for me is the enjoyment - if I don't enjoy stuff I stop doing it - I think there may be an assumption that we go to work dragging our feet because we aren't working on museum quality furniture. Not so - to me even the crappiest days are better than sitting in a meeting in the bowels of an office somewhere with an idiot pointing to powerpoint charts justifying their existence (and I have been the idiot as well :shock: ).

I do understand those of you who are hobbyists completely - I love cooking and am lucky enough to be pretty good at it, yet although I have been asked, i would never, ever do it for money - I don't want to choose menus with people and if they don't like it I don't want to hear about. I'm guessing that that is not a dissimilar view to a lot of those expressed?

Got to go, I have my 28ft commute to do and the woodburner has warmed up the workshop now. :wink:

Cheers

Tim

 

[Taffy Turner]

Spot on Tim!

 

[kafkaian]

Out of interest and really a question for the professionals; do we see a higher proportion of potential clients moving away from the sweatshopped flat pack and more towards home grown (yet more expensive) talent?

Just after leaving Uni some years ago, I bought my first house and got a lodger in. We quickly had to purchase an Ikea table to suit her study needs which I still have (Ikea had just moved into the Birmingham area).

However, in my latest house, we have a space for a desk in an alcove and I just CANNOT bring myself to put the Ikea trash (as I see it) there. I want to make something instead that I know will be properly jointed and have some character.

If everyone thought that, then the craftsperson/professional and furniture designer would not be dying breeds. However, my heart sinks at the amount at the length of the queues still trying to get in the Ikea Wednesbury store (M6 J9). I no longer go there such is my disdain for the place.

To be perfectly frank, if people spent less money on useless gadgets, had one less night out a month and spent a couple of hundred pounds less on their cars, then they'd be able to afford at least one furniture piece of quality and repute (depending on size, function and cost of course), instead of the churned out crud.

 

[Guest]

In my experience the only way to make a living as a small business is to observe what people are buying and find a way to make it cheaper. It doesn't have to be better than the competition but if it is not cheaper or exclusive you have no chance. I ran my own business for 30 years and although I never made a fortune we did live reasonably well until I became so bored I let the business go.

 

[johnelliott]

I. like Tim, do woodworky stuff for a living. Not much of a living at the moment, but it is improving as I get faster and more experienced.
Also like Tim, I derive considerable enjoyment from many aspects of what I do, especially the design side.
Working my way through a stack of 32 rails and cutting tenons on each end isn't much fun, but spending time with clients and translating their wishes into a workable design is. I like adding ideas of my own, making suggestions, trying to figure out what it is that they actually want (or need).
Kitchen design is quite demanding, good fun if you are like me and enjoy working out how to make the best use of what is usually restricted space

John

 

[Keith Smith]

Tim wrote

Take for instance, the roofing - actually for me, being up a roof in June out in the sun all day can't be beaten

Then how come I always end up on the roof in the rain even in June :?

When I started full time a few years ago I had dreams of making furniture in my nice workshop but it hasn't happened and as a final nail in the proverbial I have just bought a van so I can work more efficiently.

And today I have been doing something much worse PLUMBING :evil: as part of a kitchen refit.

Keith

 

[Noel]

Keith, that's the biggest avatar I've ever seen........maybe resize it, just a tad......?

Cheers

Noel

 

[tim]

Keith,

Sorry you've had a crappy day - I basically refuse to do that kind of stuff now unless they pay me properly for the work.


Mine was made better by a suprise visit form Trevtheturner, who also gave me a great spalted beech plate he'd made and I gave him some Laburnum that I'd cut about 5 months ago.

His parting shot? If you like I'll come round and cut the rest of the laburnum down if you like! I don't think he was coming from a gardener's aesthetic perspective :? :roll: :lol:


BTW - not sure if your avatar is big enough :shock: :lol:

T

 

[Anonymous]

great thread... enough advice to clear the most heavily rose tinted glasses.
Sadly, the bespoke furniture/woodcraft is most definitely a niche market but there's always a space somewhere... trick is to find it.

Having recently had some plumbing work done (if it aint got roots on or made of wood it's out of my ken) I just wish I could charge those rates... in addition to making the usual gamut of treen and occasional commissions, I run courses in woodturning, by the time of accounted for the heating, materials, food not to mention the insurance, advertising, phone calls etc. etc. I'm lucky if I get the min wage per hour.

If I wanted to earn a fortune I'd get a proper job,,, electrician, plumber, accountant ... now there's a good one!

So why am I still doing it... cos i luv it and it doesn't seem like work...

 

[Keith Smith]

Keith, that's the biggest avatar I've ever seen........maybe resize it, just a tad......?

Cheers

Noel

I could go on

Given up for the moment and I was just trying to please Alf because I know she doesn't like us not to have an avatar :lol:

Keith

And it was only on for a minute :roll:

 

[Noel]

It was nice too. kennel & dog. I gave up trying to resize for avatars. I just sent an image to somebody that knows what they're doing and it comes back, nice and wee.

Noel

 

[Midnight]

I've been told I'm weird... No it's true.. ;P~

The bigger the challenge, the more I seem to rise to it; I live to think outa the box, tossing convension out the window and doing things "properly". To me, that's the attraction woodworking holds; no two projects have been the same so far.. similar sometimes but never the same, and long may that continue..

There's a frustrating side to that too however; when someone asks you to make something for them with a particular use in mind, asking them about style often results in yer Mk1 blank stare.. or worse... "Och... nothing fancy". The more you try to get specifics, the more befuddled they get...

But like I said... I love a challenge... dealing with people who don't really know what they want is part of that I guess....

 

[Alf]

Given up for the moment and I was just trying to please Alf because I know she doesn't like us not to have an avatar :lol:

Huh? Doesn't bother me. But if you want one, and a bit smaller, feel free to chuck it in this direction and I'll take care of it.

Cheers, Alf

 

[norman]

the bigger the challenge, the more I seem to rise to it; I live to think outa the box, tossing convension out the window and doing things "properly". To me, that's the attraction woodworking holds; no two projects have been the same so far.. similar sometimes but never the same, and long may that continue..

I agree,
its what drew me to restoration many years ago. Still the same even now,I look forward to the next job knowing that it will be different.
Norman

 

[Keith Smith]

Alf wrote

Huh? Doesn't bother me. But if you want one, and a bit smaller, feel free to chuck it in this direction and I'll take care of it

Sorry about that Alf, I seem to remember someone saying that they liked everyone to have avatars so that they could skim down the side to see who had posted. I thought it was you, but I was obviously having a senior moment (another slippy slope to slide down).

I'll have another go a resizing then if that doesn't work I may take you up on your kind offer.

Keith

15th attempt later :roll:

 

[Alf]

Sorry about that Alf, I seem to remember someone saying that they liked everyone to have avatars so that they could skim down the side to see who had posted.

No worries. I daren't do that any more; for some reason indelibly fixed in what passes for my mind is the conviction that Neil's avatar is, in fact, Noel's. And vice versa. This has got me in all sorts of trouble in the past, so I shun the avatars as an indicator of anything! :roll: So don't worry about it, John. Er, Chris. No, um, Mike..? :wink:

Cheers, Alf