Building a Manufacturing Conglomerate Progress Thread

[machinistguy]

TL;DR: Started a manufacturing company. None of my competition has been able to service the largest retailer in the field. I know I can. I have a meeting with them on Wednesday to demo my products (they reached out to me, VP product management & commercial sales saw my Insta ad) and potentially roll me out to 100+ stores. Need advice on what to prepare for a meeting like this and how to handle negotiations.


A while back I made a post about a manufacturing company I started going after a specific niche. Two days ago I was contacted by the largest retailer in the market to meet on Wednesday to present my products and potentially rolling me out to all 100+ retail locations.

The market:

1. Chinese manufactures: Wholesales @ ~$2-3 and retail at $7. Quality is bad.
2. US manufacturer: Retails at $55 and has had a monopoly for about 2 generations for the premium stuff. Has a cult following for his products.
3. EU manufacturer that created a budget premium version at $17 retail about 8 years ago and has had an uncontested monopoly at that level since.

The opportunity:

• US ($55 product) manufacturing process is inherently not scalable after a certain point for that product. Only sold in limited quantities.
• The EU ($17 product) are not currently being sold retail because of logistical issues.

As of last week I've solved the logistics problem for the $17 product and successfully tested a solution to the scalability problem of the $55 product (just missing a $100k machine + tooling for the latter which I very much do not have)


What Happened Over the Phone
- When the VP called me, she told me that they've been wanting to get these products in their 100+ stores but have only been able to sell the Chinese products "which suck" because of the above reasons.
- She called knowing that I'd solved the logistics problem for the $17 and hopeful I knew how to solve the scalability issue of the $55.
- Conditional on a successful product demo on Wednesday, she very briefly mentioned they'd be willing to "help me scale" and not to talk to the other retailers b/c they want exclusivity.

My Situation (Need Advice Here!!!)
- The exclusivity condition is a poisoned apple in my opinion. I'm willing to settle on retail exclusivity as long as I maintain rights to selling through online channels (how I'm currently selling) because I know I can eventually grow online to keep me from relying on any one source of sales.

- Helping fund me to meet their demands is MAYBE a poisoned apple as well. This company has a history acquiring similar companies to me, gutting them, then outsourcing to China. I have no doubt if I let them even get a vague of how I've solved the manufacturing problems they'd find a Chinese manufacturer to replace me in a heartbeat. On the other hand, if they want to eventually buy me out once my products have proven themselves, then take it to China, then heck yeah!

- I DESPERATELY WANT but don't need this deal. Manufacturing has ridiculously high barriers to entry with a winner-take-all effect due to economies of scale, much less a small market with established players like this. The cash injection from a deal with them would solve 99% of my problems. I know I can still pull it off without them so I am prepared to walk away from a bad deal, but my health has taken a significant hit just getting the business to this point.

I'd appreciate any advice on how to prepare for the meeting on Wednesday and what to expect.

 

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[nopalmer]

I DESPERATELY WANT but don't need this deal.

This. This puts you in a good place and can help you nail it at the meeting. Motivation is at a higher level than stress. You are prepared. You have all the data. Fingers crossed for the outcome to be the one you want!

 

[Tiago]

@Kak might have some insight here?

 

[BizyDad]

Not my area of expertise, but I'll tag @Walter Hay and @biophase

 

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[BizyDad]

The cash injection from a deal with them would solve 99% of my problems

Find another way to get the cash? If getting this deal is just about the money, and everything else about the deal feels wrong, then how do you get the money without the deal?

 

[Subsonic]

TL;DR: Started a manufacturing company. None of my competition has been able to service the largest retailer in the field. I know I can. I have a meeting with them on Wednesday to demo my products (they reached out to me, VP product management & commercial sales saw my Insta ad) and potentially roll me out to 100+ stores. Need advice on what to prepare for a meeting like this and how to handle negotiations.


