To buy or not to buy

[Ian Stewart-Koster]

If you already have a 6-figure income, I'd suggest being content with that.
You ask how big a shop is needed to gross $100k+?
I'd suggest a customer base and your own design abilities and skills are needed, rather than shop floor-area of whatever square feet or metres.
The roof area of the workshop does not dictate ability.
Plus a demand is needed.

I'd suggest a 2nd hand Universal laser be considered.
Software learning curve is so simple.

We have a ULS and two quality chinese systems.
The little ULS with the RF tube gives small item quality, to way exceed what the CO2 tubes in the two great chinese systems do
.

[Daniel Perry]

If you want to ever do metal engraving then don't go with a co2/fiber combo. A gantry fiber simply will not deep engrave metal in any kind of timeframe that will make you any money. If you want to engrave metal then you could start with the fiber and add co2 later. Granted, the fiber will limit the "other" materials you can mark vs co2, but if metal is your primary focus then it's your only choice.

Thanks Gary! After speaking with the people from Epilog and Trotec, they are kind of telling me to go the opposite direction. Start with CO2 and then get fiber, down the road. Yes, metal is on my list, but I can do a lot more with firearms, with a CO2, than a fiber. Think a galvo for the metal work, is a good idea?

[Daniel Perry]

If you already have a 6-figure income, I'd suggest being content with that.
You ask how big a shop is needed to gross $100k+?
I'd suggest a customer base and your own design abilities and skills are needed, rather than shop floor-area of whatever square feet or metres.
The roof area of the workshop does not dictate ability.

If you read through the original post, you'll see that this is not a job that will likely stick around. It's a unicorn, and a dying one at that. But, we rely on my income, so I'd like to be able to get back to it.
I didn't mean 'big' as in size.
Thanks for the input!

[John Lifer]

SEO is EASY. If you are one of the few laser engravers in the area. My local Chamber had their list on the top of the search but only put the company name and phone number. I gave up on them after a year when they wanted us to spend on an App.
I have a website through WIX and their SEO information put me at the very top of the search list under Google immediately and I'm there for past year. It's not worth it to pay someone to do this for you unless you have immense competition, and if you do, you will have a hard time breaking into the business anyway. Keep your 6k salary and start as side business if you can. This way you can determine if you want to push it to be your main income. Good luck.

[Tony Lenkic]

Daniel, (and other potential purchasers).

You should try to make it to APA Las Vegas 2019 trade show mid February.
You will find many laser manufacturers as well as engraving products mfg/sellers.
Google APA Las Vegas 2019 trade show.

[Daniel Perry]

SEO is EASY. If you are one of the few laser engravers in the area. My local Chamber had their list on the top of the search but only put the company name and phone number. I gave up on them after a year when they wanted us to spend on an App.
I have a website through WIX and their SEO information put me at the very top of the search list under Google immediately and I'm there for past year. It's not worth it to pay someone to do this for you unless you have immense competition, and if you do, you will have a hard time breaking into the business anyway. Keep your 6k salary and start as side business if you can. This way you can determine if you want to push it to be your main income. Good luck.

Thanks for the input! I've always been bad at SEO work and I'm quite behind on the internet fads, so it may behoove me to just pay to have it made for me. WIX does seem to be a top competitor these days, thanks again!

[Daniel Perry]

Daniel, (and other potential purchasers).

You should try to make it to APA Las Vegas 2019 trade show mid February.
You will find many laser manufacturers as well as engraving products mfg/sellers.
Google APA Las Vegas 2019 trade show.

Could have sworn I replied to this already... Anyways, thanks for the information! I was hoping to get into the SHOT show, but no dice. The APA seems like the next best thing, for me!

[Jerome Stanek]

When you go to those shows you will see some of my work on some of the booths. I cut lettering and designs for some of those trade shot booths. Just finished a job for Colosseum booth today.

[Gary Hair]

Thanks Gary! After speaking with the people from Epilog and Trotec, they are kind of telling me to go the opposite direction. Start with CO2 and then get fiber, down the road. Yes, metal is on my list, but I can do a lot more with firearms, with a CO2, than a fiber. Think a galvo for the metal work, is a good idea?

