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All these posts make me feel smug about our small consultancy. It was genuinely small and part-time but brought in useful beer money, perhaps 6 figures in all (two people and that’s over a few years, we weren’t swimming in money).
Basically killed by brexit, but hey, **** business and all that. It’s not like the country needs taxpayers.
It's very hard doing two jobs I found.
You try and do both to your best ability. The new one tends to make you work unsociable hours to get it done and becomes a chore.
I tried to start a new business and just work two or 3 days a week at the old job.
The two or 3 days became 4 or 5 because you were not working affectively or were persuaded by work colleagues and the new business gets left aside and thus you start to struggle at a time when you need to put the most effort in and leads to lack of morale and bad customer service.
Full commitment is hard ( making the decision ) but the best way to give it a your best shot.
If its deffo a hobby/ part time then you will not worry about it so much.
Maybe take a work "holiday " to launch the new idea fully committed and get it up and running faster.
Good Luck anyway.
I suppose it depends on the day job, if u can answer emails and the phone etc at the same time ( in the day) or use the odd bit of downtime its not such an issue.
I could not do this.
Regarding 3-D printing - it's definitely about finding a niche/product that solves a problem which is otherwise difficult to do.
I designed an axle adaptor (a packing spacer, essentially) for bike racks for a mate when I saw him fiddling around with his bike rack after a ride. He was well pleased with the resulting part & suggested I should sell it on ebay, which I've been doing for the last few years.
It's weird because some months I'd sell several & then I'd go for several months selling nothing. They don't really cost anything to produce & I have been batch printing them, so the only thing that takes time is putting them in an envelope & sending them out.
I only make a few quid on each one, but I suppose I've sold enough to pay for perhaps 50% of the printer cost, which I bought for my own interest/hobby.
I also sold a screw-on brow shade for the Ravemen PR lights as when out of the saddle over the front of the bike I found the light quite distracting. It was quite hard to make robust, without making it bulky & ugly. I sold a few & then thought about re-designing it to supply with double sided tape so it could just stick on, rather than screw in place. But, never got round to it & am not sure it is worth it.
The thing is, as someone mentioned above is that very few people understand the amount of effort that goes into the design process of this stuff. They just see a small lump of plastic & think that it must only be worth a few pence, as "anyone can get a 3-D printer these days".
People want something for virtually nothing.
I made a tape cutting device for my own use, to allow me to cut down a full roll of Gorilla Tape into a suitable width for my rims. It works really well & I considered sticking that on ebay - not just for tubeless tyre set-up, but I figured there are probably plenty of people out there who would want to take a large tape reel & split it down into thinner strips.
But, when you look a the number of parts & because of the size (mainly thickness) the postage cost would go up quite a bit (small parcel, rather than large letter) it would have made it quite a lot of money to make any profit on. So again, it was something I didn't proceed with.
What you do see is people nicking designs off places like Thingiverse & just flogging them as their own, which is pretty crap.
I am a member of various FB 3-D printing groups & as soon as someone posts up something interesting they have made, everyone piles on asking where they can find the file for free download & when the OP says that it's their own design & they aren't planning on making it available, people get massively pissy about it.
I sort of accidently started a sideline when I started beekeeping.
I say sort of accidently because I didn't realise what was involved with processing honey and wax when I first started, I thought I'd have enough honey to put into a couple of old jam jars and give away to friends and that would be it. Some years I'm dealing with maybe 250 - 300kg, packed into 340g jars with 3 labels on each jar. It's a major operation to get honey from hive to the customer and people balk at the price (£5 a jar, which is cheap!)
This makes the hobby pay for itself and maybe a little bit on top some years, but it's not a business that funds our life.
Fortunately I've built up a base of customers that keep on buying my honey so I don't have to really go out of my way to sell it.
I'm in the forest of Dean. I've been asked quite a few times to post but I don't because of the cost of postage and risk of the jars getting broken.
To my eyes, while it's something that I could do but it's a risk that's potentially more hassle than I've got time for.
Believe it or not, I've had people return jars because the honey has crystallised, I wanted to scream at them 'that's what honey does you fuggin idiot', but the wife took over and just have them their money back.
Social skills are not exactly a strength
As Warren Buffett would say "the best investment you can make is in yourself"
Instead of trying to made a few extra quid on the side, you'll make far more by increasing your skillset, so you can gain a higher paid job.
Not saying it'll be easy, but probably a lot easier than everything already suggested.
@tafflade oh, that's a shame but completely understand. Nothing surprises me about the general public and your wife did well in dealing with it!