A while back I made a post about a manufacturing company I started going after a specific niche. Two days ago I was contacted by the largest retailer in the market to meet on Wednesday to present my products and potentially rolling me out to all 100+ retail locations.

The market:

1. Chinese manufactures: Wholesales @ ~$2-3 and retail at $7. Quality is bad.
2. US manufacturer: Retails at $55 and has had a monopoly for about 2 generations for the premium stuff. Has a cult following for his products.
3. EU manufacturer that created a budget premium version at $17 retail about 8 years ago and has had an uncontested monopoly at that level since.

The opportunity:

• US ($55 product) manufacturing process is inherently not scalable after a certain point for that product. Only sold in limited quantities.
• The EU ($17 product) are not currently being sold retail because of logistical issues.

As of last week I've solved the logistics problem for the $17 product and successfully tested a solution to the scalability problem of the $55 product (just missing a $100k machine + tooling for the latter which I very much do not have)


What Happened Over the Phone
- When the VP called me, she told me that they've been wanting to get these products in their 100+ stores but have only been able to sell the Chinese products "which suck" because of the above reasons.
- She called knowing that I'd solved the logistics problem for the $17 and hopeful I knew how to solve the scalability issue of the $55.
- Conditional on a successful product demo on Wednesday, she very briefly mentioned they'd be willing to "help me scale" and not to talk to the other retailers b/c they want exclusivity.

My Situation (Need Advice Here!!!)
- The exclusivity condition is a poisoned apple in my opinion. I'm willing to settle on retail exclusivity as long as I maintain rights to selling through online channels (how I'm currently selling) because I know I can eventually grow online to keep me from relying on any one source of sales.

- Helping fund me to meet their demands is MAYBE a poisoned apple as well. This company has a history acquiring similar companies to me, gutting them, then outsourcing to China. I have no doubt if I let them even get a vague of how I've solved the manufacturing problems they'd find a Chinese manufacturer to replace me in a heartbeat. On the other hand, if they want to eventually buy me out once my products have proven themselves, then take it to China, then heck yeah!

- I DESPERATELY WANT but don't need this deal. Manufacturing has ridiculously high barriers to entry with a winner-take-all effect due to economies of scale, much less a small market with established players like this. The cash injection from a deal with them would solve 99% of my problems. I know I can still pull it off without them so I am prepared to walk away from a bad deal, but my health has taken a significant hit just getting the business to this point.

I'd appreciate any advice on how to prepare for the meeting on Wednesday and what to expect.

I can't give ou advice on the deal but I can give you some on decision making.
The easiest question to ask is "Will I be grateful for this in 1/5/10 years?"

You can also check out some of Alex hormozis videos on business deals.

Whatever happens I wish you the best of luck with the deal.

 

[machinistguy]

Thanks @nopalmer @Tiago @BizyDad @Subsonic !

I was asked not mention them further on social media until everything is finalized, so I can't give an update on them but I'll just use this thread as my progress thread.

Setbacks:
- My largest sales channel had an algorithm change; I got royally screwed. Back to step 1 on that channel.
- My raw material supplier had some issues so I had some serious supply chain issues. Spent a lot of time searching for a backup supplier with similar prices in case it happens again.
- Saw duplicate lines of code in one of my programs, so I obviously deleted it. Ran it on a month's worth of orders and when the machine was done I was reminded that I had intentionally written the duplicate line to solve a problem I was experiencing. That entire batch was scrap. Guess I need to figure out a documentation system so this doesn't happen again.

Step Forwards:
- Launched on Amazon. Did a few sales. Ran an automatic PPC campaign with a low budget. Did a lot more sales. Reviewed the automatic campaign and noticed it was spending a lot on bad keywords. Setup a manual campaign yesterday with hopefully better targeting. Excited on this front, just might have to do some tweaking before the manual campaign gets dialed in.
- I don't post a lot on social media but I noticed every time I do it leads to a few conversions. Planning a solid social media campaign for April and beyond.

