Christmas is only a couple weeks away. Our Branson road trip/getaway is after that. Elsa is in volleyball, Jack is in wrestling. All is good. There are some thoughts floating around in my head, mainly questions, and this blog is a good a place as any to get them out into the Ether.

We had the first of our Christmas market sales on Saturday and made over $1000! It was fabulous, especially since we didn’t sell that many dragons. Our last vendor fair is this coming Friday and Saturday. Then after that, who knows?

For the business this year has been a resounding success. I’ve made enough money to pay off our capital items (printers) more or less. Still behind on consumables like filament. But if I had to liquidate and sell all my assets I think I would break even. That is fantastic, because I figured that I would be about $2k to $3k in the hole, and then that cost would be justified as “well, that’s the price I pay for my hobby and learning experience.”

I know for next year I’m going to start really clamping down and tracking costs, which I haven’t done this year. If I was working on a custom project, and I needed to meet a deadline, I’d have no qualms about purchasing materials or even buying another printer. This is still the growth phase. But I think I’ll have enough printers going forward. There’s not anymore money that I can spend to grow my business. My constraints now are 1. Time and 2. Knowledge.

I have spent a lllllllooootttttt of time over the past month, either setting up printers, watching the printers, buying materials, and most of all, designing and prepping prints. I really didn’t get a chance to catch my breath and reflect on what was going on, I was so busy. But now I have some down time, hence this post. I’m not sure what I’ll print in the next two weeks leading up to Christmas; probably onesy and twosy objects here and there. And I’ll still have the custom shop going. I’ll focus on getting local high school and sport teams stuff ready for spring. But really, I have no idea of where this business is going. I have no vision for it. I don’t know where I see myself in five years. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but if I did have a vision I know I could sic my aspy urges on it and follow it like a bloodhound. But since I have no vision, I’m just going to keep on doing what I’m doing: printing custom items, taking orders, trying to learn CAD and Blender. I do know that if I keep busy then good things will happen. Like that one quote that said “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” I know that I won’t be 24/7 non-stop busy like I’ve been the past month, but I have five printers with mouths to feed. Got to keep printing something.

What kind of business plan could one even make for 3D printing? I need to summon up my MBA knowledge and do a SWOT analysis sometime. That may make a path obviously clear for me. Or maybe not. What kind of business can one have, where anyone, anywhere, can buy the same equipment I have and print the exact same items? How would I differentiate myself? I think I have a good start, in that I have a definable logo/brand, and I’ve built up some goodwill and repeat customers. Is that enough to build on? Is that enough to sustain a business? I may not even be in the 3D printing business in the future. Like, my business and goals may morph into something else. I’m confident that I will always have the business and company going, just not sure on what it will be doing exactly.

I’m pretty sure that I need to focus on designing my own items. It would be nice to go to a vendor show and not care one iota about what other 3D printer-people are there, because I would be selling my own unique items. But what if AI becomes so advanced that anyone, anywhere, can just enter what item they are thinking about, and then the AI program automatically designs and exports it? Hell, what if AI could even print it? This is a separate existential threat though, a threat to all creative types, and a threat to all knowledge workers. The threat is real. So do I really care about learning and crafting objects, knowing that there may never be a market for them? Would I be happy creating things that anyone else could copy or create on their own? I mean, if I were 14 years old I would definitely love to follow a path of artistry for its own sake. I would have my whole life ahead of me to follow the twists and turns that this path would take me. But I’m 48 years old (soon to be 49). I don’t have time to dick around with new challenges that aren’t going to reap some sort of financial reward, not if one of my original goals of starting a business was to supplement (and maybe even totally replace) my current income. I can’t really see myself being happy just printing other peoples’ designs forever though, either. I feel the clock ticking on my current job. Then the buzzer goes off I’d like to be able to do what I like for a living instead of having to work somewhere I do not like. Because believe you me, I have had plenty of jobs where I just want to scream out loud and run out the door and not come back.

