Hello Everyone,

I'm new here, and thanks in advance for your input and time. I'm currently in school for something completely unrelated to woodworking but I'm an entrepreneur at heart.

I was hoping I could get some insights from the members of this forum on some business/technical(machining) topics that I don't fully understand and could use a hand with. I spend a lot of my personal time woodworking in a small garage shop with non-industrial tools (and so I have a decent understanding of wood manufacturing language/principles) and in my other free time, I've been working a lot in CAD designing furniture.

I wanted to try and meld these two things together into a small start-up business.

My goal is to produce the designs and find the customers, while (at least in the beginning) finding a local partner who can provide the manufacturing and packaging. At this point, my designs require a 3-axis CNC machine that can accommodate at least 4x8 sheets of 3/4" material and switch between at least 2 tools (cutting bit/saw, 5mm/8mm drill bit) and an ability to efficiently edgeband (likely with an edge banding machine).

I was thinking that I could try and find a mid-size custom cabinet maker in my area to partner with. My value proposition is that I'm not directly competing with them, while providing them with flexible work they can do to generate revenue when their machines aren't otherwise being used. They have no additional upfront costs, other than perhaps material management/warehousing. I would provide the work-orders in large-ish batches with flexible completion schedules.

I would provide all the CAD/CAM files with tool paths already planned for their machines, their only job would be to run the scripts, handle the material and package the final product.

I was hoping I could ask a few questions and get your input...

My business questions are:
(a) Do you think I could find a cabinetmaker who would find this appealing? If not, can you think of a better way for me to approach my manufacturing? (as a student, I don't have the capital to set up my own shop... yet, and in any case I don't mind operating with net-0 profits at first to show marketability)
(b) What do you think a fair per-piece (entire piece of furniture) manufacturing and packaging cost would be if I could provide, say, a minimum of 300 4x8 sheets worth of orders to be cut? [I'm trying to see if I can get my product into a reasonable price-point for my target market; IKEA shoppers and the like]

My technical questions are:
(c) I've never done a lot of edgebanding. Can automatic edgebanders apply veneer to non-square pieces (e.g. a parallelogram). As a part two to this question, even if you have a square piece, can an automatic edgebander apply veneer to, say, the 8" section of a 6'X8" piece? If no to both of these, how do shops generally apply veneer in these situations? I've looked everywhere and am having a hard time finding information for beginners on the more advanced manufacturing machines.

Thanks everyone for your time, it's appreciated!

Before I retired, I'd guess I had at least 20 people over the years approach me with this great and huge money making opportunity. If I could just make a couple samples at a discounted price, the ball would get rolling in not time. When I was wet behind the ears, I did that a couple of times. Made the samples, passed them over, and never heard from them again. After that, I would not discount anything, and again I never saw them again. I did accept one job making one hitter boxes, and even that turned out badly. Who would ever guess a guy making one hitters and wanting wood boxes would be a horrible business person? Right? You better find a fresh owner, the rest will be gun shy to your approach. Best of luck to you.

"No up front costs" Machines aren't free, tooling isn't free, floor space isn't free.

a) No. Better way? The same way virtually everyone here started out. With minimum equipment and a lot of time spent getting not much done. But, it's a way to make it happen.

b) Too many factors to give any kind of accurate answer. I charge $32 per program cutting parts on the cnc for normal cabinet box parts. It goes up from there typically unless it's something REALLY simple, like a circle. That doesn't include material.

c) I don't know of a bander that will do angled materials. It might exist, and I don't know about it. Anything square is standard though. Profiling banding requires a fancier machine than we have. We haven't done any banding work for anyone else, so I don't know what to charge for that.

If you came to my shop, I'd entertain it, but I wouldn't do anything on spec.

Your also making a huge assumption that your post (CAM output) works with the shops router. Many years ago I white knuckled first runs of others programs with the feeds turned down really slow, right hand on the E-stop after running all the z- G-code checks and checking the drawings in 3D to visualize the tool paths and running simulator toolpath programs. Its not worth the headache or possible crash. Your not bringing anything to the table, sorry but I would not let you do it based on you post.
If you befriended a shop and buddy up with them over a long haul & everything goes smoothly (not likely) your still looking at router time and initial programming time but that would be a one time hit and then cycle start and your making your widget.
Best of luck, TD

Sorry I forgot the edge banding issue, but I lost you, can you do a drawing or pic?