Positive Note:
- I was very disappointed because of the drop in sales from the setbacks I mentioned. Then I noticed that most my sales since were from repeat customers. That really cheered me up because it meant I was on the right track.
- Every problem that comes feels terrible at the moment, but afterwards I realize the lessons learned have made me a more capable entrepreneur. Feel like after I'm done with this business I'll be able to take on markets that make this one look like chump change (already have a few in mind).
- Graduating college soon! Can't wait to be done and get out.

 

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[machinistguy]

Been doing a lot of reflecting. I'm happy with my progress, but why is it taking me 3 months to accomplish what could have been done in one month...

I think the answer is my vision of the company and how it operates hasn't been 100% aligned with what the market has been telling me. I was trying to force an enterprise business to operate like a lifestyle business. I'm not a one man tools manufacturer, not another ecommerce business, not another machine shop. What I've built is a consumer product ecommerce company with in-house manufacturing as my competitive edge. Time to stop fighting with the market about what I want the market to look like, and start making F U money faster...

Edit: Removed sensitive information.

 

[machinistguy]

The Contract: Got the contract from the wholesaler yesterday. Overall good, mostly boiler plate stuff. Earlier, they verbally agreed to some points I wanted but they weren't explicitly written in the contract. Don't think they'll have a problem including them in writing as they seem reasonable. Also corporate really likes to take their time. Must be nice not to have a 30 day shot clock before all the monthly payments are due and take most of your profit.

Amazon: Manual campaign did very poorly. Zero sales. Organic sales did noticeably increase in frequency during! I'm guessing because of the automatic I had before had improve my listing rank. Turned automatic back on and sales jumped back up. The automatic is profitable but not by much. I'll keep it on, and focus on improving listing quality instead. Margin should improve if my CTR and conversion rate improves. Amazon won't upload the info graphic I had that explains why my product is better and I plan to do FBA once I get my next shipment of raw material. That should help a lot.

Supply Issues: My earlier post stated that I had solved my supply issues. I would like to retract that statement.

 

[Saad Khan]

Manual campaign did very poorly.

Did you only target the good keywords in exact match? I suggest you do it again but with phrase match type.

Also, if your product is a FMCG, consider bidding high on Top of Search placements.

And look into product targeting campaigns. Pick your top 10 competitors in your subcategory and target them in a product targeting campaign.

Also run category targeting campaign.

If your offer is strong, you will get sales.

Can you let me know in placements section of the automatic campaign where you were getting orders? Double down on that across all of your advertising campaigns.

Hope this helps!

 

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[nopalmer]

Hey there! I'm glad you decided to keep this thread going. I honestly think it's sort of therapeutic, and also you never know where a good idea may come from. Happy to hear you'll be graduating soon, that's a super positive note!

Been doing a lot of reflecting. I'm happy with my progress, but why is it taking me 3 months to accomplish what could have been done in one month...

Been there (more times than I like to remember). I believe adjusting the mindset is the first step, and you are aware you need to change something, so you're halfway there.

Supply Issues: My earlier post stated that I had solved my supply issues. I would like to retract that statement.

Hope to hear some good news on this matter!

 

[machinistguy]

Update

Orders: Got my first 6 figure PO from the wholesaler earlier this week! Kinda. Couldn't cashflow the initial order so the PO got split in to two POs with an extra month of lead time for PO #2.

Financing/Capital: 6-8 months ago all my suppliers refused to extend credit terms for me and no bank would give me credit either. I'm approved for a good amount from my suppliers now and "better than nothing" from regular banks. Unfortunately, I needed to finance new equipment and the specialty banks that deal with machinery wanted 20% down since I'm so new. I'll have to do everything myself until I get paid since my own labor is technically free before I can invest in new equipment. Good news is, once I have a payment history, capital won't be a problem for my business anymore.

Until then guess who has to manually torque and unscrew these clamps over 40,000 times over two months. Not mention the other manual stuff. Manually deburring and cleaning 20k pieces, etc. My forearms better looks like Popeye's by the end of this.



