My first year was just learning how to master the software and gear, did a few sales but it was not anything I went to town upon, being brand new you have to pay your dues to learn the ropes and really, to see if you want to even do it to begin with as a business. The second year I mostly kept my E-bay listings few to completely shut down to avoid getting bogged down with orders knowing how time consuming they are to produce the kits and that I wanted a larger selection and a broader scope and style of kits, it also went in tangent with both years trying to get just the right suppliers, so glad I found you, you would not believe the games and garbage some of these suppliers try to pass off on people. This being the third year, with the added benefit of 3d printing design and mastery in addition to the laser cutter and the rest, I've kept my listings going non stop on E-bay since January. My website has been expanding in content and getting some valuable key word results, you have actually benefited from it since those same key words are showing up with the threads I started here, it's still though, not self sufficient, doing much on it's own for sales on it's own automatically like your web site is, but I've also combined it with my Facebook Group which is growing in popularity and gaining a following which has itself garnered some extra sales. My customers tend to be newer builders or those getting back into it after a long time, it's something I've made sure to reach out to among, getting new modelers into the hobby and also making precidense with the kit designs to be on the simple side for building, I've even revised and fine tuned the remanufacturered Comet kits, as old school as they are, with some simpler solutions and modern upgrades to help.
I have over three decades in the coffee industry, b2b mainly, one of my websites for that is EspressoOutfitters.com, and it's a very competitive, brutal at times industry to be involved in, but it has given me a lot of insight and experience I'm applying to the RC Kit manufacturing business, there is another division I also started years ago, Gardenbeds.org, and it had it's day, back in the day, sadly people do not garden like they used to and in tangent, cheap imports saturating the market, still, it's given me a lot of insight that's been applied to the RC gig. The coffee gig is absolutely unpredictable, except in a general sense, where it does well enough when the economy is normal and sane, not this absurd thing it's turned into., I also dominate all of the search engines with both of my websites on the coffee gig and it's the main way people are finding me via. google or any search engine, not to mention, I'm so extremely far ahead of any competition in capacity, function, operation, etc., they are just children playing with toys in comparison.
What has been a big moral boost on the RC gig, the quality friendships made along the way. Being self employed, company of one, it can and does get pretty lonely, there just aren't people to talk to during the day or otherwise, with the coffee customers are my best friends until they got what they needed from me, then I'm rather forgotten unless they need some kind of support which is rare since I make everything bulletproof, there are more genuine friendships being made with the RC crowd, fellow hobbyists and customers alike that enjoy dialog even though the sale and rest are long past.
Some growing pains still exist with the RC gig, like pushing it for that last balsa order I did at 1am this morning, hoping it comes in, in time to bust out the kits I need the stock for to bust out their kits in a timely manner since they were ordered over the weekend, and that too learning back to what I need to stockpile and what I can have just limited stock with and not have to micromanage storage and the rest with the sheets.