Not to quash your efforts but every shop, and their set-ups are different. Too many variables that you have to know before anyone is going to let you program like: running big iron 16hp spindle w 40hp vacuum running 900ipm in small 100sqin parts w -.003" through cut in one pass. Or are stepping through & reversing cut direct for optimal cut quality? You could onion skin or tab due to lack of vacuum or material porosity. Not to mention material i.e. internal tension of import ply & climb cut CCV three flute 3/8"dia compression bit or man-made sheet 1/2"dia compression conventional cut or can you get by w a rougher? Machine feeds and speeds paired with the right cutter =chip load = cut quality that is dependent on the machine's bells and whistles and in depth knowledge of the programmer and the shops procedures.
I recently sent out drawings to be routed and had line segments under polylines. My bad, the guy thought I was a rank amateur I'm quite sure. The project had been released after two years and I didn't double check, erase, and explode everything, so the sudden halt was on me.
If you find a shop willing to entertain your concept, my suggestion would be to ask them their strategy, study the solution and then ask to watch it run. Lastly, cut them a check for the balance due.

300 sheets at ~$30 per piece and ~$30 for cutting it per piece gravitates toward $270K, not including edgebanding, assembly, hardware, packaging and God knows what else.
For that kind of money you could rent a shop, buy yourself a cnc and an edgebander and try it for yourself with 150 boards for start instead of 300.

Hello,
Thanks for the replies!
@rich c. Point well taken. I am not asking for samples, however. My goal is to get a pre-order that leads to a production run big enough that it’s beneficial to the shop owner to work with me. I believe the high quality digital renderings I have should be able to generate enough interest, subject to exactly how many it takes to ‘create interest’ for a manufacturer.
@Karl E Brogger Thank you as well. I said “no *additional* up front costs”. A shop’s fixed costs, including equipment and rent, are going to be the same whether they work with me or not. Rather, what I mean when I say additional costs is I’d like to pay a shop for any variable costs in addition to a fair market price for their existing infrastructure.
Which leads me to thank both of you again, it’s great to hear your perspectives on this, which seems to be a resounding “probably not but maybe if you did it the right way and made it worth my while”. It sounds to me like “worth my while” is a sufficiently big order with sufficient compensation, and that’s part of what I’m trying to figure out: how much furniture would I need to have pre-ordered to make it worth someone’s while?
@ Thomas M Diel Thanks for pointing out the CAM stuff. As I’ve not owned a CNC, it’s great to hear what you have to say on tool pathing. I’m working in Fusion 360 right now, and with what I’ve read it sounds like I’m able to create safe predictable tool paths for many different machines, although I’ll be sure to figure it out if I do end up finding someone to work with.
Regarding the design, it’s great to hear the headaches you are talking about, because my goal is to create furniture designs that are driven by the manufacturing process, rather than having a design process and figuring out the manufacturing as an afterthought. There’s a lot of guys out there with ideas in their mind of what they want their furniture to look like, but not many know how hard it is to build it and do it efficiently, especially if you want to offer any customization. I want to take a stab at finding a balance between manufacturing simplicity/functionality and style that accounts for exactly the types of things you are talking about, and I think that I have some solutions that just might be able to bring something new to market.
@ Oggie, your pricing seems in line with what Karl said, so it’s good to see consistency. Could you clarify “per piece”? If I had 4 furniture designs, and 100 orders of each furniture design that each reaquired ~ 2 full sheets (4x8) of material (400 pieces and 800 sheets), would that be $30 per piece on the sheets, or $30 to cut each sheet? At 800 sheets that need to be cut, do you think the economies of scale would bring it down? Regarding the rest, I have assembly, hardware and the rest mostly sorted, although I do still need to figure out packaging.
Again, thanks all. If other people have comments on this I’m open to hearing them…
Have a great Easter weekend!

I always build first one a full price plus. then discount the remaining

You haven't mentioned the real problem - why would anyone buy from you? You want to compete directly with IKEA? Good luck with that. You would need to look mighty credible to even have a chance. And don't dream of competing on price - the people who are too broke for IKEA are not your ideal customer.

So many people think that the constraint in custom furniture is manufacturing. It isn't. The constraint is finding a steady stream of paying customers, and then establishing an operation which will be able to separate them from their money, and deal with the inevitable delivery and repair issues along the way. The number of people who will want whatever you are selling is likely to be very low, and they will be spread all over the globe. How do you deal with that?

Furniture is not at all like a restaurant. It's not a word of mouth business. Your customers will buy once from you, if at all, and you'll need to replace them on a regular basis. Making each sale will take significant time (unless "custom" doesn't mean custom anymore.)

