Is there money in woodworking?

[Tom M King]

It always looked to me like the only people that might be making a living at it were getting paid to talk about it, whether in print, or class. I'm sure there are a few, but the chances of getting established, and ending up making a good living (not just getting by) are pretty slim. I've seen some do well for a short while, but then things change.

I've built stuff for a living since 1974, but not for other people. Woodworking is on the list of stuff I do, but without stonework, brickwork, plaster, carpentry, cabinetry, custom roofing, plumbing, electrical, and other stuff that needs to be done, like cutting grass, I would have to do something else for a living. I get paid the same thing for any of that, with the only thing different being finding leaks, and fixing leaking roofs. I get double my normal rate for that, because I don't want to do it. If you pay me enough, and can't find anyone else to do it, I will, but don't complain when you get the bill.

If I only did woodworking, I couldn't even think about paying the property tax on the Ponderosa, much less supporting, and raising a family in addition. At my age, I could quit working if I wanted to, but am fortunate to still have good health, and mobility, so I'd rather be making money, than sitting down, or piddling time away.

[Josko Catipovic]

There's no money in woodworking. There's plenty of money in locating, marketing to, and designing for the type of buyer who wants and is willing to pay for bespoke woodworking. Guess which one is the hardest end of the business.

Amen. In my area (Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard) there's 'old money' willing to do things 'right, the old way' and 'new money' trying to outdo each other with mcmansions and furnishings. Between the two types, there's room for a community of extraordinary craftsmen. A friend is completing a six-figure white oak spiral staircase this winter and has been working on similar stuff for well over a decade. It's word-of-mouth and seemingly very hard to break into. The community manages to keeps itself stable. The rest of us occasionally get lucky to get one of these craftsmen, typically at wholly reasonable rates, to do a spectacular piece of work for us.

[Zachary Hoyt]

Both where I am now and where I am planning to move the median household income is $35k. A lot of the instruments I sell go to places where I am sure it is much higher, so that helps make it easier to sell things.
Zach

[Bill Dufour]

I liked the $45,000 dining table they had on Practical Machinist this week.

[Rich Engelhardt]

There's only two things you need to do to make money at anything.....

#1.) Find a niche.
#2.) Fill it.

It really is as simple as this. I 100% guarantee you will make money doing this.
Making money is pure simplicity.

Turning a profit & hanging onto what you make is where the challenge lies.....

[Pete Staehling]

There's only two things you need to do to make money at anything.....

#1.) Find a niche.
#2.) Fill it.

It really is as simple as this. I 100% guarantee you will make money doing this.
Making money is pure simplicity.

Turning a profit & hanging onto what you make is where the challenge lies.....

This is what the real secret is. It is deceptively simple and sometimes deceptively difficult to achieve. It can fall in your lap or you can spend years looking for it and never find it.

The most frustrating is that often the niche finds you when you don't want to have a full time business or are otherwise unable to capitalize on it. This has happened to me a couple times in my life. In one case I couldn't pursue a potentially lucrative enterprise (not woodworking related) because I could not work out a way that I could own my intellectual property and not have it seized by my employer even though developed on my own time using my own resources. In another case a product of mine found a niche market just the right size to be mine and to demand all my time. It really wanted to become a full time business. I just wanted to be retired and tinker at it a couple hours per day at a casual pace.

In my younger years I found a good niche with potential a couple times and in my youthful stupidity squandered it with mismanagement. Other times I have tried and failed to find or create niches. It seems you just can't control when and where lightning will strike.

[Mark e Kessler]

Total true, a year or so after I closed my business down I realized that my niche was 10k-15k jobs from builders, architects and other woodshops - I could do them by myself for the most part, didn't consume a lot of non woodworking time and made some money, the best was always other woodworking shops that got really large contracts with a few smaller things like a built-in library wall or something that wasn't in their flow at the time. They would drop off the material, drawings then pick it up and give me a check. University work was good too, every year I would make replacement dorm furniture parts for Wright State, 10k a year every year about 2 weeks of effort and 2k in material. The other one that comes to mind it trim work for Holiday inn, I never even saw or touched the material - got a call for moulding (I didn't have a moulder at the time) subbed it to the shop that subbed me work, they delivered it and I got a check...

