61–70 of 428 posts
https://marijuanapackaging.com/collections/filling-machines-...
Have you ever seen a MagLite flashlight? (Or a clone)? The batteries are kept in place by a threaded cap which is spring loaded. My neighbor manufactures the caps, alone, in his garage. Cuts the threads and installs the spring. As far as noise I do hear his air compressor occasionally. You can buy quiet air compressors but they are orders more expensive than a standard unit.
How would a person with the ability/equipment to do this work at home get matched up with a company that wants to buy such things? This seems like the sort of work that was spun off from some kind of existing business relationship.
Browse through those lists and find something you can build.
I really believe the U.S. military is in the midst of a large scale transfer of military spending from traditional large defense contractors to smaller, innovative companies. The Air Force has even opened its own venture capital arm and is actively investing in small businesses. Most, if not every, branch in the military publicly posts contracts for small businesses to bid on.
I think Anduril is a great example of the possibilities in the "new" defense space.
What's interesting is this shift is very reminiscent of military manufacturing in Japan during World War 2; much of the manufacturing was actually done by small businesses of Happy to provide more detail on this. I've been thinking about this space for awhile.
I currently manufacturer a fairly niche product with nothing but a 7 year old $250 3d printer, some off the shelf parts, and a bit of custom electronics. Very high profit margin, as I am the only producer of this item (!). I'd love to move to a more "robust" process, but options for materials and widespread access to 3d printing provides a lot of versatility for a single-person business where I want to control the en…
Seeds, saplings, etc. Small houseplants and barely sprouted houseplants sell for a lot on Etsy and other sites and require very moderate amounts space and money. The difficulty is skill. Plants can be hard to grow and it’s easy to make a mistake that ruins lots of your crop!
> ...not particularly interested in the legality of this...
Small aircraft. https://www.kitplanes.com/17-kits-for-under-25k/
The margins are really high.
Screen printing is a pretty easy business to do out of a garage - you can either print and sell your own designs or print for others. Unless there are already a lot of screen printers in your area odds are there are businesses and organizations that would love to make some cheap swag with their logos. I haven't checked but I have to imagine there's a "xometry for screen printing" service out there that you could probably get semi-consistent work from.
Honestly though, so long as you don't need to quit your day job today, you can probably find some good deals on some used cnc equipment that will let you make anything while staying in your current price range. The difficulty is not in determining what's possible but rather what's profitable. Most garage manufacturing companies tend to make some incredibly niche thing like a bracket that allows you to stick a camera on a particular item used for a particular hobby; stuff that anyone could make but no big companies care enough to develop. Most of the time these are tinkerers who make lots of little widgets to solve their own problems and one of them eventually takes off.
If your goal is just to make money, I would suggest selling products that can be made by some service like xometry until you stumble across something that's popular, then you can bring manufacturing in house to increase your margins.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The website and all the part details are amazing. I've made many purchases from McMaster for personal / hobby use so I'm surprised to hear about difficulties purchasing from them.
We are in Ontario, Canada, if it matters. I know Quinn from blondiehacks orders from them without difficulty, so I’m not sure what it is about us that they don’t like. They tend to be very curt/nearing unfriendly in their responses.
You can grow gourmet or medicinal mushrooms with a handmade flow hood, a pressure cooker and two grow tents.