Growing Pains: There's just not enough time in the day to do everything. My current organization/scheduling/ERP system isn't enough. My current equipment isn't enough. I need to hire labor. etc... My main bottleneck is capital, so hopefully that won't be a problem soon and these issues will go away.

Future Growth:
I still haven't figured out what my long term vision of this is. So many options, but it's a problem for a later time.

What I've built is a consumer product ecommerce company with in-house manufacturing as my competitive edge.

I guess I can keep following this path, but it's so F'ing boring and I hate B2C. Maybe it'll be more fun if I hire a secretary or customer service so I don't have to talk to the customers. No sir, you can't just show up to a dangerous shop address unancounced because you wanted to pay in cash so your wife doesn't find out how much you spend on my stuff.

 

[Subsonic]

Update

Orders: Got my first 6 figure PO from the wholesaler earlier this week! Kinda. Couldn't cashflow the initial order so the PO got split in to two POs with an extra month of lead time for PO #2.

Financing/Capital: 6-8 months ago all my suppliers refused to extend credit terms for me and no bank would give me credit either. I'm approved for a good amount from my suppliers now and "better than nothing" from regular banks. Unfortunately, I needed to finance new equipment and the specialty banks that deal with machinery wanted 20% down since I'm so new. I'll have to do everything myself until I get paid since my own labor is technically free before I can invest in new equipment. Good news is, once I have a payment history, capital won't be a problem for my business anymore.

Until then guess who has to manually torque and unscrew these clamps over 40,000 times over two months. Not mention the other manual stuff. Manually deburring and cleaning 20k pieces, etc. My forearms better looks like Popeye's by the end of this.

View attachment 48909

Growing Pains: There's just not enough time in the day to do everything. My current organization/scheduling/ERP system isn't enough. My current equipment isn't enough. I need to hire labor. etc... My main bottleneck is capital, so hopefully that won't be a problem soon and these issues will go away.

Future Growth:
I still haven't figured out what my long term vision of this is. So many options, but it's a problem for a later time.

I guess I can keep following this path, but it's so F'ing boring and I hate B2C. Maybe it'll be more fun if I hire a secretary or customer service so I don't have to talk to the customers. No sir, you can't just show up to a dangerous shop address unancounced because you wanted to pay in cash so your wife doesn't find out how much you spend on my stuff.

Ayo what are you selling my man...

Jokes aside, congrats on getting this far.
One question though,
What prevents you from hiring someone to do the tedious manual labour for you?

 

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[Oso]

- Saw duplicate lines of code in one of my programs, so I obviously deleted it. Ran it on a month's worth of orders and when the machine was done I was reminded that I had intentionally written the duplicate line to solve a problem I was experiencing. That entire batch was scrap. Guess I need to figure out a documentation system so this doesn't happen again.

Until you get your documentation up to snuff, I highly encourage you to create comments as often as humanly possible, and as detailed as humanly possible.

This has happened to me more times than I will admit as a "professional developer," and it would've been prevented by simply putting a comment that said, "hey, don't delete this because X, Y, Z."

Kudos on everything else you've accomplished though. I don't know shit about machining, tools, etc. so I can only imagine what all is required. Following as I find this fascinating. Looking forward to updates.

Cheers.

 

[machinistguy]

Ayo what are you selling my man...

Lol, big orders also means big expenses. Cost of raw material alone for this order is equal to my best month's total revenue. I'm projecting $4,250 in electricity costs.

Jokes aside, congrats on getting this far.
One question though,
What prevents you from hiring someone to do the tedious manual labour for you?

Won't have the time or money until after I get paid for the job. Though I plan to hire a marketing person first.

Until you get your documentation up to snuff, I highly encourage you to create comments as often as humanly possible, and as detailed as humanly possible.

This has happened to me more times than I will admit as a "professional developer," and it would've been prevented by simply putting a comment that said, "hey, don't delete this because X, Y, Z."

