This is probably one of my favorite videos on KZfaq to date. This is real, honest, and probably most importantly, it's complete.

Few suggestions for those who are starting: 1. Automate as much as possible 2. Either print on belt or push off printed parts 3. Print using 5kg spools so you can run nonstop for a long time 4. Dont upgrade machines just so you have the newest shiny machine. Only replace/upgrade if its not working. 5. Ventilate the rooms where you print, work and monitor the prints remote via webcam. 6. Try to be partner of a larger company and execute their orders too. 7. Outsource when you are overloaded with orders.

Passing the bar exam and becoming a lawyer, bravo! Definitely understandable the choice you’ve made.

"Even when I didn't have a boss I was still shackled by limits in my own mind" Man this isn't the most relatable sentiment to me right now. Discipline is also something I can see that I am lacking. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you for your honesty and experience.

Great story and thank you for sharing. It’s a very tough business to run. I did it for years and my most successful products moved to injection molding and the print farm was reduced to a few printers. The experience gave me great content for how to upgrade/fix your 3D printer and that grew my KZfaq channel to far more profitability than the printfarm ever could.

As someone who has also moved on (for now) from being my own boss, this is so relatable. Thanks for the honest video

Honesty is the one of the best qualities of this channel

Love hearing the honest ups and downs of people's various side hustles. It's hard to find the real talks these days.

Stumbled across this video by accident doing exactly what you said you do when given free reign of your time. I expected to skip through it and be done but you actually touched on a lot of topics that I struggle with too so I actually really enjoyed this video, Thank you!

We have to do what we have to do!!!!! I love my spinning wheel that I still can’t find someone to put it together for me on my pedal sewing stand. I am proud of you and pray for you and your family!!!

I love my Etsy shop, and especially my customers. Where I think you and I differ is that I'm a hobbyist 1st and don't depend on my artisanship to make a living. I've been on Etsy just over 10 years, and understand that I'm Etsy's customer, has helped me keep the proper perspective with our relationship. I felt the pain in your story and appreciate your sharing it. PS I'm a retired factory worker and this allows me to have a different approach than you. Good luck with your new career, I'm happy for you. God Bless

It always concerns me when someone says they want to be creative, and that most creative freedom you can have is working for yourself. I’m 100% convinced that if I worked for myself I’d be spending all my time trying to keep the business profitable, dealing with difficult customers/clients, protecting my IP from copycats, and ensuring I’m not breaching any regulations. None of is the kind of creativity I’m good at or interested in. I’m lucky to have a job where all that stuff is managed by other people so that I’m freed up to be creative. I do hope your friend finds success with his business, but in my opinion it sounds like he’d be successful anywhere, he’s the kind of person I’d want working at the company I work for.

I'd be very interested in seeing a video about the nuts and bolts of calculating costs, etc., that you described. I have a similar plan, not about fiber arts tools, but around tools for gardening and raising chickens. A university in Canada shared some blueprints with me some years ago for a small-scale egg-washing machine that I found impressive. They gave me permission to produce it, but I still haven't worked up a business plan around it, searched for a manufacturer to make a specialty part it requires, or even done a simple profit projection. What you've said already about scalability is instructive. Already I find that, though my farm and food waste recycling service give me the autonomy I so desperately needed, they keep me chained to our locale. My extended family all live far away, and I'm unable to get away for more than a couple days at a time, because I have my route and my animals to tend to. Last time I saw my uncle, at my grandmother's funeral, he said, "You know, you don't have to wait for someone to die to visit." But so far, that's the only time I've been able to justify pulling myself away from work--when there's something out of town that I couldn't justify missing. It's not that I'm making a lot of money. I just hated working for a boss, and I don't want to jeopardize this "freedom from" by letting down my customers. Thank you for sharing this. For some reason, I had it backwards--I'd been thinking that you already were a lawyer and that you left that to get into the 3-D printing. Good luck on this new adventure! I have a friend who graduated law school in Mississippi. After working for a the VA for about a year, he went to work for a prestigious firm in Florida where he's worked at recovering millions of dollars in unpaid benefits for disabled veterans and their widows. Good on you for giving your friend the help he needed to get started! Someone did the same for me, leaving to me all the equipment and supplies from her soap making business when she moved away to start an elderberry farm with her sister. I'm hoping to make it a nice sideline for my farm market.

