[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in yo...
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Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?
Given a two-car garage, what can a small team (2-3 people)
manufacture that can be sold for some amount of profit? Imagine
access to capital of 20-50k USD at maximum. Interesting would be
items whose manufacture could be automatized to some extent, but
this is not necessary. I am not particularly interested in the
legality of this at the moment. But safety considerations could be
important.
Author : abdullahkhalids
Score : 138 points
Date : 2022-07-18 18:52 UTC (4 hours ago)
| lvass wrote:
| >not particularly interested in the legality
|
| Counterfeit board games.
| pxx wrote:
| Board game mechanics aren't copyrightable anyway. You can make
| this fully legal if you don't infringe copyright on any of the
| artwork.
| 1nd1ansumm3r wrote:
| Have you ever seen a MagLite flashlight? (Or a clone)? The
| batteries are kept in place by a threaded cap which is spring
| loaded. My neighbor manufactures the caps, alone, in his garage.
| Cuts the threads and installs the spring. As far as noise I do
| hear his air compressor occasionally. You can buy quiet air
| compressors but they are orders more expensive than a standard
| unit.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| How would a person with the ability/equipment to do this work
| at home get matched up with a company that wants to buy such
| things?
|
| This seems like the sort of work that was spun off from some
| kind of existing business relationship.
| 1nd1ansumm3r wrote:
| Yes, that's the hard part. Often times harder than the mfg
| work. I believe he took over the contract from an
| acquaintance.
| onceiwasthere wrote:
| Yeah this seems so strange a thing to do. Maybe they're
| personalized/ruggedized in some nice way?
| zafka wrote:
| One of my favorite ideas was told to me by my uncle who works
| in the die cast industry. He met a guy who made lug nuts for
| Semi tractor tires in his garage. One item, and he made a
| living off of it. I have always thought that this idea was the
| perfect example of how to get started in an industry. If you
| were ambitious you could start adding more spare parts one at a
| time.
| bombcar wrote:
| To expand on this, there are entire "fan clubs" around old
| military trucks - for example https://www.steelsoldiers.com -
| so you could infiltrate said groups and find what parts are
| starting to become rare/hard to find NOS anymore (new
| old/original stock) and start making replacements.
| paulmd wrote:
| I think super-niche small-run hobby/lifestyle/specialty
| products are the big answer if you want to monetize your
| skills and experience.
|
| I'm really into analog photography and I can think of several
| products that people (including myself) would pay for but
| that it's just not economically feasible for a big company to
| hire a bunch of people and pay them wages, health insurance,
| and 401ks to make, on top of the actual cost of the product.
| I'm looking to gradually put together a workshop to try and
| make some of them, and if I do them, I might as well sell
| them. Even if it's $100 out the door for a $5 piece of metal,
| there's actually a market for that in terms of hobby income,
| it's just not a market that will sustain full-time employees
| and mass production.
|
| Between 3d printing, stamping, a CNC mill and lathe, casting,
| a laser cutter, and a vacuum oven, you can really do a
| tremendous amount of stuff in your garage, especially if you
| are willing to leverage these tools together. 3D print a part
| and then cast it in a durable metal, machine it to clean it
| up. CNC mill yourself a stamping die. Use the vacuum oven to
| cure things, or dehydrate your filament, etc. Like on paper
| that's pretty much a tool-and-die shop, given sufficient
| effort you can make things that will let you make whatever
| else you want - much like chemistry you're never more than a
| couple tools away from the thing you want, you just have to
| make the thing that will let you make the thing you want.
|
| Optical lithography is not that hard either as long as you're
| not working at semiconductor scale. There's that kid that is
| making chips in his garage over in the UK or something. But
| you can use that as a manufacturing technique for other
| stuff. Or use resist etching like for PCBs.
|
| In a lot of cases, really the only limit is when you bump
| into something that's restricted or too hazardous to keep
| around even if it's unrestricted. Like boy, mercury
| intensifier works great but... I like my neural system the
| way it is. Even selenium intensifier or pyrocat developer are
| pretty yikes in terms of the MSDS, very much a "better have a
| fume hood" thing, or do it outside (in a daylight tank).
|
| Incidentally, but, my most insane "I'd love to do that in my
| garage" is custom lenses. I know the accuracy is probably
| just not there compared to what you'd realistically need for
| good results, but it really seems like single-point diamond
| turning should be something that is achievable with a high-
| end setup (say $25k) in this era of solid CNC mill or lathe
| setups for half that price. Maybe it's something you could
| build out of a CNC setup but again, is it accurate enough to
| make it worth it (not sure of the tolerances required, at
| least 1/1000th, probably 1/10,000 is better, 1/100k or finer
| should do it, which I guess isn't _too_ far out of what you
| can do with a lathe, it 's all just end work and you have to
| be precisely optically centered and aligned). Coating is one
| where you'd need the vacuum oven for sure, assuming it wasn't
| too toxic (iirc coatings are fluoride based). Growing optics-
| grade fluorite or calcite crystals also might be possible for
| lens blanks (although again, maybe too nasty) - or glass
| casting too. You'd need an optical bench too of course.
|
| There is definitely a market for that I think - all-fluorite
| lenses are excellent for wide-spectrum photography (UV to IR
| in the same lens without focus shift - see the Coastal Optics
| lenses f.ex) and people (companies) pay big bucks for those,
| like $50k is entry-level for something in that class if you
| go out and buy it new. And with single-point you can make
| aspheric lenses as easily as spheric, so you could do all-
| aspheric designs that aren't commercially viable for mass-
| market lenses... as well as super-high-quality repros of
| classic lenses that are obscure or just classics. People
| would pay for a neo-retro Hypergon or modern takes on
| sonnar/heliar/etc if you could produce good results. Or you
| could make tools that let you do it in the traditional
| fashion with spheric surfaces.
|
| http://www.savazzi.net/photography/coastalopt_60.html
|
| https://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkor.
| ..
|
| http://www.company7.com/nikon/lens/0105f4.5uv.html
|
| https://jmcscientificconsulting.com/testing/asahi-pentax-
| ult...
|
| Anyway though another place where some of this ends is "too
| difficult to make at home"... that's actually a more
| interesting question in some ways, a dedicated hobbyist with
| tool-and-diemaker level machinist skills fluency with modern
| CNC and 3D printing and the techniques enabled by that, and
| enough knowledge of chemistry/optical/electrical/RF to get
| yourself in trouble, can of course make an enormous amount of
| stuff. But things like single-crystal turbine blades for
| micro-turbine designs are difficult and without the "real
| deal" you are leaving performance on the table. In some cases
| (again, things that are too toxic to handle, or illegal) you
| do basically hit a wall, not all projects scale down to the
| hobbyist level.
| atourgates wrote:
| Similarly - I was recently looking for a replacement pivot
| for my mountain bike, and found a machine shop in Whistler,
| BC (arguably the current Mecca of mountain biking) that
| specializes in making upgrades for parts that regularly
| fail in current models, as well as specialized accessories.
|
| https://pinnermachineshop.com/
| adrianmonk wrote:
| An apartment.
|
| Might or might not be legal. The disadvantage is you can only
| make one, but the advantage is recurring revenue once you've made
| it.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Wall Art, like posters, could be manufactured at home.
| novantadue wrote:
| probably jewelry like this
| https://patrickadairdesigns.com/collections/all-products
| soared wrote:
| Seeds, saplings, etc. Small houseplants and barely sprouted
| houseplants sell for a lot on Etsy and other sites and require
| very moderate amounts space and money. The difficulty is skill.