Kudos on everything else you've accomplished though. I don't know shit about machining, tools, etc. so I can only imagine what all is required. Following as I find this fascinating. Looking forward to updates.

Cheers.

Yeah, plan to GitHub the documentation part. Just keep putting it off.

 

[machinistguy]

Been a little crazy. Material for the big order is arriving in a few days, two weeks earlier than anticipated, which means I lost two weeks of prep time and have been rushing like crazy.

Did a few production test runs. Test run #1 the fuse for the dryer on the air compressor blew and ended up with water in all my air lines. Thank you Texas heat. Setup a "ventilation system" to blow away the hot air the compressor puts out and am keeping spare fuses in stock until I can move to a place with climate control and setup a real ventilation system.


Test run #2 was earlier this morning. I have to run the tools pretty hard to hit the times I need and they're not exactly able to keep up. Sometimes it works and other times they explode. Have a few ideas to get the process reliability I need, none fun.


Also I ended up hiring my first employee. I was asking my friend at church for advice on hiring people and he convinced me that a 1099 employee is much cheaper than I was expecting and they're easy to hire in Texas. A grad student overheard us and said she was looking for a summer job. Worked out well because I trust her more than some rando so I don't have to worry about theft or leaving the shop unattended with her in it. She starts in a week.

 

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[machinistguy]

Was up till 3am replacing the coolant and back at it since 6.
3 days worth of orders are unfulfilled. Then I need to finish setting up the ERP so I can start keeping product inventory instead of making everything to order. Then have to stock 45 SKUs. All needs to be done today. Back to work.

 

[machinistguy]

The overarching goal: We're now the largest manufacturer of a niche product for a niche market in the world. I had to make some decisions this month that forced me to decide the vision for the company. A manufacturing conglomerate serving multiple markets in the consumer and industrial products arena. The path of least resistance is to go after consumer products initially since that's what I'm doing now. The next 1-2 years will be taking over other products in this niche market, expanding our capabilities, etc. The 3 after that will be expanding into all sorts of markets and focusing on building teams and systems that can function self sufficiently. Then after that we'll break into the industrial markets. Honestly, I just hate my current vendors or find them good but could be way better, and for those that use the same type of manufacturing as me, I'll be happy to kick their asses for pissing me off. Updated thread title to reflect this.

Organization: After trying out a bunch of ERPs and finding one that did exactly what I want... I decided to go the whiteboard, clipboard, Google sheets route. If it takes me days to try to figure out and use an ERP, then I can't expect an employee who doesn't as much as me to figure it out. Bonus points, it's a simple system now, but it has the potential to grow into a easy to use, competitive edge instead of necessary evil like most solutions on the market.

 

[Private Witt]

Awesome thread! You remind me of a Hank Rearden type in the early stages perfecting his Rearden Metal. Congrats on becoming the leader in your niche and thanks for sharing your story and growth.

 

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[machinistguy]

Today's the first day of my first employee working... I feel so liberated. I can actually focus on the business instead of grunt work. Also might have spent all morning on YT .

Fixed the issue with the exploding cutters. If anyone wants to start a carbide tooling company please do, it's a billion+ dollar industry with dozens of companies and I hate them all. Here's a before/after pic of what was happening.

 

[machinistguy]

1800+ lbs of metal just came through the door.


And that's only a partial delivery of what we ordered. We got a 3 week shot clock to machine it and get it to the customer. Been a crazy couple of weeks.

There's also a vendor that would be critical to my vision. I got quoted around 140k for one of their machines. I kept insisting the sales rep drop by. Showed him what we've done, what we're doing, and where we're going. That I didn't want to buy just one of their machines, that's just what I could afford at the moment, I wanted rows on rows of them. He gave me a massive discount, said he'll talk to corporate to see if they can go down even more, and had their engineer drop in today and walk me through the various things I could do to improve throughput.

Anyway, back to it.

