- Joined
- Dec 30, 2013
- Messages
- 282
I find myself in an interesting situation, which I'm sure many of you have been through, so just looking for some input. I make been making knives for five years total, and started regularly cranking them out in the last two. With one exception, the first 20 or so were all gifts, then friends started paying me a little to make them, then more friends and friends of friends started paying more, and so on. Just in the last few weeks I have made my first few sales to total strangers on the internet, which feels like a new situation, and has me a little worried. Things like paying taxes, insurance, liability, etc are all now things to think about, which I never really intended to be part of the deal. But, I've also extended myself quite a bit on tooling in order to keep up, I'm spending probably $100+/wk on materials, and now I kind of need to keep the income going in order to continue. I also fear I'm about to exhaust the people-I-know market, which means going to shows, lots of promotion, upgrading my site, etc, in order to keep the sales going.
Soo the question is I suppose, for those that did bridge the gap from occasional-sale-hobbyist to semi-pro, was it worth it? How long did you keep it going? I've observed that the internet is littered with graveyards of old knife maker's sites with "no longer taking orders" notices. I have no plans whatsoever of making it a career or a full-time job, is it plausible to make knives and produce an ancillary income, or will it always run at a loss until you really make it? At this point I'm still doing it because I really enjoy it, don't want to get bogged down in the chores of the business side and take the fun out of fun. At any rate, I don't have a pointed question or anything, just rambling and looking for some opinions. Thanks everyone, hope your pranks are coming off well today.
Soo the question is I suppose, for those that did bridge the gap from occasional-sale-hobbyist to semi-pro, was it worth it? How long did you keep it going? I've observed that the internet is littered with graveyards of old knife maker's sites with "no longer taking orders" notices. I have no plans whatsoever of making it a career or a full-time job, is it plausible to make knives and produce an ancillary income, or will it always run at a loss until you really make it? At this point I'm still doing it because I really enjoy it, don't want to get bogged down in the chores of the business side and take the fun out of fun. At any rate, I don't have a pointed question or anything, just rambling and looking for some opinions. Thanks everyone, hope your pranks are coming off well today.