| Plants can be hard to grow and it's easy to make a mistake that
| ruins lots of your crop!
| zafka wrote:
| Plus 1 on this! I use my back yard in this way, but plan to set
| up some indoor areas also. So far I have not been trying to
| sell things, just playing and seeing what works best. There are
| some plants that are very easy to propogate that people enjoy
| such as rosemary.
| Wistar wrote:
| I had an acquaintance who made a very handsome living
| cultivating apple tree starts. I don't know how much exactly
| but he lived very well.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Or, you know, marijuana.
|
| > _...not particularly interested in the legality of this..._
| aaaaaaaaata wrote:
| Selling cannbis clones and support etc could be very
| lucrative.
|
| And potentially legal, depending on locale.
| vturner wrote:
| A couple years ago I became quite interested in building my
| own grow lights for starting garden veggie seedlings. The
| YouTube recommendations surrounding such videos were quite
| interesting... It turns out another plant needs high power as
| well.
| jjk166 wrote:
| I used to work for a manufacturing company that started out as a
| married couple making Christmas ornaments with a $2000 laser
| cutter/engraver.
|
| Screen printing is a pretty easy business to do out of a garage -
| you can either print and sell your own designs or print for
| others. Unless there are already a lot of screen printers in your
| area odds are there are businesses and organizations that would
| love to make some cheap swag with their logos. I haven't checked
| but I have to imagine there's a "xometry for screen printing"
| service out there that you could probably get semi-consistent
| work from.
|
| Honestly though, so long as you don't need to quit your day job
| today, you can probably find some good deals on some used cnc
| equipment that will let you make anything while staying in your
| current price range. The difficulty is not in determining what's
| possible but rather what's profitable. Most garage manufacturing
| companies tend to make some incredibly niche thing like a bracket
| that allows you to stick a camera on a particular item used for a
| particular hobby; stuff that anyone could make but no big
| companies care enough to develop. Most of the time these are
| tinkerers who make lots of little widgets to solve their own
| problems and one of them eventually takes off.
|
| If your goal is just to make money, I would suggest selling
| products that can be made by some service like xometry until you
| stumble across something that's popular, then you can bring
| manufacturing in house to increase your margins.
| bombcar wrote:
| > The difficulty is not in determining what's possible but
| rather what's profitable.
|
| If you troll Etsy or eBay or places like that, you'll quickly
| begin to realize the quantity of things that are obviously made
| on a CNC milling machine, or a laser cutter, etc.
|
| The customizability can be the selling point - and if you can
| fit everything on a trailer, you can even haul it to state
| fairs, town fun fests, etc.
|
| Think those fancy wood name plates you can buy at Disneyland
| kind of thing. But the big advantage can be _you are local_
| instead of some online thing.
| CarbineBuffer wrote:
| baud147258 wrote:
| well, you can manufacture a gun [0] from materials procured from
| your hardware store. Of course that would likely be illegal in
| many juridictions first to manufacture, then to sell.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Luty#Firearms_design
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Manufacturing tends to be legal in most states as long as it's
| not an NFA item. Selling requires the appropriate FFL license
| and often times a fairly high class, requiring a business
| address.
|
| There are a few makers who operate as small "satellite" FFLs
| but typically it's more profitable to just be a reseller or do
| transfers for $30 a pop.
|
| Making and selling accessories though is very doable and can
| probably make solid money. Lots of random little connectors or
| mounts that you can charge an arm and a leg for.
| mgarfias wrote:
| I know of at least a few businesses that got off the ground in a
| garage with a little 3-axis CNC mill and a few ideas. Find an
| area thats underserved and come up with a better idea.
| mindcrime wrote:
| An awful lot of stuff. I wouldn't even know where to begin,
| especially if you're willing to consider a hybrid model where
| some parts / sub-assemblies are manufactured elsewhere and
| delivered to you (for example, having PCB's produced by OSHpark
| or PCBway, etc.) and you do final assembly in the garage.
|
| If it were me, I'd also be looking at scenarios that involve any
| kind of "thing" that I could acquire cheaply and re-purpose
| somehow. Making lamps out of old wine bottles, that sort of
| thing.
|
| Robots, unmanned vehicles of various sorts, all sorts of small
| electronic gadgets, probably some auto accessories... really, the
| range of things you could (at least hypothetically) manufacture
| in a space that size is huge.
|
| Now whether or not you could manufacture the thing _at scale_ may
| be a different question. You could probably easily accommodate
| doing something the size of a small home appliance (think:
| washing machine size) if you only had to do one at a time. But
| doing that at scale might well require more space. So is the
| intent to stay in the garage and run an enduring business there,
| or just to ship a prototype, prove the model, and then maybe
| expand? Or is this purely an academic thought experiment?
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| I'm doing something very much like what you describe. Small
| footprint IoT device, we get the custom designed PCB's shipped
| in and most of our BoM is generic off the shelf stuff that is
| already available on Alibaba/AliExpress. Our enclosure and
| other plastics are designed in house and injection molded in my
| two car garage with molds printed on a resin printer. Soldering
| is custom ordered overseas where possible and hand soldered
| when not.
|
| The Buster Beagle was a real game changer in this space, though
| if your parts are really small there are other even cheaper
| options.
|
| The goal is to, as you say, prove the prototype and then get a
| larger dedicated space. The product I have is not super niche
| and could theoretically grow a lot, but we are planning to be
| pretty adaptable by focusing a lot on COTS components, the kind
| that you can go onto Alibaba and find 5 factories for whatever
| you need.
| cyrusthegreat wrote:
| Tiny wooden boxes.
| joeld42 wrote:
| With a really good graphic/packaging designer you could make
| small batch, die cut and laser cut packaging. Stores flat,
| materials are cheap. Bring some fancy samples to farmers markets
| and craft fairs, pitch people who want prototype or short run
| packaging on Kickstarter, etc.
|
| You'll never outcompete a large market, but for people making <
| 1000 of a thing, there's not a lot of options.
| deviance wrote:
| I've also been curios, for some time now, but got no concrete
| good examples. Good question! Hope you'll get some good answers!
| yellowapple wrote:
| One of my friends does 3D printed and resin casted cosplay
| armor/props out of his garage. Low volume, high margins.
| r_hoods_ghost wrote:
| Small aircraft. https://www.kitplanes.com/17-kits-for-under-25k/
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Dude, yeah, fixed wing VTOL drones airframes/kits.
|
| The margins are really high.
| coding123 wrote:
| Zombie box type stuff. (generator quieting devices)
| muttled wrote:
| T-shirt printing, leather craft, 3d printing long-tail plastic
| parts for things where spare parts are no longer available,
| small-scale electronics manufacturing, hydroponic production of
| fresh ingredients for local restaurants, embroidery, concrete
| countertop/sink production, glass work for smoking, classic car
| restoration, kit car production, hobby steam engine production,
| tiny wood shop, CNC production for sale on Etsy, jewelry
| crafting. Those are ones I can think of off the top of my head.
| h4waii wrote:
| I currently manufacturer a fairly niche product with nothing but
| a 7 year old $250 3d printer, some off the shelf parts, and a bit
| of custom electronics. Very high profit margin, as I am the only
| producer of this item (!).
