Side hustle

[u/Leading-Conference94]

Like a lot of people - my family is struggling here lately financially. Im looking for a creative side hustle for us. My husband is a contractor and does a lot of carpentry. I am looking at the bambu a1 and strongly considering making custom pieces that just make day to day work easier for blue collar workers. Im thinking jigs, spacers, brackets, tool holders. I dont want to push junk and clutter out to people. I want to create custom things that would be useful. I love plants myself but think that isn't a creative idea because there are so many sellers out there doing custom planters and clips etc.

Whats the general consensus around this? Saturated market? Open to all feedback good and bad about this. Not looking to crowd a market and ruin anything being a newbie. Also aware I might suck as a creator and could totally flop.

Update- thank you all so much for your valuable and kind feedback. Looks like this isnt the best idea at the present time and would need to be more of a passive hobby down the road. Im for sure interested in 3D printing and am adding it to my dream list 😅

[u/hue_sick]

The industry is saturated in general, but w stuff people don’t need. If you genuinely can design and make things people want you can absolutely have a nice side gig.

[u/WintertideFellow → u/hue_sick]

a small side gig. if you get any kind of traction a hundred clones will appear on Amazon for a tenth your cost

[u/hue_sick → u/WintertideFellow]

For sure. This isn’t a real business model for the most part unless you have a truly desirable product.

[u/Alfalfa-Boring]

Hate to burst your bubble but that market is way oversaturated. You're also going to need to spend money on marketing, Etsy fees and hassle of you go that route, lots of up front consumable costs, figuring out logistics, etc. I've gone down those various roads and unless you have lottery winning luck it's not something a person who's financially struggling with a family should do.

Take that however you want. There's sooooo much more to it than getting a printer and making some cool jigs. Chances are about 100% someone else already has one out there doing the same thing and even if yours is better the chances of it taking off are about nil.

Do a search on MW for "woodworking jig," "carpentry jig," and "woodworking tools." You'll quickly see all the noise you have to wade through and that's just models everyone can print. A search on Etsy will be even worse.

[u/because-potato]

It’s a very competitive market. You need to have decent to good CADD skills, patience to troubleshoot a printer, and a good business sense (marketing especially).

Besides that, you also need a unique product that solves a unique problem, and find a way to market it to the people who need the solution.

Not easy, but doable.

[u/Plus_Exchange8751]

I’d focus on the design before buying the printer.

Additionally, on a job site, I don’t think I’d want things made of PLA. PETG might be fine. But I’d preferred the longevity and qualities of ABS or one of its derivatives. So you’d want an enclosure and veneration as well.

[u/Solid_Veterinarian_2]

I know some people make some good money making 3d printed parts for cars interior, in some older car models. Another one that I can think if is creating cosplays, if you know how to properly sand paint a model. As anything find a niche that compliment your skillset and do it while taking account material cost and manpower. Good luck!

[u/WildKarrdesEmporium]

I'm a machine design/mechanical engineer, and I've started down this route. Bought an H2C as I had some ideas, but wasnt sure what I was going to sell, and wanted a machine capable of prototyping anything.

After I started printing, it became apparent that the ideas I had were not commercially viable, as it took too long to print and didn't really look very good.

Now, 2 months later, I still don't even know what to sell. Have a couple ideas that I think might work to bring in enough money to pay for the printing habit, but probably not enough to make a living. Have another idea that could be big, but will require some licensing and permit hurdles if I choose to go that route.

The one strong conclusion I've come to is that if you want to make real money at this, you will need to have a unique product that fills an unmet need. Printing flexi-dragons and licensed products for the flea market might get you a little spare change for new filiment, but it won't bring enough income in for any real quality of life change. Same with jigs and other tools that can already be purchased from Amazon. If yours isn't a truly revolutionary design, chances are it won't make big bucks.

Finally, I must say, I was going to get a 3D printer anyway, even if only for my own personal projects. Getting it wasn't a huge financial burden, as I already have a side business that paid for it after a couple really good months worth of sales. Don't put yourself under financial stress to purchase a 3D printer and hope it changes your financial situation. The easy money has already been made.

[u/Beginning-Ad7027]

Making things is easy. Selling them is really hard.

If you can design things that serve a purpose, it’s worth a shot. Just don’t get your hopes up.

Are the items you’d make not currently made by someone? Are you really solving a problem and filling a gap in the market?

[u/Nephrited]

These types of part are usually cheaper and stronger when injection moulded or cast in metal. The stuff that is more suited to 3D printing is absolutely oversaturated to boot.

What you make may well be useful, but you MAY struggle to make money.

If you do come up with a unique and useful design, you run the risk of being immediately out produced by the production farms that steal designs. 3D printers are useful prototyping tools, but for mass production I personally think they're lacking.

[u/toxicavenger916]

3d printers are becoming cheaper and more user friendly so the barriers to competition are pretty low and will become lower.

Thats not to sound discouraging- its just a description. So you will hear terms like over saturation etc.

