Question
I am yet another laid off MBA with a 13 year passion for woodworking. Several years of corporate sales and marketing life has left me with a fine shop, good tools, and a ton of business experience. I also owned a small but successful roofing company, back when I was too dumb to know I could fail. I also worked in a commercial refinishing shop during college.
I suspect I am in a dream world, wanting to build high-end work like so many others when they decided to take the plunge.
Realistically, what is the potential of a one-man shop? I want to be profitable, not big. I do not have a gun to my head from a financial standpoint. Should I work in a cabinet shop first, then decide? How do you get past being your own worst critic or is this part of challenging yourself to do the best work imaginable?
Forum Responses
From contributor C:
You've got a nice shop with good tools. Have you ever built cabinets? Do you have any contacts with builders or architects? Do you know any people in other trades? Do you have any leads for work? Finding work is the biggest headache. When I was in your shoes 3 1/2 years ago, I had good contacts in the trade, but a small shop with decent (at best) tools. I'm still at it, and things continue to improve. I couldn't do it if I had to work alone, though. Handling sheet goods all day with no help is too much. The quantity of work that two guys can do versus one guy is what enables me to make a living.
There are some advantages that come with being a one-man shop. I say this mostly because of all the laws that come into play when you hire an employee. Don't dismiss hiring if the type of work you end up doing will pay off with help.
The main thing is that you should not approach what you want to do as "dream world" stuff. You have already been successful in your past work. Why can't you be even more successful in something you have a passion for? Money isn't my only definition of success, either. Go for it!
I contacted my best friend of 30 years who had done the same as I as far as the furniture making. We teamed up... two separate (but paid for shops) with good tools. Vertical panel saw at his shop, finishing booth at mine.
With my 25 years of marketing, I realized we needed to define:
1. What we wanted to do... it must be enjoyable.
2. What niches we could serve. We chose furniture, wine cellars (because of my 30 years of experience in wine), and custom built-ins (book cases, entertainment units, etc.).
We recognized that the area we are in would not support a pure furniture making shop. But what we've found in the first 18 months is that the middle-upper and upper income people we are targeting first choose us for, say, a built-in or a wine cellar, and then we are in their homes. From that has come some nice furniture commissions.
Now, at the end of our first 18 months, we actually have backlog and have taken on an apprentice (chuckle… nice to have youth to sling plywood).
While we would love to have a big common shop and show room, we like the fact that we have no debt and that we are working right out of our back doors.
One key to our success has been a website. Luckily, I've designed these for years. You need to make the website of a quality that reflects the quality of your work.
Jobs - Months 1-6:
70% from people we already knew
20% from referrals
10% from website
Months 6-12:
40% from contacts
30% from referrals
30% from website
Months 12-18:
15% from contacts
40% from referrals
45% from website
I wish you luck in your decision. I assure you that the gang here on the forum has a wealth of information and really doesn't mind sharing.
It can take up to 6 months for Google and 9 months for Yahoo to spider your site. I know that you can pay Yahoo to expedite this if you want to.
Even when that is done, you need to see about working with other similar sites to exchange links, since that is a strong part of how the search engines rank your site.
Vocationally, I have built pieces that took my pride to new heights; however, my desire to produce finer and more complicated work has, on occasion, left me with some confidence problems as perfection was not achieved. Maybe a seasoned technician while I work on creativity and business development would be a perfect compliment.
Finally, I promise not to bid low to preserve the pride and well being of professional cabinetmakers. Thanks again!
The general rule of thumb is $100,000 gross per year. Some shops triple that and some only bring in one third that much. I just filed my taxes for my first full year, for my one-man shop, and grossed right at 100k and netted (salary) 50k.
I had no cabinet shop experience, but was a hobbyist with most of the basic tools, like yourself. I am now doing mostly high-end custom cabinets in $500,000+ homes. I expect to gross $150k this year and might have to hire some help, as I'm turning away lots of work.
My first 6 months in 2002 I probably only brought in 10-15k. Make sure you can get past the start-up learning curve.
Accuracy starts to become very important, as hand fitting and trimming each component is out of the question. Tolerances tend to open out a bit. One thing you don't need when gluing up a bunch of doors is to have to take extra time easing tight components.
One thing that's for sure, making money doing woodwork isn't as much fun as doing it for pleasure, but then nothing is, is it?