Hmmm, big surprise that two major co2 laser manufacturers would recommend their product... There are typically three materials used on a firearm - metal (steel and/or aluminum), plastic, and wood. A fiber can mark, and deep engrave, metal and plastic. A co2 can mark and deep engrave plastic and wood, and to some degree mark metal, but can't deep engrave. Your market, and your niche, may be different, but I made 95% of my money on firearm marking with my fiber, marking and deep engraving metal, I made very little marking wood with my co2. There is a ton of "traditional" engraving that you can do with a co2 while you build up the business requiring a fiber, so you'll likely have more immediate revenue from co2, but the most revenue will likely be from the fiber. There are plenty of people on here, like Kev for example, that probably make the bulk of their revenue from co2 and relatively smaller portion from their fiber, but if you want to specialize in firearms then it's not going to work that way.

For metal galvo is the only way to go! The one exception to that is if you have a ton of anodized aluminum parts that you can gang up in a fixture, then the co2 will be much faster. For example - I have a part that's about 5/8" by 1/2" with an engravable area about .3 x .2. There are about 135 different designs that we engrave on them and this particular part is done on the co2 in a fixture that holds 80 at a time. I do anywhere from 2-5 of those fixtures full every day. I have other parts that are similar in size but with only 25 designs, and I do anywhere from 5-50 of them per day on the fiber. It's extremely fast to merge the images for the 80-up fixture but it's not for the 5-50 parts due to the time it takes to merge such a small number so the fiber processes them faster than the co2 ever could. My preference would be to fiber mark all of them as the fiber marks anodized aluminum much better, more evenly, and with more detail than the co2 can, but the trade-off between a better image and significantly more time has to be considered.

[Ross Moshinsky]

My recommendation would be to make a local connection with someone who has equipment. Setup some sort of pricing schedule. Make a website and start marketing/selling.

$20-30k and you can have a fiber laser, CO2 laser, and a lot of the necessary accessories to run an engraving business. It's not about the investment in capital, which is fairly manageable compared to many other businesses. Running the equipment takes some time to learn and become an expert, but is generally not considered a high paying position. An engraver's salary is normally sub $20/hr. Most of the money is in actually using your graphic design software, which you seem to be overqualified in.

What makes or breaks this type of business is an ability to get good jobs in. If you can't get the good jobs, it's just a grind. If you can get good jobs in, you'll do well. It's all about getting the good clients.

[John Lifer]

What makes or breaks this type of business is an ability to get good jobs in. If you can't get the good jobs, it's just a grind. If you can get good jobs in, you'll do well. It's all about getting the good clients.

That's for sure. I can say after year 2, I'm a poor marketeer, and I cherish the jobs that are good. Those have been the 'monkey work' jobs. The 100, 500, 1000 part orders of the same item that is a repeater. May not be $20 to engrave that knife, but I can make more doing monkey work than people bringing me single items to engrave. Industrial clients, or someone who you engrave for and THEY sell.

And I'll reinterate Gary, I mark 10 to 1, maybe 20 to 1 Handgun slides and receivers than stocks. I think I marked three shotgun stocks over Christmas. About the same last year. Unless you happen onto a manufacturer that needs someone to create and engrave stocks and there isn't many of those that don't do it themselves. Get a Galvo.

[Kev Williams]

Was perusing my books the other day, year end and all-

Last year I had 145 unique customers, not counting one-off cash customers, of which there were probably 150 or so. Most of the 145 customers, guessing 80%, came up with repeat work. 30%-ish of them repeat regularly, with a handful having work here almost constantly...

Adding the numbers, the first 5 customers are responsible for exactly 50% of the sales, the first 2 total 34%--!

This is good evidence that 'getting the good jobs in' is paramount-
pretty scary really that the bottom 140 generate only as much income as the top 5...!

(I turn 65 in July- guess what my semi-retirement plans are?)

[Gary Hair]

(I turn 65 in July- guess what my semi-retirement plans are?)

Fire the bottom 140? Even though the top 5 are 50% of your income, my guess is that they don't represent 50% of your time working, I'd be willing to bet it's closer to 25%. How could you not pass up 50% of the revenue for 25% of the work? (you just effectively doubled your pay rate)

[Kev Williams]

Preeee Sicely My calcs are pretty much dead on to yours...

[Gary Hair]

Preeee Sicely My calcs are pretty much dead on to yours...

I neglected to add that the bottom 140 are probably the pita customers anyway, at least the bottom 50% of them I bet! So - less work, more pay, less headache - what a better way to retire!