nice that you found a buyer! I was actually in a similar situation due to Corona 2019. I had build a 3D Print Business with resin 3D Printing Miniatures. Mostly selling to the US from Germany. Then shipping stopped and orders as well. So i found someone buying it of for a huge chunk of money. I started a new 3D Printing Business.. lets see how long you can withstand it.. I am verry happy now, running a Printfarm with 100 High Quality Machines and some employees. Prinjekt ;D

Congratulations on passing the Bar!!! That's no small accomplishment. Thanks for sharing your journey. Everything you shared in this vid was helpful information. Looking forward to updates on your journey.

Congrats on passing the Bar that's huge. Thanks for breaking down the business and explaining it!

What a great video. Thank you for being so raw, I'm still fairly young and I'm so afraid of failure that I don't really attempt any of my ideas. Seeing you go balls deep and just shrug it off time after time was very inspiring. Good luck on your future and congratulations on starting a new career.

Fantastic video, it is truly relatable and inspiring. All the best to you and yours with your new ventures!

Freedom through discipline is a lesson many fail to even grasp. Congratulations, and best of luck in your next chapter.

I'd love to hear more about the in's and out's of running the etsy shop. I am trying to start my own little workshop, primarily leather and wood, I have a laser cutter/engraver, but I have difficulty with my own motivation if i have to do it myself. And I have a second project that I've been working on, but I dont have the funds to continue at the moment, I finished demolishing a rv trailer that had a sketchy past, and I'm rebuilding it as a rv yurt platform that could possibly house me and my son in the future. And I'm proud to have witnessed your personal journey as a maker, I hope to see more in the future.

Congrats on passing bar, ty for being honest and open

Great video. I'd be interested in seeing a follow up with more details about the in and outs of the business and design, costing, etc that you described.

Thanks so much for this honest video. Really enjoyed the experience you shared and the introspection

interesting video. first of all youre such a great friend for giving your buddy such an amazing stepping stone. starting out a decent businnes and develop cashflow is by far the hardest part. i run my own 3D print farm from home pretty similar in size to yours and most of the things youre talking about are relatable. i would add that as a print farm owner youre essentially running your own mini sweatshop. great you got freedom but now youre working minimum wage to do mostly unskilled labor. unless the profit margins are particularly good on your products or you can leverage the business in other ways you best accept that print farms are not very glamorous. but by god they are amazing tools if you utilize them right! thanks for sharing your insight and good luck in the lawfirm

Brilliant video, Thank you for your honesty. I am facing similar dilemmas right now and all I bump into are stories of big success, or people who pretend that they are successful and try to sell the course. You did succeed but you show more realistic side of this craft business, something I relate too. Thank you for sharing it. Good luck with your new career!

Congratulations on passing the bar. And thank you for what you have done for the spinning world in terms of giving an economical alternative to expensive items.

Love this video. Just starting my own 3d printing side hustle. Don't expect it to be a full time gig with this one. Have an idea for a second one that could be. Either way, thanks for the reality check that is missing from so many of these videos and good luck with being an attorney! Congrats on the new stage in life

Wow, that just felt refreshingly genuine.

Very interesting video and I love how you shine light on the different aspects of it.

Awesome video man. Love the transparency.

Your story mirrors mine exactly. After 3 years I just closed my 3d printer business. We made $97k but our take home was only $38k our sales also started to diminish. We had a lot of copy cats. It's nice to hear I was not alone. Thanks for the honest relatable story.

