I propose a business. It will be an Etsy store where I sell my 3D printed creations. I am only going to start with one product, but will probably expand in the future. I will have some basic marketing, and also some basic operational and organizational principles, but these will not be very complex as of starting. I also discuss startups expenses.
My business will be a very small Etsy store where I sell products of my own creation and manufacture. I will produce these items and ship them to customers when they order them from my online store of the name PLAer Printing.
As of launching, my business will have only one product. These will be my nintendo switch joycon grips, which I have already made some smaller sales on. At launch I will offer five different colors: Red and Blue, Neon Red, Mario Blue, White, Zelda Gold, and Gray. Customers will also be able to pay a fee to have a custom color produced for their particular order. The basic colors will be priced at $25 per pair and custom colors will cost $35. These prices will not be including shipping.
Marketing will be in two main forms: Word-of-mouth and some small ads, in addition to normal Etsy searches. Word-of-mouth is about what you would expect; People talk to each other and one person convinces the other to buy my product. The small ads I referred to would be on the YouTube channel belonging to myself and potentially some friends. I may also participate in some business fairs or craft fairs to help promote my business as well, and I can have a qr code that links directly to my Etsy store, and maybe a promo code to generate some more sales from that fair.
My business will operate quite simply. As I don’t expect to be making a lot of sales at one time, I can simply 3D print my product whenever an order comes in. In the event that my business grows exponentially, I will have, at that point, acquired enough funds to invest into more 3D printers to increase my productivity and speed, and, at that point, I would also produce extra stock, even when I’m not receiving orders, because then I can just pack one and ship it. I will ship my products via USPS priority mail flat rate boxes, which costs $8.55 (I think) to send them anywhere in the United States.
As far as organization goes, I will be the only one in my firm, but I have had a few people say that they have interest in becoming investors, but I do not know how that will turn out, so for now, it’s just me.
Startup expenses will be relatively small for this business. I just need to make sure I have plenty of stock of the filament that I use to make my product, which will probably mean five rolls of filament (which I will set aside from my personal filament for my business). The total startup cost should be about $89.