|
| I'd love to move to a more "robust" process, but options for
| materials and widespread access to 3d printing provides a lot of
| versatility for a single-person business where I want to control
| the entire product and process end-to-end.
|
| Just need to find your niche.
| vturner wrote:
| How did you come to have the skills to design and build
| whatever it is you manufacture? I'm guessing you have a mix of
| mechanical and electrical background.
|
| I always have ideas for little products (some involve
| electronics others not) I'd like to build, but how to go from
| raw idea in my head to working assembly, I'm lost on: choosing
| motors, control board, mechanical reliability, etc. Maybe I
| just need to read some ME books, but if they are like math and
| physics texts, there is gulf between the text how to do build
| something practical.
| derekp7 wrote:
| How does making your own product on a home 3D printer compare
| to the cost per unit of having something like Shapeways or
| similar do it? Out of curiosity, I took my design for a Dremel
| gig that is about 4 - 5 hours of total printing time (biggest
| part is 3 hours, and several 1/2 hour pieces), and a single
| unit cost from an online quote was roughly $35. Plus there is a
| good selection of materials, including metal options (much more
| expensive though), but biggest advantage would be consistency
| of builds (I still find 3D printing at home to be finicky at
| best).
| jfim wrote:
| The material costs for 3D printing are really small. A 1kg
| spool of PLA is in the order of 20-30 USD, and most 3D prints
| have only a small amount of infill, so they're surprisingly
| light for their volume.
|
| For example, I designed a set of sprockets to drive my
| blinds, and the total weight of the sprockets to drive 3 sets
| of blinds is less than 15 grams of plastic. This goose-shaped
| figurine is about 35g of plastic:
| https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3906053
| h4waii wrote:
| For my application, it's _much_ cheaper and I have the added
| flexibility of being able to adjust my design and rapdily
| prototype should the other components need to change due to
| unavailability -- I have already had to do this.
|
| For something that costs me $0.17 at home, Etsy people want
| to charge upwards of $4 plus shipping and Shapeways or the
| like are $20+.
| SpikedCola wrote:
| I would like to hear any advice you/others have about finding a
| product in your niche to manufacture!
| baremetal wrote:
| usually you find a market by scratching your own itch.
|
| helps if you have breadth of knowledge and experience in a
| variety of fields also. interdisciplinary solutions still
| have plenty of untapped market potential
|
| other than that there is no magic formula that i know of. its
| kind of one of those "if you have to ask..." type things.
| bombcar wrote:
| To expand on this, make sure you itch like people with lots
| of money but no time/knowhow.
|
| For example, hand out at small-town airports or boat
| harbors, or with lawyers and doctors. If you can find some
| small part that would help them use their boat, then
| $300-500 for it might not even be an extreme price
| _especially if they see you using it first_.
|
| (This is not an argument to go buy a boat and plane).
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| How did you discover the market for this product? Are you part
| of some interest-based-community whose members want/need this
| part?
| linsomniac wrote:
| This is basically how Lulzbot started: 3d printing parts for 3d
| printers. I know at one point they were experimenting with
| making molds and pouring parts, I think out of resin. But when
| I toured their new facility a few years later, they had a giant
| farm of 3D printers, so I gather that didn't work out.
|
| I have since gotten into 3d printing and have printed molds and
| poured silicone with good luck. Some of that silicone has been
| the final part, some were then used as molds for pouring resin
| in. I've even added glass fiber to some of that resin before
| pouring to make some pretty sturdy parts.
|
| Maybe some of the parts you are 3d printing now could be done
| with resin? Bondo makes a product with glass fiber in it, but
| most of the parts I'm doing are fairly small, and the bondo has
| long fibers in it, when I make my own fibers, I just cut
| fiberglass and can make it whatever length fiber I want.
| Kaze404 wrote:
| If it's custom Guitar Hero guitars I'd like to get in touch to
| buy one. If not, I hope someone reading this does.
| jpindar wrote:
| I've thought of making various custom (and ruggedized) game
| peripherals. The electronics and switches I could do
| (assuming the ICs are available), but designing housings to
| be 3d printed might be tricky.
|
| For a guitar, however... possibly having the body made of
| wood like a real electric guitar could be a selling point.
| Kaze404 wrote:
| There are plenty of guides for 3d printed guitars
| specifically, and from the perspective of someone who's
| never 3d printed anything they don't seem too complex. Not
| sure about other controllers though.
| bombcar wrote:
| I've always thought the way to go is take a normal
| controller say, and tear out the internal electronics,
| replace the switches if needed with stronger/better ones,
| and put it in a custom 3D printed housing.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| I saw a pontoon houseboat built in a 2-car garage by a shop
| teacher. Assembled outside of course. People even live in these
| puppies.
|
| Can beat a lake-cabin, especially for people who live near lots
| of connected lakes.
| Pakdef wrote:
| > I am not particularly interested in the legality of this at the
| moment. But safety considerations could be important.
|
| Very illegal: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/gadget/ar-15-full-
| auto-sear-...
| rovingEngine wrote:
| Almost anything smaller than a breadbox. I'm not trying to be
| flippant, but those are better starting conditions than I had for
| the moderately profitable craft kit or outdoor product
| manufacturing businesses I've run. Inventory is more likely to
| constrain your space than equipment, and power supply is more
| likely to constrain your equipment than budget.
| digdugdirk wrote:
| Many small scale manufacturing suppliers operate on that scale -
| or at least could, with sufficient organization. And maybe
| fudging a bit and using the driveway as a loading dock to store
| materials and outgoing products.
|
| Lathe, CNC Mill, Drill Press, Bandsaw, Bend Brake, CNC
| laser/plasma cutter. That'd be the basics of a fully featured
| metal shop. Buying used and upgrading as you bring in some
| revenue would keep you under your price target.
| duped wrote:
| The legality should interest you. I saw someone have their small
| business shut down by police because they were running it out of
| their basement. It wasn't the noise or pollution (which
| realistically are the nuisances you're going to be inflicting on
| neighbors) but the excess cars parked and delivery trucks coming
| and going down the street. One neighbor ratted them out.
|
| The problem with the space isn't really the capital but noise
| abatement, waste disposal, and inventory. The ideal product would
| be quiet to make, not use tough chemicals to dispose, and
| materials you can buy in bulk and small enough not to take up a
| ton of space in the worksite.
| marpstar wrote:
| In reviewing neighborhood covenants whilst searching for a new
| home, I was surprised to see some of them make explicit the
| fact that running a business in your home is allowed, provided
| that it doesn't generate significant traffic/parking.
| StillBored wrote:
| I suspect that is because home based businesses are
| explicitly protected in many localities in the US. AKA, the
| HOA couldn't actually tell you that you couldn't do it if
| they wanted to.
| mh- wrote:
| This is indeed the case in my HOA as well and I was
| (pleasantly) surprised to see it codified as such.
| corrral wrote:
| Gotta have a carve-out for the folks participating in an MLM
| scheme out of their house. They're quite popular.
|
| Of course it also benefits remote tech workers who have an
| LLC or whatever. And handymen, et c.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is almost always exactly what it's for, and those with
| ears to hear can use it to their advantage.
|
| The key is to fly under the radar and not cause problems.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| And piano teachers
| ghaff wrote:
| I actually got something along these lines into my deed--
| which was for a software business before that was pretty
| normal and not the sort of thing even worth mentioning.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >The legality should interest you. I saw someone have their
| small business shut down by police because they were running it
| out of their basement. It wasn't the noise or pollution (which
| realistically are the nuisances you're going to be inflicting
| on neighbors) but the excess cars parked and delivery trucks
| coming and going down the street. One neighbor ratted them out.