I see from the videos in your channel you are great at working with your hands. It’s amazing how you made the shift to a lawyer. I mean one day you are hands-on creator and in the next you work in an office, shuffling through paper and law books etc (I imagine). Man what a radical change..I wonder how you handle that. Career change from doing something you obviously love to something else is something I couldn’t dream about. Thanks anyway for the video and congrats on your new career..🎉🎉

I’ve printed your spinning wheel and wool combs, they work really well! I appreciate that you put it out for free if you can print it while selling it for those that can’t. The spinning wheel was actually my first multipart print that assembled to be bigger than the printer and it really opened my eyes to what I could actually design and print. Thank you! As a side note: with that kind of profit, it may be worth upgrading 1-2 machines to nicer printers, I love my ender 3s but am currently saving up for a bambu labs p1p or p1s

Congratulations on a successful business and getting out before you burned out. Life changes. Congratulations on your new career and education success. I’m glad you dodged this video otherwise I would have thought your designs had been stolen and not bought anymore things

A very interesting and informative video! Thanks for sharing!

I hope you don’t beat yourself up too much over your time management, I’m 65 and still struggling with this. Looking at my upcoming retirement in a few months your comments on freedom resonated strongly with me. Thanx for the video.

man, what an inspiration!

congrats on the new career!

Found this video serendipitously - considering starting a side hustle using my 3D printers. Would really like to hear more about the details of your business.

ty for sharing. good to know ahead of time because ive been thinking of things like this myself... good to know more info about the bsuiness of it

Yes, please make another video on the details you learned so that you can help those that DO still do this.

Great honest sharing…thank you.

Keeping up with technology and thr changes in printers are crazy. One of the issues is profit vs cost and having to upgrade/replace equipment can eat it all. I can say that if you were mainly printing the same part continuously then a different machine may be needed. Something like a much faster corexy or even a few belt feed machines to jusr load up the spool and let it keep printing nonstop. All that being said i am happy youve been able to change your career path and hopefully alter your families happiness and security.

There is always the success bias, so people (including myself) tend to see those that succeed and think it is a straight road, but it is a difficult one in reality. Many in youtube try to turn a mediocre success into money by overstating their success and selling courses, etc. I am always looking for an opportunity to liftoff from my soul crunching job, but the mortgage and responsibilities keep me in. Thank you for your sincerity. I hope you succeed, but you have to keep on trying.

You mentioned some of the things you learned, and i think most of us can learn from one thing you said you learned. Can you please make a video about how you research the demand and what people are willing to pay for the items you want to make?

You could have bought 1 bambu lab printer and it would have replaced maybe 4 or 5 ender printers with speed. But what you could have learnt more is how to make silicon molds and make copies. Some of your designs could be casted in polyurethane or even plaster etc and demolding is around 30 min, 1h for plaster, so new part every 30 min while no need to babysitting it. Then you could have bought laser cutter from let's say Aliexpress (around 300-500$) and now you can do wood,leather, potentially acrylics, paper and many more. I find that space is the only limitation for people. But you have amazing opportunities to make solid 6 figures business in so much space you have! For person that pays 3 times your rent and lives in studio flat like me seeing you have so much space is jealousy on another level 😂

you escaped a toxic environment to become a lawyer...uuuhhh...good luck!

Congratulation on your new endeavors! I am thrilled that Nathan will be making a go of the business. Will he still create and offer spinning wheels and fiber related tools? Thank you for keeping us all updated. Hugs to you and yours.

Thanks for sharing your experience, i bought 2 x1c and one p1s all with AMS, now i testing them around one month, printing just in pla materials for now, they are very fast and i can make nice things with them in one hour, i count that i can make really good money on Etsy with this, just i am in first phase of exploration market, and still not put them on right place, need to buy some big table or something what can survive their kinetic power, best regards from Croatia

I would love to hear about the nitty gritty details! I myself am interested in home brewing my own business at some point and would love to hear about your experience!

thanks for sharing, wish to you best for the next step ;-)

We run a ISP and medical and law MSP company every law firm we have served has charged by the minute

I would love to know more of how you started and manage your business. I'm living alone, no family, have been homeless to escape an abusive family, and struggling financially. I want to move from South Carolina to Alaska, but everything I saved up I just had to spend on buying a used car, my old one died despite my amateur mechanic self keeping her alive the past ten years. I've considered getting into 3D printing, the computer programing has been my challenge as well as not yet owning a printer. Too many other priorities. I am also hoping to buy a utility trailer and convert it into a camper to live out of. So much to do, so little time it feels like!