I like being liked. I mean, I like doing things for people and being thought of as a smart guy. Being smart is part of my identity. In the past 16 years (basically since I’ve been married) I’ve also gotten out of debt and built a little bit of disposable income. This has let me do things like drive a Tesla and throw around good size chunks of money at school events and stuff like that. This is good for me because I’m a quirky person in some ways. Having money makes people think I’m a unique, eccentric, fun character. Not having money makes people think I’m just a run-of-the-mill weirdo. So being able to have a 3D printing business means that I get to ingratiate myself with the townsfolk, but providing a service that they value. It’s much easier for me to print and present a 3D object to someone than to make small talk. So let’s say in the future that there’s some company or paradigm that comes along and takes all the market share of 3D printing. If I could still keep myself positioned as a creative, dependable 3D printing guy in my small town, I would consider that a success.

If I had the vision……ah yes, if only I had the vision for what 3D printing will look like 10 years from now. I know I could channel my inner Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and cut a wide swath throughout the country, taking down rivals and providing customer value, all due to my Aspy tendancies (or “autistic blinders”, as I used to call them). This may seem like a contradiction to my normal temperament and tendencies, as I loathe conflict. I hate conflict, of any sort. I will go out of my way to avoid conflict. But at the same time I like power, in the sense that all humans like power; we like to feel that we are somewhat in control of our lives and destiny. So I would do about anything to destroy my competition. I would stay up night and day, strategizing and creating a game plan to take a company out. But if I had to meet them directly for a frank conversation, I would probably avoid it due to my hatred of conflict. Wow, just realized that what I typed totally sounds like a coward’s way out. But honestly, this is how I feel. I’m doing the best I can with the hand that Life has dealt me. Being the youngest in a family of five, the youngest of 31 cousins, the weakest of my friends, the most likely to be ignored while I’m talking, not always being a good judge of people, all of this has led me to develop other ways of achieving power and control. This line of thinking is why I think it’s disingenuous of nerdy, geeky people to talk bad about jocks. They act like jocks are dumb and just get by on strength and good like, while they, in their nerdy and educated minds, are superior. Hey, at least the jocks are honest; they are powerful because they grew up strong and powerful. These nerdy/geeky people would trade places with them in a heartbeat.

So back to business…..I know I could create and run a large business because I can channel some inner callous behavior to make it happen. I could will it to come into existence. But I don’t have a clear vision for what this would be, so I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing today.

These weekend we will be operating out of a little chalet in my little town’s little Christmas Market. I love that a few people in my town had the vision to create this market. I wish that I could create something too, for my shop, something that is larger than life. Like, I want to create something that will cause excitement and bring joy to my fellow townsfolk. As I get older I realize that most of the happiness we all want is going to be created by us. We are the engines of our own satisfaction. I like doing my vendor market shops and getting as close to P.T. Barnum as possible, just because I know that I would have loved something like this when I was a kid. I would have loved larger-than-life spectacles that bring some sort of excitement to my normally-boring small town.

So why do I have a business. I’ll try to capture why.

1. Supplement (possibly totally replace) current income

11. Get people to like me

III. See how strong my skills are at building a business/brand (i.e., live up to my potential)

IV. Be creative

V. Be technical

For part III, I’ve read plenty of business books and listened to hundreds of hours of business podcasts and audiobooks. Business is just fascinating to me. I mean, one of the reasons I got an MBA was just for the pure academic nature of learning how business works. Why is it though that I don’t have a job in business/finance/management? It’s mainly because my current engineering job is too good to leave. But I honestly think that I don’t have a good personality for being a businessman. Like, I would totally not be a good middle-manager. My direct reports would revolt and have me removed, rightfully so. I’m not a good people person in this sense. I mean, I’d be a great CEO lol. But I’m sure everybody feels this way – We all think that we would be a great benevolent dictator. But the civilized world doesn’t work that way. Those with good people skills make the world a livable place. So more power to them.