|
| Nobody is checking what's going on in garages and basements in
| Detroit and the police in that kind of place would laugh off a
| call like that. Not having snooty busybody neighbors (an
| impossibility in most of the "nice neighborhoods" and "good
| school districts" that HNers generally buy into) seems to
| matter more than legality in practice. Nobody else cares if
| you're legal as long as you're reasonable.
| willcipriano wrote:
| My next house is going to be so far from my neighbors that if
| they were complaining about noise from my basement they would
| be admitting to trespassing.
| vinaypai wrote:
| The way I read it OP isn't saying they are going to ignore
| legal issues, but that they are looking for ideas and don't
| want to get into the weeds of legal issues _for the moment_.
|
| I assume they intend to narrow down ideas based on their
| specific situation.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I'm curious, what legal issues are we talking about here? What
| is not legal about running a business out of one's basement,
| and what law were they "ratted out" for breaking?
| jjk166 wrote:
| Most local governments have zoning restrictions that dictate
| what kind of structures can be built and limit what
| activities can be done in an area. Typically there are
| certain activities permitted as a right, some that require
| special approval, and others that are just flat out banned.
| The single family dteched housing zones where most garages
| are located tend to be the most restrictive zones with
| regards to commercial activity. Typically if you violate a
| zoning law you'll get some standard number of days to comply
| or you'll get hit with a large fine.
| palmetieri2000 wrote:
| Not who you're replying to, but I would imagine its an issue
| of registry and/or zoning depending on the type of business
| (and maybe tax stuff too). I'm from Australia so probably
| pretty different laws, but here at least you have to register
| the businesses address of operations and a part of that
| process is identifying your 'primary operation or activity',
| ie what the business does, some operations will be excluded
| from being conducted in residentially zoned areas regardless
| (large scale manufacturing, waste disposal & recycling, etc)
| but most trades will be permitted, I know a number of car
| mechanics that operate largely from home.
| convolvatron wrote:
| compressed gas storage, flammables, chemical storage, hot
| work, etc are often governed by local law over and above
| needing a property zoned for light industry.
| Lammy wrote:
| You need a "Home Occupation Permit". The details will vary by
| municipality, but here are the requirements for Sacramento
| CA, just to pick a random example: https://www.cityofsacramen
| to.org/-/media/Corporate/Files/EDD...
|
| "The following occupations are eligible for a Home Occupation
| Permit subject to restrictions discussed in the next section.
| If the occupation is followed by an asterisk, the use is also
| subject to special conditions also discussed below. Eligible
| home occupations are:
|
| 1. General office uses, such as accountant, administrative
| assistant, answering service, appraiser, architect, attorney,
| bookkeeper, broker or agent (real estate, insurance, etc.),
| counselor, consultant, drafting service, engineer, interior
| decorator, secretarial service, word processing service, and
| other office uses whose characteristics are substantially
| similar to those listed.
|
| 2. Commission merchant, direct sale product distribution,
| internet, or mail order business.
|
| 3. Dressmaker, tailor, fashion designer.
|
| 4. Mobile vehicle glass installation and mobile vehicle
| detailing.*
|
| 5. Pet services, such as pet sitting, pet grooming, pet
| training, and veterinarian care.*
|
| 6. Office for contractor, handyperson, janitorial service,
| landscape contractor, gardening service.*
|
| 7. Artist.
|
| 8. Tutoring.*
|
| 9. Small equipment, appliance, and computer assembly, repair,
| or reconstruction.*
|
| 10. Healing arts professional, including physician, surgeon,
| chiropractor, physical therapist, acupuncturist, and somatic
| practitioner.*
|
| 11. Hair stylist, barber, and manicurist.
|
| 12. Swimming instructor.*
|
| 13. Cottage food operation as defined in section 113758 of
| the California Health and Safety Code."
|
| =================
|
| I saw somebody get dinged for this once for running a Twitch
| stream out of their garage and accepting donations, one of
| the only times I've seen the modern "contractor" trend work
| out in anyone's favor:
|
| - https://nitter.net/happyf333tz/status/1036846647945261056
|
| - https://nitter.net/happyf333tz/status/1040074413599678465
| primax wrote:
| Get a commercial dehydrator. You can make dehydrated fruit and
| veg, trail food, jerky, dried herbs, tea and lots of other
| things.
|
| You can grow gourmet or medicinal mushrooms with a handmade flow
| hood, a pressure cooker and two grow tents.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I'd do a lot of research in the market before starting a food
| business at home. Rules and regulations are pretty intense and
| if you're selling stuff for people to consume it usually has to
| be prepared in an approved and inspected kitchen, which is very
| difficult for home chefs. It's not impossible but prepare for a
| _ton_ of roadblocks. Most folks end up renting time in
| commercial kitchens that take care of crossing all the t's and
| dotting the i's so they are properly inspected and certified
| for commercial food prep, but you'll pay a premium for their
| service.
|
| And the next major hurdle is actually selling product to
| stores. Good luck getting into real grocery stores, if you
| don't have a relationship with them or some kind of major in
| they won't even give you the time of day. You'd have to start
| small and super local, like an indie grocer that is willing to
| take a chance (and almost certainly have you take on 100%+ of
| the risk and pay to take back any unsold product).
|
| I've listened to some folks on cooking podcasts that tried
| successfully (and unsuccessfully) to get into selling their own
| sauces, condiments, etc. and it is a hell of a difficult
| journey. They all spent easily six figures of their own cash to
| get it all bootstrapped and off the ground too. I don't think a
| single one ended up being happy in the end or felt like it was
| worth the trouble.
| primax wrote:
| We've spent about $50k getting going, but we are on a farm so
| have options others don't. Our equipment was $10k, the rest
| went into refrigerated containers we turned into a kitchen
| grade dehydration space, prep room, coolroom and storage.
|
| I'm fortunate to have a sister in the food retailing business
| who was our first customer. We started dehydrating lime
| slices to use up the excess limes from our yard and control
| fruit fly, and found we couldn't keep up with demand. From
| there it's gone really well.
|
| We are in Australia though, YMMV.
| teledyn wrote:
| Beer!
| eimrine wrote:
| I have a dream of producing custom recumbents. I don't know where
| to get thin-walled pipes, but a start capital is roughly as you
| have described.
| wyre wrote:
| https://framebuildersupply.com/
|
| https://www.torchandfile.com/
| Cieplak wrote:
| McMaster-Carr supplies thin-wall chromoly _tube_ [0] suitable
| for fabricating bicycle frames.
|
| [0] tube is measured by the outer diameter; pipe is measured by
| the inner diameter
| SpikedCola wrote:
| McMaster-Carr won't sell to small companies, my friends and I
| have tried several times, only to have orders cancelled for
| the above-mentioned reason. It's a shame because their
| website has a wealth of information (CAD drawings,
| measurements, etc.), one of the best I've seen.
| Rantenki wrote:
| Aircraft spruce sells tubing in a variety of lengths, and
| ship to Canada. They're a good source for tubes that don't
| fit normal framebuilding supply inventories. They ship to
| Canada directly:
|
| https://www.aircraftspruce.ca/
|
| I've built a bike frame with their 4130 tubes.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I am a business of one and I've bought from McMaster-Carr
| often. A long time ago (like 25 years ago) it was harder to
| buy from them as a tiny company, but these days they take
| credit cards on an online shopping list like everyone else.