" . . . shackled by limits in my own mind . . . "

Nice video

Im trying to start my own 3D printing business and would love another video

Very inspiring, honest and to the point video, thank you ! :) btw what are the details on how this busness operated ?

Setting prices and understanding what shipping costs would be would be great to know. Also figuring out what would sell would be amazing. I think you’d have much less babysitting if you purchased printers like Bambu Labs instead of the crappy Ender printers.

I would love to hear about how you did your pricing research.

What's your etsy? Also how you set prices would be useful

Should have bought a set of bambu lab P1S they are light years ahead of the bed slingers they require a lot of work.. Working for yourself can be hard, focus is the thing for me maintaining the drive, take breaks it helps.

Amazing vídeo

I would be interested to know which 3D design software you used.

absolute g

Ok, fine, I'll take your 3d printing business if I have to. FINE. How do we do this?

When I gave my crush a present she said"thanks" xD

What label printer is that?

if your friends ends up not working out ad they cant do it anymore may i beg to take a swing at it I've been struggling finding a product that would sell well. id love to get this to a full time or any time as i want to be my own boss as even though my current job is great no job is permanent covid taught me that. one suggesting is to use a different printer i can source you affordable elegoo neptune either 3 or 4 that are ready to print if either of you are interested I've been buying them but the orders keep them sitting as i dont sell much. any ways i wish good luck to him in the endeavor

Amazing experience, takes a lot of courage to do what you done! Did you used freecad to design?

Did you ever consider using a print farm to do the manufacturing and shipping? I know about slanted but theres a bunch out there.

I am interested on pricing and machine cost / depreciation

4:00 good man.

If you replaced all of these printers with the BambuLab A1 with AMS lite, you could print much faster, larger, more reliably, if you print items with single colours you can load 4 of the same filament and it will automatically switch as they run out (so you don't need to change filament every 4kg instead of 1kg). The business would be making more products every day, you could branch out into new products and double the income within months. The problem here is not the business it's the ancient Creality printers not being good enough!!!

You mentioned Monticello. Which state, if you don’t mind me asking?

Why an Etsy biz and not an Amazon seller?

the link to to the files issnt working

I wanted stated 3d pring business from india.. this helped me a lot

I thought about selling 3d printed magnets you could put on a dishwasher. They flip to say CLEAN and DIRTY or FULL and EMPTY or JOHN and JANE or whatever you would want. But then I looked at what it would take to run an Etsy shop, what it would take to fill orders, and what how much I would make, and realized it just wouldn't be worth it.

I wish I could make 20,000 a year.

also the thngiverse link is dead did yalltake it down

Surprised you didn't continue designing and have others print and sell.

Its funny that 20k a year in poland would be good pay in America its below poverty line

Probably because of the Ender 3

I think you're at the point where your means of production don't scale any more. If you were able instead to produce a 3D printed mold and then could mold the items you sell it might be worth to keep going. I'm no kind of expert on pourable materials, but maybe a UV cured resin might work.

8:29 good time for a conversation defending government programs and safety nets?

I hope the sell price was LOW because that printfarm is OUTDATED, I've been 3D printing for my busines for 6 years and seeing this ammount of Enders running 24/7 is giving me nightmares about maintenance and lost time.

Obsolite printers

I'm poor, can I have one?

im interested in how you make choices on what to charge and how much to invest in infrastructure

The 3D printing lawyer. ProfessionalLawAttorney (PLA).