 

[machinistguy]

I let go of the reigns and left it to the employees I had hired since the work to be done was very straightforward. The final batch shipped, and I decided to look at some of the extra we made. All of them were defective... I showed the person who did them some defective units and asked what he thought of them. "Looks good to me". "The product is completely bent, how does that look good to you?!". Called the customer and had them hold all the SKUs that employee did and had to replace them all ASAP. Basically everything was defective. Close call but shouldn't be any other issues... or so we thought.

The retailer launches the products on their online store and starts shipping it to their retail locations, things are going great, customer keeps sending me orders for new SKUs and tells me they're about to reorder some of the SKUs we had already sent. Their customer feedback has been very positive. Then we start receiving cosmetic finish complaints. No big deal, just fix it in the next order. Then we start receiving serious functional defect complaints, but all from one SKU. Customer tells me to hold delivery on all open POs until we get our QC sorted out (we haven't shipped anything in 3 weeks, yikes), then eventually makes us recall the 5,000 units they still had at the warehouse and tells us we have to go through everything and do a full inspection, not just a sample. So far, the average defect rate is actually pretty good, it's just being skewed heavily by two SKUs that were a serious failure.

I attribute this to me defining the scope of the business and operation too broadly; we're trying to be good at too many things to be great at anything at our current size. Will have to narrow down what we do significantly. Will be simplifying to manufacturing of complex brass parts with surface finish requirements in quantities between 200-2,000 units sold B2B in the consumer goods market only. Slowly phase out anything else. Until we reach 1m/month, I shouldn't even think of expanding the scope and should turn down any work that doesn't fit this profile.

 

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[BizyDad]

I let go of the reigns and left it to the employees I had hired since the work to be done was very straightforward. The final batch shipped, and I decided to look at some of the extra we made. All of them were defective... I showed the person who did them some defective units and asked what he thought of them. "Looks good to me". "The product is completely bent, how does that look good to you?!". Called the customer and had them hold all the SKUs that employee did and had to replace them all ASAP. Basically everything was defective. Close call but shouldn't be any other issues... or so we thought.

The retailer launches the products on their online store and starts shipping it to their retail locations, things are going great, customer keeps sending me orders for new SKUs and tells me they're about to reorder some of the SKUs we had already sent. Their customer feedback has been very positive. Then we start receiving cosmetic finish complaints. No big deal, just fix it in the next order. Then we start receiving serious functional defect complaints, but all from one SKU. Customer tells me to hold delivery on all open POs until we get our QC sorted out (we haven't shipped anything in 3 weeks, yikes), then eventually makes us recall the 5,000 units they still had at the warehouse and tells us we have to go through everything and do a full inspection, not just a sample. So far, the average defect rate is actually pretty good, it's just being skewed heavily by two SKUs that were a serious failure.

I attribute this to me defining the scope of the business and operation too broadly; we're trying to be good at too many things to be great at anything at our current size. Will have to narrow down what we do significantly. Will be simplifying to manufacturing of complex brass parts with surface finish requirements in quantities between 200-2,000 units sold B2B in the consumer goods market only. Slowly phase out anything else. Until we reach 1m/month, I shouldn't even think of expanding the scope and should turn down any work that doesn't fit this profile.

Great stuff. I mean, sorry about the issues, but thank you for the transparency and demonstrating the challenges we face as we grow and how to make effective decisions to remedy issues.

 

[FastNAwesome]

Earlier, they verbally agreed to some points I wanted but they weren't explicitly written in the contract. Don't think they'll have a problem including them in writing as they seem reasonable.

Still, make sure to have it in writing.

And to my understanding, even if it's in writing,
it may be rendered completely ineffective.

Recommended listen:

EXECUTION - My Worst Day

The most important show I have ever recorded and I recorded it for you. Let me take you inside of my worst day. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mind-your-business/id1569744083?i=1000606714112 https://open.spotify.com/episode/77fBqJE6CkVSuuwOagCkQc?si=Uk79DBrOR5y-hsrx9t1qJQ&dd=1

www.thefastlaneforum.com

And best of luck with your business, it's an awesome thread!

