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Not sure where to put this, but here goes.
Based on input from Eric over the decades and my own proclivities, I’ve started an American manufacturing business, and things are going very well, thank you. The idea of “investing” any cash at all in one of the variety of vehicles pitched so hard at Joe Consumer makes me sick, (“no thanks” to mutual funds, annuities and other silliness) so other than what’s in gold and a few apartment complexes, I’m putting my money where my mouth is, and launching a US labor based distributed manufacturing business.
Results to date are excellent.
We came up with the starting product idea in October, hired an employee the same month, and using fast prototyping on American machinery, and avoiding fixed and tooling costs on purpose, produced a few hundred prototypes for sale (by hand), sold them, incorporated in November, sold way too much at our launch over the weekend of Black Friday/Cyber Monday, added our fifth employee last week, plan to open our second manufacturing location in Tulsa on January second, have our sixth hired planned for early January, and hope to make a splash at a trade show in January.
We have been “ramen profitable” from our first shipments (a great term I learned recently that refers to profitability while the founders are paid no salary) and by all indications should be doing well in the New Year. Obviously, it helps when the founders are fortunate enough to be able to fund their own gig, but there’s been way less than 6 figures invested, and we believed we’ve bottomed out on the need for cash, even with substantial investments in American made machinery.
Our products are targeted at the consumer, and we’re using a few basic concepts that I think will continue to let us thrive in a crowded market that never saw an outsourcing opportunity it didn’t like. If anyone is interested, I could go on at length, but the basic ideas are disintermediation and vertical integration to keep the money the end user spends for the manufacturer; paying middleclass wages and providing health insurance (paid for) generous vacation time (4 weeks paid) and enjoyable working conditions while treating employees like human beings; and providing products that can turn on a dime, be massively customizable and provide good value for the price.
None of this is rocket science, but I don’t exactly see a crowded field.
We are Insanely Great Products, Inc. at igproducts.us, and we hope to keep adding manufacturing locations and doing our part to gets Americans back to making actual stuff, even if it’s just a little part we play.
Based on input from Eric over the decades and my own proclivities, I’ve started an American manufacturing business, and things are going very well, thank you. The idea of “investing” any cash at all in one of the variety of vehicles pitched so hard at Joe Consumer makes me sick, (“no thanks” to mutual funds, annuities and other silliness) so other than what’s in gold and a few apartment complexes, I’m putting my money where my mouth is, and launching a US labor based distributed manufacturing business.
Results to date are excellent.
We came up with the starting product idea in October, hired an employee the same month, and using fast prototyping on American machinery, and avoiding fixed and tooling costs on purpose, produced a few hundred prototypes for sale (by hand), sold them, incorporated in November, sold way too much at our launch over the weekend of Black Friday/Cyber Monday, added our fifth employee last week, plan to open our second manufacturing location in Tulsa on January second, have our sixth hired planned for early January, and hope to make a splash at a trade show in January.
We have been “ramen profitable” from our first shipments (a great term I learned recently that refers to profitability while the founders are paid no salary) and by all indications should be doing well in the New Year. Obviously, it helps when the founders are fortunate enough to be able to fund their own gig, but there’s been way less than 6 figures invested, and we believed we’ve bottomed out on the need for cash, even with substantial investments in American made machinery.
Our products are targeted at the consumer, and we’re using a few basic concepts that I think will continue to let us thrive in a crowded market that never saw an outsourcing opportunity it didn’t like. If anyone is interested, I could go on at length, but the basic ideas are disintermediation and vertical integration to keep the money the end user spends for the manufacturer; paying middleclass wages and providing health insurance (paid for) generous vacation time (4 weeks paid) and enjoyable working conditions while treating employees like human beings; and providing products that can turn on a dime, be massively customizable and provide good value for the price.
None of this is rocket science, but I don’t exactly see a crowded field.
We are Insanely Great Products, Inc. at igproducts.us, and we hope to keep adding manufacturing locations and doing our part to gets Americans back to making actual stuff, even if it’s just a little part we play.
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