I've got two fastlaners in my family, and they both have got me thinking about selling physical product, but not through FBA or eBay (though obviously I would use those channels, too), but via booths at cons and street fairs.
Relative number one is my cousin Dean, who created, tested, and then patented a boomerang around 17-18 years ago. His specialty is custom woodwork, and this was just something he did for fun, hoping possibly to get it into big box stores. Once that went nowhere (liability creates a sizable entry barrier for wooden boomerangs getting onto the shelves of chain stores), he pretty much gave up on it. His wealth comes from his high end carpentry business, and he retired in his early forties, so it wasn't a big deal to him. That said, to this day he still churns out two or three thousand, sells them to a small group of resellers who sell them at various tourist traps, and he still makes around $20k a year on them.
Relative number two is another cousin, who owns her own custom art business. She used to do mostly clothing and knick-knacks at local town festivals and the like, but it's grown to where she has booths at a lot of the biggest art shows in the country, and makes a very good living doing it. A season of travel and long weekends every year sets her family up nicely for the entire year. She has an online presence, but I don't think she does much with it - I get the feeling the majority of her income comes through having a presence at these giant shows.
Anyway, I'm rambling as usual - the short version is that the TMF (and the many books that have come after) got me thinking about this, and I think I'm going to try my hand at it just for fun. I'm a geek by nature, and know the Comic Con world well as a consumer, so I'm curious what success I might have as a producer instead. Shoot, if I can spend one two day weekend turning $100 worth of boomerangs into $1000 at my little hometown annual street fair, I've just earned over a week's worth of my slow-lane pay in a fraction of the time.
Anybody on here dabble much in this world?
Relative number one is my cousin Dean, who created, tested, and then patented a boomerang around 17-18 years ago. His specialty is custom woodwork, and this was just something he did for fun, hoping possibly to get it into big box stores. Once that went nowhere (liability creates a sizable entry barrier for wooden boomerangs getting onto the shelves of chain stores), he pretty much gave up on it. His wealth comes from his high end carpentry business, and he retired in his early forties, so it wasn't a big deal to him. That said, to this day he still churns out two or three thousand, sells them to a small group of resellers who sell them at various tourist traps, and he still makes around $20k a year on them.
Relative number two is another cousin, who owns her own custom art business. She used to do mostly clothing and knick-knacks at local town festivals and the like, but it's grown to where she has booths at a lot of the biggest art shows in the country, and makes a very good living doing it. A season of travel and long weekends every year sets her family up nicely for the entire year. She has an online presence, but I don't think she does much with it - I get the feeling the majority of her income comes through having a presence at these giant shows.
Anyway, I'm rambling as usual - the short version is that the TMF (and the many books that have come after) got me thinking about this, and I think I'm going to try my hand at it just for fun. I'm a geek by nature, and know the Comic Con world well as a consumer, so I'm curious what success I might have as a producer instead. Shoot, if I can spend one two day weekend turning $100 worth of boomerangs into $1000 at my little hometown annual street fair, I've just earned over a week's worth of my slow-lane pay in a fraction of the time.
Anybody on here dabble much in this world?
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