I didn't see it because my main goal and passion was to build furniture, not commercial/residential work I thought the bigger I get with more employees the more freedom I will have to build furniture...

Mark

This is what the real secret is. It is deceptively simple and sometimes deceptively difficult to achieve. It can fall in your lap or you can spend years looking for it and never find it.

The most frustrating is that often the niche finds you when you don't want to have a full time business or are otherwise unable to capitalize on it. This has happened to me a couple times in my life. In one case I couldn't pursue a potentially lucrative enterprise (not woodworking related) because I could not work out a way that I could own my intellectual property and not have it seized by my employer even though developed on my own time using my own resources. In another case a product of mine found a niche market just the right size to be mine and to demand all my time. It really wanted to become a full time business. I just wanted to be retired and tinker at it a couple hours per day at a casual pace.

In my younger years I found a good niche with potential a couple times and in my youthful stupidity squandered it with mismanagement. Other times I have tried and failed to find or create niches. It seems you just can't control when and where lightning will strike.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

There's no money in woodworking. There's plenty of money in locating, marketing to, and designing for the type of buyer who wants and is willing to pay for bespoke woodworking. Guess which one is the hardest end of the business.

Yes!

I do this for a living, I had to change careers and this was plan B. Luckily I know something about business, otherwise this career would be very short. Ditto what one of the other guys said about not being able to start working on actual projects until noon because you spend all morning businessing.

You will go broke quickly trying to make money woodworking. However, you can make a living using your skill set to get people to pay you for your time. You'll find that very little of that time they want to pay for involves woodworking though. In fact, you'll probably find that most of the honing of your woodworking skills is actually the opposite of profitable woodworking.

It'd help to have an MBA, be licensed and experienced in all the trades, and have a stash of funds to operate with, but it is possible to make a decent living even without all that. Comparing this to the plan A career, this is physically FAR more work (which I like) and makes less money. More satisfying though, so until until plan C shows itself, I'll stick with it.

[Jim Becker]

There's only two things you need to do to make money at anything.....

#1.) Find a niche.
#2.) Fill it.

Spot. On. True.

[Mark Bolton]

There's only two things you need to do to make money at anything.....

#1.) Find a niche.
#2.) Fill it.

It really is as simple as this. I 100% guarantee you will make money doing this.
Making money is pure simplicity.

Turning a profit & hanging onto what you make is where the challenge lies.....

Its of course true and something likely most anyone in business or who desires to be in business endlessly perseus. The shark tank approach. That isnt all there is to anything and I dont think it really speaks to the OP's question about is there money in woodworking. Its no different than someone going to school to be a dentist. They may of course specialize or focus on TMJ, Cosmetics, oral surgery (etc.. all "niches" of the dental industry) but there are still people that just go to be a dentist. Its true of any profession.

Everyone dreams of the lottery ticket idea or niche where you have some unique product, specialty, that youve refined the process for, gotten the patent, worked it out to where its difficult to knock off, but those are few and far between and often times very short lived for most everyone. This is more and more of a generational concept that is still being upheld in the shark tank philosophy of a product/service that is profitable/protectable. You see it on their show all the time, knock offs, global economy, being able to defend your niche may likely cost more than youll ever earn from it.

The answer to me as it pertains to most peoples concept of "woodworking" is no. Its going to be very difficult to near impossible to make money making what the average individual sees as "woodworking". Kitchen tables, furniture, bookcases, cutting boards, shelving, and so on. Seems very often at the hobby/borderline "in business" level, most people look to what they can earn as to what the market will bear as opposed to doing the work ahead and calculating what it costs them to produce, how many they will have to move, and so on. Then you factor in that more often than not they are comparing prices from a very small shop to commercially mass produced goods, and in short order you are in the camp of a spouse with a good income and benefits, working from your house so you shop supposedly doesnt cost you anything, and so on. That carries across the board to working on the side making cabinetry, or anything. And constantly falls back to the having fun, personal enjoyment, doing what your passionate about, as some component of your hourly compensation.

Sad but very common statement from even pretty successful furniture makers and woodworkers that if you even bother trying to calculate what your earning per hour you will lose your mind. Thats because they know/knew all the while they were "successfully" making furniture, they were really only afloat due to their spouses income, benefits, some pension or severance package, whatever, and they were likely workng for $5-$10 most times if they were lucky. Its great if all parties are o.k. with that but its really a sad thing to have to say to young people who would love to entertain a career in the business and have a desire to be self employed.

