This may not be the right community to post this in; it’s at least obliquely involved with woodworking.

I intend to hang a shingle as a furniture maker. Yes I know I know “Beware turning a hobby into a job because it’ll suck the joy out” before the pandemic I was working in a custom build shop, about the only thing I didn’t build for customers was furniture, and I kinda miss the pipeline.

In fact, I’d kind of like to find several other craftsmen of various flavors and open an “artisan shop”, where, say, a table I built is used to display vases the potter made, and so on like that.

I got, or rather built, that custom building job at a makerspace in the city, and I could get this venture off the ground with a quick message to the General Slack channel. Not only was the place full of craftsmen and artisans but it was plugged into the entrepreneurial world, people would pour out of the woodwork to either join up or point me to resources. Where I’m at now there’s just none of that.

I think I’m at the point where I just have to build something and put it up for sale. Just…before we bother with business plans and branding and logos and social media and all that crap, I need to open a personal Etsy account or walk into a local consignment shop and sell a thing I made out of wood just to prove I can actually do it.

This may wait until spring at this point; between a family member in hospice and the winter…

Can it be someone else’s turn to talk now?

  • Captain AggravatedOP
    2•5 days ago

    My job title was project manager. There were times when I WAS the back of house. I usually did communicate with customers as to what they wanted us to build, communicating with customers as their project progressed and such. I wasn’t really involved much in the business’ marketing efforts though.

    I’m not opposed to a social media presence in general but there are specific companies I will not work with because they are baby punching evil. I’ve been thinking about what a Youtube channel attached to this business might look like. I consume a lot of shop videos, from the usual Woodtube suspects to old episodes of The New Yankee Workshop to This Old Tony, but I imagine the people who spend $1600 on bedside tables don’t care about my opinions about parallel jaw clamps or router table lifts. I think I can do shop shenanigans because that’s who I am, so what kind of shop shenanigans would the Pinterest crowd be interested in watching? There’s that guy who does the space planet spray paintings, the “Shasha!” guy, do I make my version of that? Vlogs of customer builds?

    • @[email protected]
      2•5 days ago

      Yeah I get it, I don’t really have personal social media accounts, but I’d open them for a business.

      If you’re going to go the content production route then that’s another whole ball of wax. Can be very good for business if it takes off, but you’d have to figure out your strategy for that and execute on it. Customer builds or just stuff you’re building in general can be good. It shows off the process and generates trust/desirability. If someone buys a custom piece, it’s kind of nice to have its story fully documented.

      But content production, editing, publishing and social media interaction takes time, skill & effort. It can be quite the commitment to do it right.