To start with, you need to find a target audience. It is very important that you do not jump into this business without doing the research because it is very easy to lose thousands of dollars. You need to find a group of people who need customized plastic parts at very high costs. You need to find people who need a very small number of plastic parts for which they are prepared to pay a lot of money.
Other People Have Already Had Your Idea
The biggest reason for failure is a lack of research, and perhaps the most startling realization is that other people have already had your idea. Other people have already tried making customized dolls of people, customized baby’s feet, or replacement parts for defunct technology. The reason these businesses failed is that there isn’t enough demand for these products, and that is why you need to do your research to find a target audience.
Going Slow is Better
Do not invest in high-end machines because they are almost always unnecessary for a small home business. The bigger machines will either print faster, or they will print larger. To start with, you need to look for the best 3D printer under 1000 dollars. If your business starts to take off and you make some good profits, then consider investing in bigger and faster machines.
Once You Have Your Idea
You need to go out and sell your idea to as many people as you can. The more paid pre-orders you get, the more chance there is that your business will be a success. Now you have your idea, you need to create a business plan. Your projections should be done based on your pre-orders and your possible profit from those orders.
Getting The Costs Correct
The cost of 3D printing is astronomical. The materials are increasingly difficult to source at fair prices, and the amount you have to charge in order to make a profit is crazy high. This is mostly because of the cost of the materials, but also because your machine is tied up for a long time while it is printing. Then there are the running costs, the marketing costs, and so forth. Once all of that is out of the way, you need to start thinking long-term and how you are going to recoup the money you spent on your machine, fixtures, fittings, software, plans, and so forth.
Targeting Your Audience
The most common type of 3D printing business will do sculpting, which is another way of saying they will customize your popular branded times. For example, if you have a pair of popular earphones, you can have thunderbolts added to them, or even 3D printed images of your face, or whatever takes your fancy.
Taking this example, let’s assume you customize regular sunglasses to whatever specifications the customer desires. In this case, you need to find people through website adverts, and Google adverts, and you need to produce social media-specific adverts and run them.
You need to do leaflet drops, put up fliers, put up posters, and set up referral programs that pay people real money if they send paying customers your way. Targeting in this case would be trying to get your posters or fliers near places where they sell shades or putting your adverts on fashion websites where people are told they can customize their shades to suit their outfits.
Try to Stay Clear of Utility
It is a nice idea to think you can be the company that creates missing pieces for broken technology. The idea is that somebody’s dishwasher needs a plastic piece that is missing, so you print the plastic piece for them and all is fine.
However, the costs of the plastic piece, not to mention the trouble of finding the plans, is often so difficult and expensive that it isn’t worth doing. Added to this, if there is a cheaper way to offer these sorts of utility solutions, then you can be guaranteed that a different business is already doing it for cheaper. Try to target the one-off and novelty crowd since it is often where the easiest money is to be had.