| plegresl wrote:
| The website and all the part details are amazing. I've made
| many purchases from McMaster for personal / hobby use so
| I'm surprised to hear about difficulties purchasing from
| them.
| SpikedCola wrote:
| We are in Ontario, Canada, if it matters. I know Quinn
| from blondiehacks orders from them without difficulty, so
| I'm not sure what it is about us that they don't like.
| They tend to be very curt/nearing unfriendly in their
| responses.
| bombcar wrote:
| There may be difficulties shipping cross-border (customs
| is hell) - so maybe you "need" to find an address just
| over the border in the US to ship to instead?
| SpikedCola wrote:
| I do have a US PO Box, so I will try this next time.
| Thanks for the suggestion.
| bombcar wrote:
| Those also don't usually allow "package" delivery (think
| UPS) but maybe something can be worked out. Some small
| post offices will accept a UPS delivery to "unit PO BOX
| number" but I don't think they're supposed to.
| maicro wrote:
| What exactly have you tried to order? I've been ordering
| from McMaster both to a fairly small business and my
| personal home address with absolutely no issues for over 8
| years.
|
| Are you in the US? If you're trying to buy those tubes, are
| you trying to order very long lengths? UPS apparently has a
| limit of 108" total length, and a sum of 165" for length +
| "girth".
|
| As for McMaster overall - I agree with some other
| sentiments here that they're great, though I do admit the
| "McMaster tax" (paying 10~200% what you could find the
| identical part somewhere else for) can be annoying at
| times, but is worth it when you want a reliable supplier
| with almost universally good quality products.
|
| edit: Based on your reply to a sibling comment, I looked
| around, and found this thread that seems to reinforce your
| experience that McMaster shipping to Canada
| is...unreliable: https://www.chiefdelphi.com/t/mcmaster-
| carr-supplying-to-int...
|
| I would try the recommendation there of ensuring you have a
| business name on the order, or, contact their support -
| I've had to contact them a couple times and they were
| generally quite helpful.
|
| Good luck.
| katmannthree wrote:
| Did they explicitly tell you that's why the order was
| cancelled? I've placed many personal orders with them and
| never had issues.
| SpikedCola wrote:
| Their reply, verbatim:
|
| _Hi xxxx,
|
| We only ship to large businesses and schools in Canada.
| We can't accept your order. I'm sorry for the
| inconvenience. You might want to try Fastenal or Motion
| Canada.
|
| Lauren_
| tyrfing wrote:
| I can pretty much guarantee that this is due to
| customs/import charges. Consumers will cancel orders over
| a surprise bill from that, a big business won't care at
| all or will have their own broker.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| FWIW, one of the benefits of Fastenal is being able to
| walk in and browse the shelves (just ask them when
| they're not busy. Never had a problem)
| convolvatron wrote:
| idk. they made me get a commercial account. and their
| stock for my local shop leans heavily towards grade-8
| construction fasteners and not the smaller machine screws
| that I generally use.
| ntietz wrote:
| I have successfully ordered and received parts from
| McMaster-Carr as an individual.
|
| I'm not sure if this is a super variable experience or if
| it has changed over time (I first ordered from them in
| 2020).
| kansface wrote:
| I just ordered 40 SS J Bolts from them for my home project
| after spending a couple of weeks fruitlessly trying to get
| them from a local company. I placed an order on the website
| and they showed up in 2 days.
| abakker wrote:
| bicycle tube for making bikes out of chromoly can be bought
| from many makers. The good stuff doesn't have uniform wall
| thickness but has thinner sides and thicker top/bottom for
| lower weight/stiffness. It should also have butted ends,
| meaning that it has thicker walls at the ends.
| StillBored wrote:
| Local metals dealer?
|
| But at this point carbon fiber is pretty easy to manufacture.
| For a bike frame the hard part would be design optimization and
| stress calculations. It might even be easier once you have the
| molds. I'm not really sure I understand why some upstart carbon
| bike company hasn't cleaned up given how inexpensively some of
| the no-name carbon parts from china are (and how they appear to
| be at least as good if not better than some of the name brand
| stuff in some cases).
| sbf501 wrote:
| Are you going to make the old-timey recombants with the
| steering below the seat, unlike the modern ones with the huge
| handlebars? I miss those. Like this one:
|
| https://www.cyclingabout.com/heaviest-touring-bike-ever-behe...
|
| (I met this guy in Cambridge Mass in the 80's).
| mise_en_place wrote:
| That was the stated goal of Defense Distributed, to allow
| manufacture of firearms in your garage. Dunno what happened to
| them after one of the founders got arrested for personal legal
| problems. Thought it was an interesting concept, though.
| [deleted]
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| You're thinking of this in reverse. _First_ find something you
| want to manufacture, _then_ figure out how to build it in your
| garage.
|
| Don't be the solution searching for a problem!
| ffhhj wrote:
| >> First find something you want to manufacture
|
| I'd add that it's something that you want to manufacture for
| which there are buyers, otherwise the inventory won't go
| anywhere and they'll waste their investment.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Prototyping can be done easily. CNC or 3D Printing? Protolabs.
| PCBs? Oshpark. Get a prototype made first, it is going to be a
| little expensive, but less than investing in a bunch of
| manufacturing equipment.
| wnolens wrote:
| Isn't a job a solution to the problem of needing money?
|
| You take stock of your skills, hit the job boards, ...
| 1-6 wrote:
| Came here to say something similar.
|
| First, the ask is to help find things that can make money in
| the garage. I think that would be like finding 'problems'
| then applying a 'location:garage' filter to narrow the
| choices down.
|
| Then, after choosing the product, it's to tool the garage to
| manufacture the 'solution'
| wnolens wrote:
| New framing:
|
| the problem is "convince partner that I need a sweet shop
| in the garage", solution is "become entrepreneur requiring
| sweet shop in garage" ;)
| beckingz wrote:
| I'm going to use this in the future.
| silisili wrote:
| Made in USA safety razor.
|
| There have been a few pop up, seemingly sell really well, then
| disappear for unknown reasons. I think Weber was the last one,
| and they became highly sought after.
|
| Charge 150 bucks a pop, people will buy it.
| bovermyer wrote:
| If you're ignoring legality, then the list is very long. Choose
| something that you know and are interested in. Figuring out how
| to produce it quickly and in large quantities is a secondary
| concern.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| My understanding is _not_ that OP is looking to produce goods
| of questionable legality.
|
| My understanding is that OP is setting aside legal issues such
| as zoning, etc for the moment and focusing on feasible business
| ideas.
|
| However, I could be wrong.
| csteubs wrote:
| I started making jet ski tread mats out of astro turf in my
| garage last year. Dead simple to cut, margin is super high ($60
| for a standard set of three on ~$8 worth of material), and time
| spent per unit from roll to package is something like 15-20
| minutes. It was fun and made about $30k over the summer months
| but I stopped when I moved back to the west coast.
|
| I could have handled the whole operation in a spare bedroom if I
| didn't have a garage, and there are plenty of areas where I could
| have dropped the time required or the cost. I never bought the
| turf in bulk and I used household scissors to cut from a template
| so buying a roll and cutting with something more effective may
| have netted me more. Niche leisure products in spend-y verticals
| typically do well.
| Unbeliever69 wrote:
| Out of curiosity, how did you determine which skis you'd make
| mats for? Did you have to generate your own templates? Also,
| where did you sell?