The concept of the niche is great but a lot of people spend a lot of time in the wood business making lots of things just to cover their overhead. Its not all about being a "creator" or constantly having gobs of time to prototype and ponder wild notions. A lot of time your just grinding out hundreds of parts like a drone.

[Edwin Santos]

There's only two things you need to do to make money at anything.....

#1.) Find a niche.
#2.) Fill it.

It really is as simple as this. I 100% guarantee you will make money doing this.
Making money is pure simplicity.

I had no idea it was that simple.

Reminds me of a guy I knew who was interested in a career in comedy. He got advice from Howie Mandel who told him making a success in comedy was simple, and it boiled down to just two things:

#1) Get on a stage.
#2) Say a lot of funny stuff.

[Edwin Santos]

Seriously though, the niche concept is definitely a strategy. The issue is the narrower the niche, the higher the margins, but the smaller the market. The middle of the fairway will be the largest market, but a commodity pricing bloodsport where the winner will be doing so based on mega volume and high dollar tooling, or low labor costs in some other country.

It seems to me that we have turned into a entertainment oriented consumer society. Many of the notable suspects who have done well in woodworking look to be vendors who are supplying hobbyists who pursue woodworking mainly for entertainment. Same with the YouTube woodworkers and guys like the Wood Whisperer who are vending content mostly for entertainment in exchange for sponsors, advertising, YouTube revenue.

If your needs are modest and you're not looking to support employees and a true business with overhead, then maybe yes you can find a niche and quietly do alright with it, but this will undoubtedly have a scale barrier, a ceiling. The theory of efficient markets says, if there is a meaningful market segment with attractive margins and you discover it, it won't be long before there will be competition and the margins will drop. Sorry if this sounds cynical, but I genuinely believe it to be the state of things today.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

If your needs are modest and you're not looking to support employees and a true business with overhead, then maybe yes you can find a niche and quietly do alright with it, but this will undoubtedly have a scale barrier, a ceiling. The theory of efficient markets says, if there is a meaningful market segment with attractive margins and you discover it, it won't be long before there will be competition and the margins will drop. Sorry if this sounds cynical, but I genuinely believe it to be the state of things today.

Yes.

As for the "niche", if you think you've ever "made it" in business of any sort, you shall soon be proven wrong by a much more agile and hungrier competitor. There is no niche, there is nothing that someone else hasn't already found/tried, there is only unprofitable. If something changes to make it profitable, you can bet that you will instantly have much better funded competition competing for it.

The secret to making woodworking make money? Be nice to people, answer your phone, work hard, and track every dollar. Do that and you will truly stand out in the crowd and you will have more work than you can do.

[Jack Frederick]

The other thing to consider is how do you get to the market. Skill, desire & tools would seem to be enough, but you have to be able to develop the market. It is out there and spinning around you. How do you wedge yourself into it. Without the ability and desire to do this part it will be a frustrating endeavor. I have a long time friend who does beautiful work and has not clue one on how to sell it. If you are not locally connected how do you get into it successfully?

[Mark Bolton]

Seriously though, the niche concept is definitely a strategy.

Spot on. And the economy in the US is changing rapidly. People dont shop the way they did 10 years ago. Its a changing dynamic and unfortunately other than in a very high end niche market the broad spectrum of the retail consumer market is about cheap, online, and fast. None of those three things jive with profitable small shop production. There are exceptions and there are always going to be the few performers that inspire everyone to keep chugging along but its getting more and more rare on a local level.

I think anyone wanting to entertain any kind of profitability working with wood (not plywood, melamine, etc, but wood) needs to be highly proficient in art/aesthetics/creative thinking and design, move to, or live, in the rural fringe sweetspot outside a super hip, high dollar community, where they can live and have a shop with the lowest overhead possible. Live a rural life, yet be close enough to capitalize on building a reputation for being some artsy-fartsy bohemian in the woods that makes this really funky stuff. That way you will have a clientele that your idea of a ton of money for a bench, is less than they spend for a dinner out with their family. You get in that world and get hooked up with some shops, galleries, designers, and architects, and you may have a chance to spend your days "creating" and have enough money to live a reasonably modest life.