TURBO-DIESEL-FREAK wrote:
You have absolutely nailed this.
Thanks - it's good to know that I was at least in the ballpark
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I am certain your friends business has problems to work out that potential customers can not even fathom... it certainly is the case with manufacturing the Model 001.
His business is possibly different to yours in that he doesn't target the retail market; the vast majority of his work is B2B. Having said that, there are definite similarities in that one of the areas he works in is the repair and improvement of existing machinery in order to remove designed-in shortcomings and/or provide greater flexibility in terms of the machines' capabilities (much like the Model 001 does).
But, yes, he definitely still runs into issues that his customers - despite understanding
why they need his services and products - don't always grasp. Example: one of his suppliers informed him one day that they would no longer be carrying a particular type of steel stock. This was three months into the design of a project, and the supplier had been asked prior to the start of the project whether or not that particular stock would be available in about four months when the design would be ready for prototyping. Of course, they had said 'yes' at that time - but their change in supply policies meant that almost the entire design had to be reworked to accommodate the change in materials, which in turn led to frustration on the customer's behalf when they learned that this would delay their order.
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If he is a 1-man company like me with very limited capital to work with, then his problems are often compounded because EVERYTHING takes so much more time to accomplish.
Bingo! And, working as a IT consultant myself (and in a reasonably specialised area of IT), what it means to be a 1-man company in terms of both available time and cashflow is something that I
very much understand: you can have time or you can have money. Pick one, and you only get one. The choice is even more fun if you're just starting out and having to also hold down a regular job while you springboard the personal business into (hopefully) a success - which, at this level, just means enough cashflow for it to sustain itself and let you pay bills, eat, have a place to live, etc. without needing that day job. Growing it is an entirely other question, and that's a whole other ball of wax.
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My promise to streamline post-machining production and to re-introduce anodizing in the Model 001 and other possible thermostat assemblies in the future has been delayed by months because of my lack of money to work with and the fact that I do not have anyone else to rely upon when I am pulled away from work.
I hear you loud and clear on that one. I really need an employee (even just part-time) to take care of a lot of things that are detail work but critical to the heavy lifting of the business - not so much administrative tasks, which I'm still at a small enough size to be able to handle in-house, but stuff like basic configuration of equipment, putting it in racks, cabling it up, etc. Things that generate revenue but eat time that could be spent on other areas that would help to grow and sustain the business in the long term.
Today I'm down sick with the 'flu. Might be down tomorrow as well based on how I'm feeling. Can't really get much of anything done other than some small stuff, and that's not generating as much cashflow as I'd like to see. But I sure have plenty of time as a result...