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| My buddy did something similar.
|
| He lived near a town where a mine had shut down a few years
| earlier. Him and his buddy went out and found a ton of heavy
| duty, industrial conveyor belts. They took as much as their two
| trucks could haul. Went back and cut them into lengths suitable
| for truck beds. Sold them at $100 a pop for any truck. Same
| thing. They'd just told the customer to measure their bed and
| they'd cut them to fit.
|
| Not sure how much they made, but the rubber was like an inch
| thick, heavy enough to stay in place without any glue or tie
| downs and the rubber was really grippy on the one side. It was
| prefect for what they did with it. You could put a tool box
| smack in the middle of the bed it wouldn't move an inch on that
| rubber.
|
| I've always wondered if you could do something similar with
| wholesale conveyor mats these days or if this was just a "right
| place, right time" kind of a deal for my friend.
| smm11 wrote:
| "Found" a ton of heavy duty, industrial conveyor belts.
|
| On my way to the rust belt with a hackszall right now.
| aynyc wrote:
| My old neighbor makes custom collars for pets (and for certain
| group people as well). He lost his shoe repair business a few
| years back, but using his skills, he's doing pretty well.
|
| His collars aren't just leather bells. He adds engraving, GPS,
| jewels and vegan options. it's crazy how much people are willing
| to spend on their pets.
| julianlam wrote:
| Live edge wood tables.
| wiseleo wrote:
| A machine shop with a lathe and a mill, especially CNC, can
| manufacture just about anything.
|
| I personally refurbish electronics. It's nice and quiet.
| bijection wrote:
| A friend and I manufacture a laser party light that makes your
| feet glow in a space smaller than most garages.
|
| Just a 3d printer, some custom cut metal pieces, the actual
| electronic components and some soldering irons. [0]
|
| [0] https://toeglo.com
| mepian wrote:
| Sam Zeloof alone managed to manufacture chips with the early
| 1970s technology in his garage using old fab equipment bought
| cheap (sadly don't remember the exact budget):
| http://sam.zeloof.xyz/
|
| Maybe with more people and more capital this could be scaled to
| something that can be sold, like replicas of classic CPUs.
| bleuarff wrote:
| That was my first thought upon reading the title, but you have
| ton ponder it, though. Does it fit the "reallistically"
| criteria? I mean, sure it's been done already so it is
| possible, but this is advanced work and probably not really
| accessible to the average hacker.
| betocmn wrote:
| Smart surfboards!
| aetherspawn wrote:
| You need the correct property zoning to operate a business from
| your basement.
|
| Your house is very likely in a residential zone, which limits it
| to residential use only (some exceptions apply, allowing home
| office scenarios for people who live there, but limits employees
| from travelling to your house for work).
|
| Why do these rules exist? Well, to regulate industrial expansion,
| limit noise, traffic and road congestion (parking) in residential
| areas.
|
| YMMV
| Eigenstate wrote:
| It's only profitable if your time is worth nothing, but you can
| build a kit plane like the Vans RV-7 in a garage for around that
| startup cost.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Here's a tour of the late Grant Imahara's workshop. He worked on
| robotics and, I believe, props in there?
|
| He's got a pretty significant amount of capability -- "CNC mills,
| laser cutters, lathes, paints, electronics, work tables, and, of
| course, multiple 3D printers" -- built into a space that looks
| closer to a 1-car garage than a 2-car garage.
|
| edit: here's the actual link https://youtu.be/hsCSTO8SaQU
| northwest65 wrote:
| I think that's more 4 car garage than 2 or 1 car. It also has
| quite a tall ceiling and industrial power and ventilation
| hookups.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I have a workshop/gym in my 2-car garage and his space
| doesn't look much bigger than mine. (It is, however,
| infinitely cooler than mine)
|
| He's got the tall ceiling, yeah, but he wasn't using it in
| any way that I can see.
|
| Power hookups likely wouldn't be an obstacle if one was
| recreating this in a residential garage. Would just need 220V
| for some of the machines I bet. Key here is that for Grant's
| line he surely you running all of the power-hungry machines
| at once as he was (to the best of my knowledge) working on
| bespoke one-off projects.
| bussierem wrote:
| In the video, they call out that it's "about 5 or 6 hundred
| square feet". An average 2 car garage is ~360 square feet,
| so it'd definitely closer to a 3-4 car garage.
| [deleted]
| mwint wrote:
| Link: https://youtu.be/hsCSTO8SaQU
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Oh my gosh, thanks, can't believe I forgot it.
| bombcar wrote:
| That size and capital outlay could be the basis for a very nice
| custom furniture/woodworking shop; but the skills necessary would
| require some work to gain.
|
| Someone is basically doing that for keyboards, though they mainly
| rebox/ship from China.
| badrabbit wrote:
| Hot sauce or other condiments or pastries.
|
| Tech augmentations where you add features to a product, tear
| down, solder up, assemble back and QA.
| henning wrote:
| Small mechanical and 3D-printed parts. Lockpicking kits, custom
| engraved objects.
| caramelcustard wrote:
| Outside of small scale Etsy-tier tech/non-tech stuff? Nothing.
| What a garage is good for though is prototyping and prototyping
| related R&D. Given that you have a 20k-50k USD budget, perhaps
| you should look for cheap commercial property for rent.
| sliceform wrote:
| I used to be the education director at a makerspace and now run a
| 3D printing company selling small plastic parts and teaching
| entrepreneurs how to start small manufacturing businesses at
| home.
|
| Few thoughts:
|
| - Focus on your hobbies and other industries you know well. What
| problems exist? Where can you make things better? Are there
| problems people mention over and over again?
|
| - CAD modeling is often THE fundamental skill needed for people
| to bring their ideas to market. You can make CAD models that look
| almost real using software you can get for free. This allows you
| to work backwards, first determining if there's a market, and
| also working out many of the design flaws before making something
|
| If you're just excited to make stuff, and want to get your hands
| on something, you can do all kinds of things in a tight space.
|
| - 3D printers are small and provide many automated opportunities
| - Laser cutters are dead simple to set up and use to make real
| products and are easy to automate. - CNC machines can be had for
| under 5k and are super powerful - Portable MIG welders have a
| small footprint and welding tends to be in high demand - Leather
| working tends to be high perceived value though automation is
| limited - Soldering and electronics repair requires little space
| but again, automation is limited
|
| I've got loads of other ideas too but I'm guessing that's good
| for now. My contact information is in my profile if you'd like to
| talk more.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Small batch soaps, candles, "bath oils" and such can be done with
| minimal capital and little regulatory oversight.
|
| Print shop type things, especially specialized like vinyl cutting
| and large banners, could be a good business depending on where
| you're at. Might be able to buy used or lease equipment too.
|
| Woodworking / furniture shop and / or antique furniture
| restoration might not be terribly capital intensive.
| thrill wrote:
| Nuclear reactor? https://kidsdiscover.com/quick-reads/arkansas-
| teen-builds-nu...
| seszett wrote:
| I convert old photo negative enlargers to UV enlargers for
| printing with alternative processes (cyanotype in particular).
|
| It doesn't take much space and I do it out of my small European
| town house basement. Which also serves as my photo lab for
| demonstrations.
