How I’d Start a Woodworking Side Hustle Today

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of the Scrap Pile podcast where I talk about everything else of woodworking besides just the projects and the actual making stuff. Um in this episode, I want to talk about that if I want to talk about woodworking side hustling again, but I want to talk about how I would do it if I was starting right now, today, brand new from scratch, because honestly, a lot of the stuff that I would do would be completely different than the way I did it now that I know what I know. Because most people, when they're starting woodworking for money, they typically focus on the wrong things. And I'm no different. I am most people when I got started. Most people focus on the giant projects. They focus on the expensive tools, the perfect shops. They focus on trying to build everything. But I have about 10 years, almost 10 years of woodworking under my belt. I have almost 10 years of YouTube woodworking under my belt. I have products, customers, burnout of certainly, and I think I would start much simpler. So that's what I'm going to talk about. I would not, just to be very clear and kick this thing off, I would not start with huge furniture projects. Big furniture projects are the go-to for a lot of people because you see something big and you assume that customers associate large, big projects with value, meaning that if you make something big, you think you're going to make a ton of money. It doesn't have to be that way. Also, with the big aspect of it comes the time-consuming part. You end up spending a ton of time. And when you're new, you typically do not value your time like you should. You're typically undercharging for your time. The big projects also are generally more intricate, meaning that there's more steps to complete those type of projects. There's just, you know, there's there's assembly, there's milling, there's sometimes metal, you know, mechanical fasteners, hardware, et cetera. It takes time. And um time leads to burnout and to some other negative things. The bigger projects are also stressful because the further along you go in a bigger furniture project, the more the the closer the point of no return is, meaning that you could spend three days and do absolutely perfectly not mess anything up. But one step can ruin the entire project. And again, that's why it's stressful. Um, you can mess up a thousand dollar piece of furniture with one wrong move. And when you're starting out, you see how that can be stressful and it can also be costly. With the big projects, also, you have to be considerate or at least mindful of delivering that big project to the customer. That can be a job in itself. If you're working in a one-car garage and your daily driver is a Honda Civic, how are you going to build a dresser and deliver that to a customer? It might be tough, right? Um, and then the big projects, I would also say sometimes can be hard to scale as a business because those are a very niche customer group, a very niche market. Not everyone can afford that $4,000 kitchen table or that $10,000 16-foot conference table or whatever it is. Big furniture does, I will admit, that it looks impressive, but it's usually a bad way to start. Um, I did not start with big furniture, and I don't recommend that you do either. I would also not buy a giant shop full of tools, or even if you're in a small shop, I would not go buying a ton of tools right off the bat because you're spending your money on once and Instagram glamour on all these tools, and you don't need them yet. You don't have a business yet. Why do you need the tools? Now, tool addiction is real. I have it. I suffer from tool addiction. You see stuff, you see the suggested ads on social media. It looks great, right? And you're influenced by YouTube content creators, they say, Hey, link in the description. I do the same thing. I try to only provide links on my videos to things that I actually used in the video. In case my viewers see something and they say, Hey, I wonder what kind of what tool that was, well, then it'll be linked in the description, right? But and you know, some YouTube creators push the links that they push the tools and stuff, and I get it, they're trying to make money. But if you fall into that trap, now you're buying tools that you don't need. You just saw someone else making them look good, so now you're trying to be like them or whatever. Um, some people think that tools mean success. Like if you have a big shop worth of tools, then man, you've made it. The only way you've made it is the product that you deliver and the quality of that product. If you're able to do it with tools, two tools and no other tools, then you're just as successful because you're still making profit. You're making money. It's not about the tools. The the word is in the name. It's tools. It's a tool to help you make something that can make you profit. A lot of people try to buy their way into a woodworking business, and they do that by way of buying tools. Spending money on tools. The goal for a business side hustle is not to spend money, it's to make money, right? The tools are just a way to