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Recent content by machinistguy

  1. machinistguy

    Building a Manufacturing Conglomerate Progress Thread

    EXECUTION 
    You posted this while I was reflecting on how we're not playing to our strength. My immediate thought was a flashback of the SVP of our biggest customer saying she's interested in a joint venture with us a year ago which I wasn't interested in (at the time, it was horrible idea if they saw how...
  2. machinistguy

    Building a Manufacturing Conglomerate Progress Thread

    EXECUTION 
    No, I spent 6 months convincing the people at the local makerspace to let me use their equipment. Then I bought a beat up 20 y/o machine that needed repair and asked the service tech to come out, show me what to do then, and did it myself.
  3. machinistguy

    Building a Manufacturing Conglomerate Progress Thread

    EXECUTION 
    Things are eh but looking up. I've quit caffeine, my vitamin D levels are getting back to normal, and starting to get some good sleep again. Definitely can look back and say I haven't made any good business decisions in a while (but no bad ones either) and we've just been coasting on decisions...
  4. machinistguy

    Going Fastlane Like My Life Depends On It.. (continued)

    GOLD! EXECUTION 
    Mike, why do you want to go fastlane? Do you want financial freedom? To get girls and party with all the money and freetime you have? Status? A purpose? I ask because your posts read like you think you'll never be "someone" unless you have a cool tech startup with VC's fighting to jerk you off...
  5. machinistguy

    Random Chat, Thoughts, Posts, and/or Rants Thread

    HOT! CHAT 
    I can think of two shifts I experienced. The first came from the sheer frequency of things going wrong. Eventually you just get used to it. Shit hits the fan that makes it seem like I'm about to go out of business... but it's happened so many times that my mental response was "I didn't go out...
  6. machinistguy

    Industrial Businesses Megathread

    IDEA CHAT EXECUTION 
    CNC Machine Tool Builder (MTB) Companies: I've had a lot of MTB salesmen dropping by lately so I thought I'd write about them. After all, the last time an American started a successful MTB company he became a billionaire and now owns a NASCAR and F1 team (just don't do tax evasion kids, you'll...
  7. machinistguy

    Building a Manufacturing Conglomerate Progress Thread

    EXECUTION 
    We moved into a new space a couple weeks ago. New owners at our old place wanted to demise our old space. It took a few all nighters and weekends to get everything back up and running quickly. We moved to a bigger space that we can grow into. Hired a new programmer (recent grad), a role I was...
  8. machinistguy

    Building a Manufacturing Conglomerate Progress Thread

    EXECUTION 
    Just got humbled a few hours ago! I change my vision for the company on a monthly basis because my ego wants to be doing cooler stuff like aerospace or oil&gas parts, only to get an expensive reminder that going after boring industries that nobody will ever care about or hear about makes is the...
  9. machinistguy

    MTF needs a slumpbuster: Too many swings, no hits.

    GOLD! 
    Yeah I don't know why there's so much talk on this thread about needing connections, marketing strategies, competition, or other nonsense. The 20% of work that gets you 80% of the result comes down to this, giving customers who have money what they need better than they can get it from somewhere...
  10. machinistguy

    Random Chat, Thoughts, Posts, and/or Rants Thread

    HOT! CHAT 
    I'm excited at the idea of an information/R&D company like that in industry & science. Just a group of people testing out crazy theories that have potential to improve profit for established companies and selling the information. "If you do this and that with this type of cutting tool on...
  11. machinistguy

    Building a Manufacturing Conglomerate Progress Thread

    EXECUTION 
    Video of our first fully automated cell making parts. It runs 8hours unattended making these handles, 48hrs if we got backup tools. Took months to get it up and running but its so worth it now. It's saving us so much on labor for these handles, and we already got a small job lined up for it with...
  12. machinistguy

    Building a Manufacturing Conglomerate Progress Thread

    EXECUTION 
    Thought I'd post things going wrong update: We made about $10k December and on track to make ~$3k Jan and it's not because we don't have any orders... We've been working on one massive project only since late November expected to finish this week, but kept experiencing massive packaging...
  13. machinistguy

    Building a Manufacturing Conglomerate Progress Thread

    EXECUTION 
    @FastNAwesome was kind enough to ask how business is going. So here's the update. The Good: Our biggest customer is a public company that does ~$80m/year. We've become a top vendor after a successful project launch and will be the manufacturer for their next project launching in Jan '24...
  14. machinistguy

    Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas Meetup.

    MEETUPS 
    @Carlitos what's your business/thread. I usually have church events on Sundays so I can't come, but I'd be happy to help over PM.
  15. machinistguy

    RANT - This Must Be Talked About More

    RANT 
    Your post reminds me of Peter Thiel's Zero to One. If you're trying to copy how other companies became massive you'll fail because each situation is unique. You don't have the same strengths/weaknesses as the other founder, not the same industry, not the same customers, not the same period in...
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