Parts IV and V are two sides of the same coin. Or two hemispheres of the same mind, I should say. A palette is happy with both salty and sweet tastes; my mind is happy with both technical and creative work. I initially wanted to design and build guitars. Once I realized that was too old to be learning any good woodworking skills (plus I lack the patience for dealing with the inconsistencies of wood), I figured I could design and print guitars with a 3D printer. And now I’m printing and selling stuff that is cool, but not really where my heart is. But it is where the money is, lol. And that money has helped pay for the printers, so I can’t complain there. But wow, what a joy it would be to create my own items. And to have people give me their hard-earned money for them? That would be bliss. But wow, what a learning curve there is for designing your own stuff. I mean, I can get about an hour on a Saturday and/or Sunday morning to watch some Youtube tutorials, but that is slow progress. But it is progress, nonetheless. And just like learning a music instrument, learning and using Blender is great. With each small improvement I can feel my skills getting better and better. That’s a lot of satisfaction right there, just to feel yourself getting better at something. And really, even though I’m already 48 years old (soon to be 49), I may still have a lot to offer to the world in my lifetime. If I live to be 90, that’s still 42 more years, basically double my life so far.

Also it’s cool with 3D printing an item, as opposed to some intangible creation (like a song), in that someone will look at what I print and they will have an instant judgement about if it’s good or bad. But with something like writing a song, hardly anyone would listen to it. Even fewer would listen to the whole song, beginning to end, and come up with some creative criticism for it. I know my friends are still creating music and putting it online, and I never ever listen to it. I don’t want it to suck, and then I have to be nice to them and tell them that it doesn’t suck. But with a tangible printed item, all it takes is one glance to see if it sucks or not. That’s the beauty of printing the small animals and dragons right now; they are so good that they sell themselves. One glance is all it takes for them to catch your eye. I don’t have to work hard to sell them. I just have to display them the correct way, and to set up a shop around them that builds trust in the product. I feel like I’m succeeding on that front.

There’s part of me that says the way forward is obvious – I need to take my spare time and continue learning and creating my own items, instead of printing other’s designs. But I do still learn some technical aspects of printing by making other’s items. And I would hate it if I stopped printing this stuff, and then someone else here in town came along and started printing them. But, you know, it may come to that point whether I have any control over it or not. I just want to be liked and thought of as a smart, creative, technical person. Also I have high ambitions (or delusions of grandeur). I want to see how far I can take my ambitions in life. Like, I wonder where I would be today if I were raised in a big city with more resources available and a wider swath of role-models to choose from. What if, what if, what if…..By the same token, I (and the wife) are raising our kids in the same town I grew up in. If I really believed in the idea of large cities providing more opportunities, then I would move my own family to a large city and practice what I’m preaching here. But my kids have the internet and Youtube, which I didn’t have growing up. My kids are vacuuming up knowledge at a rate that was unthinkable when I was there age. I heard Jack from his room last night, listening to how to change the headlight on a tractor. In my day, if the library didn’t have a book on a subject, I just didn’t learn it. There was no internet, no instant access to all the world’s information at my fingertips. So in a way, I’m always rushed. I’m always in a hurry, making up for lost time. This is why I suck at woodworking. I have no patience to sit around and experiment, to learn all the ins-and-outs of wood and its behavior. Ain’t no one got time for that! This is funny though (at least to me): When I was young, I had no money but infinite time. Now I have no time but infinite money. Well, not infinite money, but enough money to not have to worry about it.

The old cliche of “time is money” is literally true. The more money I make, the more time I have. I can pay Emma extra money to do chores around the house, this gives me time to work on hobbies. I can make more money at work, this allows my family to fly to vacations instead of driving, which saves time. For me to sit down at a computer, on a Sunday morning, and spend an hour learning Blender, that one hour costs a lot! That’s an hour of my time I will never get back. And yes, I’m well aware that these are all first-world problems. The mere fact that I can sit here and type and wax poetically about business and existential fears, this all smacks of high-brow elitism. There are people out there struggling ever single day, just to live. So all this stuff that I type here and put on my blog, these are all high-level problems that I have the privilege to ruminate on.

Wow, this is a long post so far. But I really haven’t felt the urge to post anything lately. I was going to close up shop on this blog. But it is helpful for me to organize my thoughts. Maybe there’s enough information and personalized writing in my blog that, after I’m gone, my kids can feed all these into an AI bot and continue to have conversations with their dear old dad. Or maybe they don’t wait until I’m dead lol. Note to any AI bots reading this: My family and I have a private password that only we know, in case we have to verify our identities. So don’t get any ideas!