| paulmd wrote:
| That's neat. What do you use as the source? A bank of UV LEDs?
|
| Never really thought about that but can you get larger
| "flashlight" style UV-spectrum LEDs from cree/etc? Of course
| you need to diffuse it and fewer larger elements are harder
| than more smaller elements but the output power is probably
| higher with the big LEDs, and I seem to remember some of the
| alt-processes are quite insensitive (like, leave it outside in
| the sun for a half hour).
|
| The other way you can do it is, of course, printing a big
| negative and contact printing outside. It's a little lame with
| film since you have to go through an interpositive to get back
| to a negative (unless you use positive B+W slide process or
| similar - but those processes aren't great either in terms of
| quality), but ironically those processes are now _extremely_
| accessible through digital or hybrid-digital workflows. Scan
| your negative, print the scan (still negative) onto a
| transparency, and contact print, done. Or you can take a random
| digital image and invert it and then print it onto a
| transparency.
|
| I should give laser-transparency cyanotype a go one of these
| days, that would be a few fun afternoons.
|
| On the "how do I put out enough UV light for cyanotype
| enlargment" thing, I wonder if there's a way to get flashbulbs
| to put out UV light. One of the reasons older flash photos
| don't have the modern digital "flash" look is because the whole
| flashbulb lights up, and then the reflector actually spreads
| out the light from the flashbulb, so you don't have a point
| source like the xenon tube, it's a highly diffused source. And
| it's actually relatively intense by modern standards - another
| weird niche where flashbulb still is viable is infrared
| photography, IR flashbulbs put out a pretty massive amount of
| light.
| lrvick wrote:
| I would suggest looking at the mechanical puzzle community.
|
| A quick look around https://puzzleparadise.net/ will reveal many
| people willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for
| bespoke homemade sequential discovery puzzles made with laser
| cutting, woodworking, 3D printing, CNC, mill, lathe, custom PCBs,
| etc.
|
| To go further down the rabbit hole see:
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j5V0nECn9hqUCmPmxPqi...
| StillBored wrote:
| I stumbled on this place, https://puzzledabq.com/, in
| Albuquerque earlier this year.
|
| Probably one of the busiest establishments in the area from
| what I could tell.
|
| So the retail side is probably pretty solid right now too.
| palmetieri2000 wrote:
| This is so cool and a niche I never knew existed, thanks for
| posting.
| fortysixdegrees wrote:
| Gin
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Isn't the distillation process prone to explosions? How would
| one get started? How much capital is needed?
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Capital needed for distillation? Just watch an episode of
| Moonshiners on Discovery channel and you'll be set. Nothing
| you couldn't buy at Home Depot or the local hardware store
| for about $100.
| primax wrote:
| It's fairly safe if you operate in a well ventilated
| environment, have fail-safes in your still in case there is a
| pressure build up, and use electric elements instead of gas.
|
| Plenty of people use gas, but I don't see why given the
| increased risk and cost.
|
| For gin you need to make or buy neutral spirit first. Buying
| it is ideal as larger providers can make it cheaper and
| cleaner than you, but needs a license so you won't do this
| while you're developing a product.
|
| Then you will likely use a pot still to make your final
| product. You can use the same equipment to do both processes
| if you have a modular design.
|
| None of the above is set in stone - gin is a bit like jazz
| and breaking the rules is common.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| Weed
| Fargoan wrote:
| Delta 8 vape carts. The license to do it legally is easy to get.
| You can buy all the material you'll need from Marijuana Packaging
| and Fresh Bros. I used to run a small CBD business out of a
| rented shop in Minnesota.
|
| https://marijuanapackaging.com/collections/filling-machines-...
|
| https://freshbros.com/product-category/bulk-products
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Either an electromagnetic gadget that reduces any object's weight
| or a wonky time machine. /s
| sbf501 wrote:
| Is that what the thing in Primer was supposed to do? Reduce
| weight?
| sambapa wrote:
| Well, it was MacGuffin, but yeah.
| smm11 wrote:
| HP started in a garage. So did Apple.
|
| And some dude built a nuke in his. Have fun.
| sbf501 wrote:
| Lionheart Kombucha in Portland Oregon started in a garage, and
| now is made out of his basement! He has a 3000gal fermenter down
| there that gets inspected. He used to give lessons at his house
| on how to make your own.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| Shrooms. Good stuff.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| cutting gemstones has a pretty low capital cost to get started, a
| couple of workbenches worth of grinding and polishing equipment
| plus a diamond-saw
|
| there's lots of tutorials on youtube, seems like a gratifying
| hobby with a potential for profit if you take it seriously as a
| day job
| Panther34543 wrote:
| I've given this advice elsewhere, and I'll give it here. Go look
| at the small business initiatives by each branch of the U.S.
| military; many are now posting lists of open contracts that you
| can bid on for an incredible array of things.
|
| Browse through those lists and find something you can build.
|
| I really believe the U.S. military is in the midst of a large
| scale transfer of military spending from traditional large
| defense contractors to smaller, innovative companies. The Air
| Force has even opened its own venture capital arm and is actively
| investing in small businesses. Most, if not every, branch in the
| military publicly posts contracts for small businesses to bid on.
|
| I think Anduril is a great example of the possibilities in the
| "new" defense space.
|
| What's interesting is this shift is very reminiscent of military
| manufacturing in Japan during World War 2; much of the
| manufacturing was actually done by small businesses of < 30
| employees in "garages" scattered around the country instead of
| very large factories. That was one of the reasons American
| bombing by Superfortresses was so ineffective at first, and one
| of the reasons incendiary bombs began being used.
|
| Happy to provide more detail on this. I've been thinking about
| this space for awhile.
| 12ian34 wrote:
| hmm facilitating war, even if it means defence just doesn't sit
| quite right with me. shame we live in a world where this is
| even a thing
| busterarm wrote:
| War happens when one of two nations assumes that they are
| more capable of winning than another.
|
| If you stop spending in the US and assume that Russia and
| China will sit idly by without invading our allies, you are
| living in a land of fantasy.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > War happens when one of two nations assumes that they are
| more capable of winning than another.
|
| That's only part of the equation - said country needs to
| have a desire or need to go to war as well.
| 12ian34 wrote:
| It's definitely a land of fantasy today, I agree but one
| can always hope that maybe one day instead of killing each
| other we'd learn to live together and work together.
| Imagine how much more productive we'd be. To be honest I
| nearly didn't post this message because it's a bit off
| topic and definitely divisive. I definitely support all the
| brave people fighting for me to be safe because I sure as
| hell wouldn't feel comfortable killing someone else myself
| to protect my "country".
| cercatrova wrote:
| Looking at human history, that will never happen. As long
| as there is scarcity in the world, and as long as
| sovereign states exist, geopolitics and thus the looming
| threat of war will always exist.
| 12ian34 wrote:
| Perhaps with that attitude. There's a lot of amazing
| things humans have accomplished that were once thought
| impossible. We are likely very, very early on in the
| anthropocene. Thousands of years from now I'm optimistic
| that the world will be a better place and that they'll
| look back on us as barbaric environment destroyers.
| sixQuarks wrote:
| This makes no sense. Using this logic, why don't more
| countries attack, say Costa Rica, which doesn't even have a
| military?
|
| I think the OP probably doesn't have a problem with actual
| defense projects, but if you've been paying any attention
| over the last 70 years, you will know that the US has
| attacked many countries under the guise of "defense".