 

[Spenny]

Will be simplifying to manufacturing of complex brass parts with surface finish requirements in quantities between 200-2,000 units sold B2B in the consumer goods market only.

I missed this update entirely!

I know the annoyance of defective stuff coming through - I've also been shafted with manufacturing mishaps. It's, I suppose, a blessing as you can take it as an opportunity to do what you've just done; refine what you're going to provide value to.

Have all the issues been resolved? Have you begun moving towards being a complex brass parts manufacturer?

 

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[machinistguy]

Have all the issues been resolved? Have you begun moving towards being a complex brass parts manufacturer?

It was a pretty heavy hit in terms of both cash and time, but we're making progress. Putting as much focus as I can in sales since we can solve a lot of the problems I have with money. Started a cold email thread here: MARKETING - 100k in 60 Days: B2B Email Guide & Follow Along

 

[machinistguy]

@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. They've also given me a complete list of all products made of metal for me to bid on, as well as their next 4 big projects for me to get ready for. My plan was to try and close more new customers and hire a salesman, but you don't turn down the sale that's infront of you. Bird in the hand and all.
I have a hiring ad out for CNC programmer so that I can get someone full time designing and setting up manufacturing of new products. We should be be adding $100k/month from them in 2024 (and make them even more); so I figure I should close the sales in front me, then use the money to hire a salesmen to diversify and other roles. I'd be disappointed in myself if I don't add $20M/yr to their topline.
My goal for 2024 is to be making enough to hire a general manager, as well as all the other critical roles and step back from the business. "I own a basketball team, but I'm smart enough not put myself on the court." - Mark Cuban. That quote is how I feel about my skills as a general manager and it being the best use of my time.

The Bad:
Cashflow. Cashflow is our biggest problem. I haven't shipped any noticeable amount out in 1.5months. It's always something, and this time its our packaging vendor. We have thousands of units just sitting here waiting to be packaged and shipped. I have 4 month old POs unfulfilled. Add to that, a few months ago we bought our first fully autonomous machine. It was a massive expense. It took a month and a half to get it operational, and its still not fully autonomous. We're making 32 parts at a time instead of the thousands per run its supposed to be making. Better than not making any at all, but the machine was supposed to pay for itself very quickly.
I have enough for half of monthly expenses due at the end of Dec. The rest will have to go on credit for a couple of weeks until we start shipping and I get paid. Can't imagine what would have happened if I didn't insist on Net 7 terms and kept a cash reserve (not anymore lol).

 

[FastNAwesome]

Thanks for the tag, and for the update.

Ah, vendors...
Does it make sense for you to take this in-house? If not yet, always good to have two.

All the best!

 

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[machinistguy]

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 delays so we couldn't ship any of it. No problem I told myself, packaging will arrive eventually I said. Well packaging did arrive last Thursday, 17,500 pieces of... defective packaging. Thought I was going to turn a nice profit this month but we're going to have to bust our asses to figure out way to get some quick projects in then out because all the work we've been doing since late November can't ship. Got enough money for one more week of payroll.

I have a few backup plans so I'm not worried we'll go out of business just extremely annoyed about the current situation.

 

[Bounce Back]

1800+ lbs of metal just came through the door.
View attachment 49533
View attachment 49534
And that's only a partial delivery of what we ordered. We got a 3 week shot clock to machine it and get it to the customer. Been a crazy couple of weeks.

There's also a vendor that would be critical to my vision. I got quoted around 140k for one of their machines. I kept insisting the sales rep drop by. Showed him what we've done, what we're doing, and where we're going. That I didn't want to buy just one of their machines, that's just what I could afford at the moment, I wanted rows on rows of them. He gave me a massive discount, said he'll talk to corporate to see if they can go down even more, and had their engineer drop in today and walk me through the various things I could do to improve throughput.

Anyway, back to it.

I've been on this forum since 2016 or so and I think this is the thing that made me smile the most when reading. Still working through this thread and what a treat it is.