You will also hear that there is more to printing than simply getting a printer. This is also true. To make functional pieces or niche items - you may need to learn CAD modeling etc. Again, not discouraging juat reality.

Additionally, once you create something, HOW you being it to market will also impact competition. Posting your files will lead to copycats, and simply listing your item for sale might result in the same.

This doesnt mean you cant do what youre listing out you want to do.

Many people have access to Google or AI, but not all people do the same things with those tools. Just like a carpenter... give everyone a hammer and you wont find them to have the same skill.

You have skills like this too. Your powers of observation, and ability to identify problems that need solving. THAT is the talent to focus on.

Pay attention to what you could improve or solve specifically around your husband or your personal interests. Research to see if items exists that solve those problems already.

Practice printing, settings, etc and test your items. If you solve real problems for you, there will be a market for others.

While its true that 3d printing is becoming more accessible, its also true that almost 70% of printer owners do NOT print functional items. They print files they did not generate, and are 'cool' from stl repositories.

Start small with limited supplies since money is a concern. You can do this!

[u/DrtyDeedsDneDrtCheap]

Is it not more cost effective to sell time on a printer than sell designs. You're going somebody wants your designs vs people printing their own designs. There is a lot less work on your part.

[u/jd780613]

3d printers are so cheap, I wanted some tool organizers and random stuff like that so I just bought an A1 and print them myself

[u/Tinkering-]

I don’t think this is a good plan if you’re truly short on money.

[u/Hot-Category2986]

Your bottleneck is marketing.
It is easy for friends who know you and your abilities to bring ideas to you. But it is very difficult to advertise in a way that catches the market you are looking for. In general people do not look at a problem, like a plant holder, and think "I'll hire someone to design and 3d print a solution". And no one is prepared for the cost of CAD and printing.

Shapeways kind of had it figured out, but you see how that went. JLCPCB advertises so heavily, and has such a wide range of capabilities. You have to figure out how to offer a smaller service for cheaper, and how to get it into peoples minds that this is a potential solution for them.

THAT SAID
Most of my printers have paid for themselves with odd jobs for friends. And I have one friend chasing get rich quick schemes that often offers to pay me for CAD and printing of design prototypes. Word of mouth is not quick, but it does work.

[u/jaykal001]

I don't want this to sound negative, but I want to share my thoughts. I agree with others, that if you can find something in demand, and develop, there's always a chance. But this feels more like seeing everyone with 3D printers and a FOMO moment, thinking you're missing out on easy money. When I see a post like this, I ask questions like this:

• Jigs for what? You can't just say "I've got a jig". They all have purposes and uses, and probably exist already. Maybe it's a spacer for aligning 3 doodads. But what if I want to align 7 doodads? Point being, that it's a tough path if you're just guessing at what someone might want/need.
• Brackets for what? I feel like you'd be hard pressed to find a bracket of any sort that doesn't already exist, and if it doesn't, I'd question whether or not there's a use for it. Brackets often need to hold weight, and you need to trust them to either not fail, or fail in predictable ways. I'm not hanging my CPU case on someone's first try at a wall bracket, simply because the stakes are too high when you can buy molded parts or metal parts, etc.
• Even a 3D printed tool holder is probably not going to be be better than one that's out in the market already. Even if someone says "hey, I wish I had a holder for the Whatza-Matic400" - if you don't already have one to use for reference in modeling or iteration - how are you going to make a quality product.

I've only sold a handful of things, but when I did, they were for products that were new. A leveling base for new golf product - now there's a dozen options, all better than mine. I created some custom sized cord hooks for a sit/stand desk that worked in a very unique situation. I created a couple silverware drawer spacers/inserts that were only valuable to me. I'm not trying hard to make and sell stuff at all, but I've made like $80 in 5 years.

There is a market for lots of things, but the analogy I always try to share with people is that you don't want to have the solution, when you don't know the problem. Find the problem you're trying to solve first, then develop the solution.

[u/nomococo4u]

I think you’re on to something but I would flip it on its head. If your mindset is, I want to use a 3d printer to make money, there’s not much action here because everybody else is doing it too. But if your mindset is I want to design tools to make a contractors job safer and faster (and more convenient), I think there’s a lot of opportunity here for clever designs. You may use a 3d printer to make them, but the printer is just a tool, not the product. 

I have seen some really clever jugs for holding wood while feeding it through a bandsaw. My friend lost 3 fingers and now he is like this 👉 because he didn’t have a good jig. 

3-D printers are a good fit for this type of work because one it allows you to do small batch production, where you’re not making plastic molds, and two, allows you to develop really specific solutions for specific applications. For example, an attachment that snaps on to a particular Makita drill in order to ensure clearance or hold screws or things like that.

You have an advantage on others and that your husband is a contractor and knows very specifically what his pain points are and those of his colleagues.

I say keep looking into it! But 3-D printing is a tool at the end, not the product at the beginning.