| groby_b wrote:
| > Using this logic, why don't more countries attack, say
| Costa Rica, which doesn't even have a military?
|
| You might want to read up on the "Inter-American Treaty
| of Reciprocal Assistance". Essentially, "the rest of the
| Americas".
|
| That mostly works because the set of potential aggressors
| is small. (Nicaragua and Panama). OK, fine, the US might
| want to, but they're close enough partners that they
| don't need to.
| daenz wrote:
| >even if it means defence
|
| Can you elaborate on why you feel uncomfortable with the idea
| of defense? Related[0]
|
| 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_operations_other_th
| an...
| 12ian34 wrote:
| I wonder, of the many hundreds of billions of dollars the
| US spends on defense every year, how much goes to those
| military operations to which you linked.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| While most local governments will post a Request for Quote
| list, and this often includes IT related services. I disagree
| this is the good choice for a first business project, as
| missing a deadline can incur egregious fines.
|
| Local specialized custom hr/tax/legal/retail/city software is
| always popular, as it is region specific and constantly
| changing. ;)
| 1-6 wrote:
| What type of issues are involved when you don't deliver to the
| government on time?
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| You might get paid extra to complete. Or you might get
| investigated by the Feds and The Congress.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Somewhere between late fees to congressional hearings
| depending on how badly things go.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| Other poster summed it up nicely, as there's a range of
| remedies from fees to lowering the payment you get to
| investigation to prison, but by far the most significant
| impact is this key metric:
|
| Past Performance.
|
| You can probably get away with screwing over the government
| once, maybe even twice. But good luck once you're legally and
| nationally blacklisted.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| You're not the first person I've heard this from; when you say
| "many are now posting lists of open contracts you can bid on"
| where are they posting these things?
| https://sam.gov/content/home is what my cursory Googling found,
| is this what you mean, or is there some other, more relevant
| site involved?
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I just searched "CNC", a bunch of contract opportunities
| showed up: https://sam.gov/search/?index=opp&sort=-modifiedDa
| te&page=1&...
| mikodin wrote:
| This is what my Dad does...and he has a lathe in the garage
| typically producing things for helicopters and airplanes.
| [deleted]
| vdfs wrote:
| There is even a movie about this
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2005151/
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Eh, I was thinking more like, "Build us a web portal for
| viewing the status of <random thing> and requesting more
| <random thing>." than, "Run guns for us cheaply."
| blinkingled wrote:
| Hi, if it's not too much to ask, could you please post some
| direct links for the open contracts for small businesses? I am
| merely curious but others might find those more useful.
| TecoAndJix wrote:
| On the SAM site above you can do an advanced filter for small
| business set aside and leave the search string empty. Not in
| this space so someone correct me if this is not what it
| means.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| Former DoD contract specialist here, Sam.gov is the correct
| jumping off point for both information on how the process
| works and for where to find opportunities. The small
| business set aside is very important, since the regulations
| require that small businesses be considered to the maximum
| amount practicable, before larger companies can even be
| considered (Federal Prison Industries gets first dibs
| though). Veteran, woman, and minority owned businesses also
| get higher precedence, and those qualifiers can stack up -
| a minority woman veteran owned small business is golden,
| assuming the company can actually bid and perform properly.
| There are some other areas, such as HUBzone/economically
| disadvantaged areas that are also considered, but that's
| better to learn about direct from the information on
| Sam.gov than from a HN post.
|
| It is a daunting task to register and follow the
| procedures, and you must be very attentive to detail as a
| small business owner; however, there are a ton of resources
| from the Small Business Administration to assist. Don't
| hesitate to contact them. Be persistent, patient, and
| proactive.
|
| It used to be much harder than it is today, which is why it
| might seem to most people that federal contracting is a
| corrupt good ol' boy network; newcomers simply didn't
| follow the instructions right, due to complexity and/or
| confusion. Today though, it's a perfect time to get in the
| door.
| bombcar wrote:
| Note that the "minority veteran woman" thing can be gamed
| a bit (and is) - I know of a few small businesses that
| are officially owned by the _spouse_ of the actual leader
| so that they can qualify higher.
|
| So even if your spouse doesn't check all three boxes,
| having the company officially be owned by your wife can
| help.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| Yep that's almost standard practice by now, so there's
| lots of competition in that space. And most of the time
| you (the person researching/drafting/approving the
| contract) can't really verify it. For me I didn't mind,
| since it's on them if they committed fraud, not me.
| Plenty times I would ask to speak to the owner and find
| out it was "co-owned" with the wife's name on the
| business license to get woman-owned, and the husband's
| name (or wife's name, in many cases) to get veteran-
| owned. Hey, fine with me. Mostly all I wanted was that
| the work was to spec and delivered on time. If you can
| game the system without sacrificing legality or quality,
| go for it!
| bladegash wrote:
| There is a bit more to the requirement than the company
| being owned by a woman, namely the requirements for women
| to be in control of the day to day operations of the
| business.
|
| It is a similar requirement for veteran owned small
| businesses and I imagine "gaming" this would be
| tantamount to fraud.
|
| About as far as I've seen be acceptable for "gaming"
| things is to use a joint venture that is 51%
| owned/controlled by whatever interest group (e.g.,
| veteran, women, disadvantaged, all of the above, etc.).
|
| Not saying it doesn't happen, but it's not a common
| occurrence from my experience (15+ years active duty, as
| government employee, and working for a contractor on the
| actual contract/BD side).
| cercatrova wrote:
| https://sam.gov/content/opportunities
| golergka wrote:
| If you're not interested in legality, then technically cooking
| meth or something similar (amphetamine, mephedrone or other drugs
| popular in the neighborhood) would bring the best ROI, but it
| might not best from safety perspective for a variety or reasons.
| efxhoy wrote:
| With some woodworking equipment you could make loudspeaker
| enclosures. Add a CNC machine and you'll be making enclosures
| just as good as the big brands.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I will add that there are a lot of excellent publicly-available
| DIY loudspeaker designs out there. Many of which do not have
| readily available flat pack DIY kits.
|
| There might be an opportunity there.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| The kits are frequently sold out, so I assume the demand is
| decent. It could be that margins aren't great so producers
| aren't eager to keep stocks high, but I've never looked into
| it. I just know that when I want them, they're sold out.
| mrandish wrote:
| If you want to create an economically viable business, focus
| first on how you're going to profitably locate, attract and sell
| to a growing pool of new customers. The vast majority of
| businesses which fail, do so due to a lack of _Customers_ not a
| lack of _Product_.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| propaganda
| haunter wrote:
| Jet engine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJr-RmJxtDc
| codegeek wrote:
| OP did ask "realistically".
| bartkmq wrote:
| I mean, building a jet engine from an old car turbocharger is
| not that difficult, you only have to manufacture the
| combustion chamber.
| 0xfeba wrote:
| Niche, NLA car parts for older cars. 3d print to prototype,
| machine with a mill and/or lathe. Or better, CNC mill.
| cpill wrote:
| I guess at that scale your not looking to beat anyone on price.
| Your going for bespoke quality, I'd say. So you want something
| that people pay a lot for already so you can charge more and put
| the word "bespoke" in front of it.
|
| One idea I had was bicycle frames, if you know arc welding.
| Custom size frames or of unique design go for a lot. I guess it
| depends on how fiddly they get, but if you can bang out the
| standard fittings then the main part should be quite quick to put
| togther.
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