Challenges of Entrepreneurship
CNCROi.com isn’t the first company I’ve ever started from scratch but it is the first physical goods manufacturing business that I’ve founded.
Previous Virtual Businesses
Previously, just about all my businesses were virtual, meaning they didn’t exist in the physical world, from a 3D animation and web development studio to growing the world’s largest CNC design site that sold digital files, the footprint was entirely “in the cloud”.
A custom would “order” a digital CNC file, and payment would be instantly processes and the customer could download the file or with the 3D animation studio, we’d send the file over via FTP which they could then transfer to BetaCAM or VHS.
Physical Businesses
CNCROi.com is very different, it’s basically bringing the virtual into the physical world, meaning designs that are sent by our customers or that we develop in conjunction with them, are then expected to take form in the physical world that you can touch, smell and sometimes even taste.
It’s quite a transition, while virtual businesses can be run from just about anywhere, which is why I was able to travel and live all around the world for almost 10 years, having a physical manufacturing plant means you need a LOCATION due to the equipment needed to actually MAKE SOMETHING.
By far the biggest difference in the overhead, virtual businesses just require a computer while physical manufacturing requires a hell of a lot of tooling, supplies, material storage and prototyping (which use to be done virtually).
Challenges of Entrepreneurship
This has led to quite a transition for me, going virtual to physical isn’t the easiest as the way you use to do things is rather different and the only way to deal with it is to DEAL WITH IT.
Virtual businesses mean you get paid before the product ships, which still happens with most of CNCROi.com‘s customers, but we also have terms with larger corporations that have regular work for us, which means you do work NOW and get paid LATER down the road.
Due to having a physical location, new requirements show their head, such things as insurance, rent, utilities etc… all things you don’t need to worry about with a digital business.
The challenges are quite different but it’s still fun for me, I spent about 20 years in the virtual world business wise and transitioning to a physical one with CNCROi.com has been and continues to be a very fun lifestyle.
Business Statistics
CNCROi.com has had a banner year, adding clients on a weekly basis across North America including some in Europe to the Caribbean.
This year thus far, we’ve had a record year on just about all the metrics I bother to keep track of, from invoice count to project scales and repeat business from existing clients. When you do a good job, people take notice!
What’s incredible to me is that over the past three and a bit years since I started CNCROi.com, I’ve managed to create almost 350 videos (https://vimeo.com/cncroi) showcasing our capabilities and your YouTube.com account has flown past the 1K mark (https://www.youtube.com/user/i3ds).
The videos have definitely evolved on their own, as have the blog posts, of which there are now at 1846! Of course, many of those were grandfathered from the old CNCKing.com but that content is just as relevant to what I do here at CNCROi.com, that alone has 530 posts thus far over 3 years!
Just today I had to move CNCROi.com to a more hefty cloud server to handle the traffic as these blog posts and everything else that makes-up this site was killing the old one, the site is now dramatically faster in both the front and back-end.
Over the past three years, we’ve moved 3 times as well, to handle the business coming into the door, the first moves were “easy” but as we acquire more equipment and capabilities, the transition to a bigger and newer space just takes longer and longer but we should be fine at our present location for at least the upcoming year.
Unique Business Model
I’ve looked around and I can’t really find a business that does things that CNCROi.com does, where we give our clients the choice of materials, designs and capabilities that are endless.
You want polycarbonate color changed coasters CNC routed out of solid Pine? No problem!
You want a live edge plaque with a drawing and some text? No problem!
You want stainless steel awards… well, you get the point.
Becoming proficient across all these materials is a lot of fun, each presents its own challenges, from prototyping to large volume production as there is nothing “standard” in what we do.
Need something custom? Contact me at CNCROi.com!