London based entrepreneur needing CNC partner

Hi,

I am kickstarting a business related to CNC plywood modular furniture. I'm a hands-on engineer by background, very practical, etc. Not an idiot. I'm providing the capital, business and other elements, but I need a London based CNC machine and expert as part of the initial development/experimentation process who will be part of the business. I'm based in Holland Park (and have been in area for 20 years). At first, the business plan is to concentrate on a small couple of designs and channels to prove the concept. If this interests you or someone, please let me know and we can discuss and meet If there is another forum that is better to put this, please also let me know.

Matthew

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. . . this should be good ...

1.
The one´s contacting You have likely / probably never been involved in cnc business as in industrial production , ..
2.
You don´t indicate any areas of size, by area, size - volumetric, capacity in volume, desired area of expertise.

If YOU actually want a CNC business that makes furniture, You need a set of parameters and a fair bit of industrial education before You can make rational decisions -- with some chance of profit at the end of it.

For profitable sheet goods, you need to make stuff somewhat better than the outsourcers in the industry, +/-.
Otherwise anyone else can make similar stuff better than You, and simply outsource the cutting, see ?

CNC is about making stuff really well, +/0, really cheap, mostly.
This is not related or conductive to hobby CNC.

The ones making money with CNC both users and utilisers, have excellent machines, some of them hobby cnc, some of them scratch built.
Scratch built machines can cost 50-100k$ for a good one.


If You wanna make e.g. yacht stuff and or heirloom furniture You have a chance because the net cost of the cnc cutting is less than 2% of the cost of the product.
Immaterial for the cnc cost of the cutting vs product.

What You probably need at first is a consultant, not a cnc business.

Thanks for your "kind" comments. I hope it should be good. Especially because what I didn't mention is that I have a degree in engineering, and I've run business units worth £MM. So I know a bit about running a commercial operation, margins, profitability, etc. I also didn't mention that I've built my own furniture and fittings, including having designs cut in egger board by a local CNC shop and I just sold my property for over £950K with these in it. I also know some CAD software and that a CNC machine to "test with" would cost £10K+. Probably I put this message out the wrong way. What I really need is a garage with a CNC machine and an expert that I can work with so we can experiment and iterate the designs and see if we can make them scalable. Maybe I will totally fail and lose everything, but I have some real interest and passion for it so at least I will give it a go. My enthusiasm means I started on the wrong foot so now I will find another way to move forward.

Hello Matthew,

I run a small product design consultancy in Essex and have a CNC router, scratch built at home and close interests with two commercial CNC companies.
I would be interested in having a chat to explore if you think I can help.
If you have a look for Cube3 you will certainly find us, my name is Simon, one of the directors.
Regards

Sent from my COL-L29 using Tapatalk

Matthew,

www.cube3.com are in Boston and Miami. www.cubethree.co.uk is Simon's company in the more exotic location of Southend-On-Sea.

Kit

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matthew_gbr

Maybe I will totally fail and lose everything, but I have some real interest and passion for it so at least I will give it a go. My enthusiasm means I started on the wrong foot so now I will find another way to move forward.

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Hi Matthew,

Don't listen to the Nah sayers, you don't need 100K machines to build a very successful business. I have built machines for a customer who started with one small machine in a garage at the side of their houses costing £5k and now have multiple machines of different sizes, employing several people in 20,000ft premises turning over 500K + and all built up within 3yrs.
I have many customers who have started this way and built up great and profitable businesses on very low budget's and in my opinion, you already have what is needed and this is the drive, gumption, and bravery to give it a go.! . . . Good luck.:thumsup:

That´s what I said.
As per Your own quote below.

90%+ of people wanting to make money with cnc, starters, plasma laser or mill, have few resources and little skills and tools to start with.
About 1% of those go on to make a successful transition to a profitable endeavour.

Your case is different.
You have some relevant experience, and obviously have resources.
Neither of these was likely based on your first post.
I apologise if I was too blunt.
I meant to hurt no feelings.

You have already jumped into the 2% category.

Making profitable cnc stuff is very different from making cnc stuff.

I helped lots of newbies make their first biz, when selling industrial Haas cnc stuff to them.
And helped make them lots of money, mostly.

And also helped lots of hopefuls see why their ideas for a.b.c whizbangs were impossible or impractical.

And also no.quoted several projects due to multiple issues - we simply new that some of the customers ideas would not work out for them aka us, long-term, so we refused orders upto about 800k€.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matthew_gbr

What I really need is a garage with a CNC machine and an expert that I can work with so we can experiment and iterate the designs and see if we can make them scalable.

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Agree.
A lot / most of our 15.000+ HAAS customers were like that, once upon a time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JAZZCNC

Hi Matthew,

Don't listen to the Nah sayers, you don't need 100K machines to build a very successful business. I have built machines for a customer who started with one small machine in a garage at the side of their houses costing £5k and now have multiple machines of different sizes, employing several people in 20,000ft premises turning over 500K + and all built up within 3yrs.
I have many customers who have started this way and built up great and profitable businesses on very low budget's and in my opinion, you already have what is needed and this is the drive, gumption, and bravery to give it a go.! . . . Good luck.:thumsup:

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by hanermo2

90%+ of people wanting to make money with cnc, starters, plasma laser or mill, have few resources and little skills and tools to start with.
About 1% of those go on to make a successful transition to a profitable endeavour.

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Perhaps we need a section on "How I made a successful business with my CNC machine" which includes what didn't work as well. Having just retired I need to make my hobby self-funding, which is a long way short of the 'successful business’ aim but starts along the same path.

Kit

Don’t think I’m you’re man..... but do you need any chopping boards?! :hysterical:

im north essex, but cutting area is only 900mm square. so not massive.