Hate to pee in your cheerios, but before you sacrifice whatever money and time you have on hand, start thinking about these issues.

am i missing something?
300 sheets at $30 ea plus $30 ea for cutting is $18,000.

how do you get 270K ?

He went 30*30*300= 270,000.
It needed to be (30+30)*300=18,000

@ Paul Downs

Thanks, I think you are right, I would never try to compete with IKEA on price piece-for-piece. However, would people pay an extra 30% for a piece that fit perfectly? Likely, or at least I like to think likely.

And don't worry about peeing in my Cheerios, it only makes sense. In fact, it's the reason I'm here, I want to try and get an understanding of what my costs are going to be (approximately), and figure out if it's worth the time to keep putting my effort into. I agree with you that acquisition costs are huge in the furniture industry, but I also think that online ecosystems can move away from that in a way that is changing the wood manufacturing space. Think Uber and Lego had a baby. There's a couple of businesses I've seen doing something similar to what I'm trying to do, and they are seeing some moderate success and I think I have a way of doing it that's better than what they are doing.

But that's my ego talking.

@ Dean C
@ Karl E Brogger

I think he meant $18,000 as well. And that's a total I can work with. If I was a cabinet shop owner and someone came and said "I'll give you $18,000 to cut these 300 sheets for me" I think I'd say yes, subject to of course how well I'm able to make it easy for them (tool pathing etc.)

Thanks again all, and still always curious to see what others think/say, I don't think there's such a thing as too much experience even if my Cheerios taste funny....

Colin
Here's some advice you probably don't want to hear,you say your a student, stay in school!.
As part of your education ,Buy Paul Downs book ! I wish I read it in my 20's.
You say something completely unrelated to woodworking?.
Well what is that major? Hopefully an MBA? 
You don't have to be successful in woodworking to have a successful woodworking business.....

Making anything is the easiest part .
After you find this person to machine all these parts,
Where are you going to store them?.Transport them to? Space to package and ship the product?

I can machine a couple hundred sheets a week.
I know if I cut up a 100 sheets,which i would not !-Small batch processing !
I am going to load up 20+ Hafele carts or 15 skids of material.
2000 sq.ft.+ floor space.
It's not going to be at my facility!
Space is the most valuable resource I have !

My education,LOL, a father and an uncle who did carpentry, cabinetry.Graduating Vo-tech School in the mid-1970s.
Went to work in a cabinet shop that was in a chicken coop, bought him out two years later when I had that entrepreneurial spirit.
In 1981 I was approached by a gentleman with an idea like yours, video games?... Sure I played Pac-Man at the arcade...
Rich C. thoughts echo..

Could I build cabinets for video poker and blackjack. Well over the next 3 years I made 7K's worth of boxes.
All with just a Safety Speed panel saw and a Rockwell R9 pin router.
Education By FIRE !..
I could machine all those parts now in a month ...

Hopefully When this Covid 19 dilemma has a vaccine and we are back to almost normal,
I say get a job in a Cabinet shop this summer,
We are all looking for someone with a brain!

What Paul Downs said.

The number 1 thing in business is marketing not sales.

If you want to get a better idea about things I would look hard at what the competition is doing, if there is no competition that is a bad sign.

IMO most business (cept retail maybe) change their marketing plan after they are in business, IOW they rarely stay in the same business they started out in.

Entrepreneurship is about having knowledge that most people are not aware of regarding what people consider to be valuable.

If you go to google trends it is somewhat useful for marketing. see the chart (gotta have charts)

One of the most valuable insights into this is discovering what is the emotional reason people have for buying something. E.G. people who buy Paul's tables might think of his tables as an investment as well as a status thing(this is an emotion), people who buy from Ikea want to save money (this is an emotion), people who buy a new kitchen for their existing house because the lady of the house is tired of looking at the same kitchen (in many cases just the color), the husband thinks happy wife happy life. (this is an emotion)

The key to this subject is surveying people who are the customers of this type of business.

Steve Jobs used to say that surveying is a waste of time, I can see this point if Henry Ford would have surveyed people they would have said we want a faster horse. But unless you are designing furniture that is revolutionary surveys will be useful.

You might want to run a craigslist ad for $5 to gain some information or find people to do surveys on.

Have ever you do it you need to find out about the market for your product.

Surveys are less painful than peeing on the electric fence. None the less people usually say yeah but I already know, according Socrates that means they don't really know. e.g. how many times have you seen people design their logo or company name based on THEIR emotions, the customer doesn't care about what the owner thinks.

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