help you do that if you need them, not want them. I also would not accept or take, if I was brand new, every single custom order that walked through the door. Because you're gonna get burnt out. I've talked about that before. You're going to get burnt out. If you're saying yeah, and and it's it's a habit that a lot of people fall into that becomes a trap because you're just wanting to grow the business. You're trying to get this thing off the ground. And so it is tempting to just say yes because you're like, man, somebody actually wants my product. That feels great. It does feel good. It's a great feeling. But if you say yes to everything, you're gonna get burnt out because you don't know what you're doing and you don't know what you want yet if you're just starting out. You're gonna have random requests. You're gonna have people that see a table and they're gonna want a doghouse. Bad examples, but you get my point. You're gonna get random requests. And if you say yes to all of those, you are going to burn yourself out because you're mentally all over the place doing random projects. A lot of these two, um, a lot of these projects that you're gonna say yes to, if you say yes to every single one, some of them are gonna be very low profits because it's your first time doing that. You don't know how to price it, you don't know what it's gonna cost you, time-wise or material-wise, or machines or tool-wise. You're gonna make very low profit if you say yes to every single job. I would not recommend doing that. Um, and saying yes to every job, again, until you learn your business, learn your customers, learn your market, learn the flow of things, you're gonna have some difficult customers. And that's gonna add to your stress and burnout and all those negative things as well. So, what I would actually start with, if I, this is just me, I'm just kind of giving my opinion in this episode. If I was starting out over, step one, I would pick one product category. I have some list of an example. I have list of some examples: cutting boards, keepsake boxes, desk accessories, laser engraved products, some kind of simple shelves or shelving, wooden gifts, small decor. Now, some of those are kind of vague, and that's a whole list of examples, but pick one. Don't try to do all those on the list. Be the specialty person in one of those. The people making money in woodworking, I've said this before, are those that can repeat things over and over and over. Very boring, but that's how you make money. You don't have to be flashy, you have to be boring, slow and steady, same thing day in and day out, but the money is coming in. Pick one item. Maybe you're gonna be the best keepsake guy, keepsake box guy in your town or in your state or in the country, the world, right? You can be the best if you narrow down and focus on that one thing. Maybe you're gonna be the best door hanger, wooden door hangers, signs, whatever in the world. But pick that one thing. Don't try to do signs and cutting boards. Again, I made these mistakes. I'm talking about if I started over, I would do one thing, pick one category. I would also try to focus on a product that is easy to ship because you're not always going to find sales face to face at craft shows, at craft fairs, at local markets. You're not always going to be local. And let me take that back. You could be, but you're gonna limit yourself. If you can ship your products, then your customer base expands, obviously. If you're on the East Coast, you can now sell to the West Coast, you can sell internationally, you can sell to, you know, the southern and northern to all areas of the country, right? Shipping furniture, however, is awful. And logistically, it's not even a money thing. Typically, if you're shipping something large to a customer, the the expense that you're gonna pay to ship that is passed off to the customer. But just crating it up, you can't box up a furniture. You have to crate it, build a wooden crate a lot of times with padding, security. You don't want that thing flopping around in the back of a truck. And then just logistically, how does it get picked up? How does it get delivered? How does it, you know, there's a lot that goes into that. And so so the reason I mention furniture is focus on something easy to ship. Maybe that's not furniture right now. The small items that are easier to ship typically have easier margins. Um, and it's you you might think the opposite because you're paying for packaging material, you're paying for boxes and bubble wrap and tape and shipping labels, etc. But the product itself has easier margins and your shipping costs are passed off to the customer. They they pay for that. You do not. And you can build that into your costs. But the smaller, easy-to-ship items typically have better margins and they're less stressful. You know, making a tray or a cutting board or a small um, you know, mantle clock or or some desk item, wooden decor is a lot less stressful than building a $5,000 dresser for someone's bedroom. Plain and simple, and I think you can figure out why. It's just a lot less involved. It takes you less time, less material. If you do mess it up, you're not out as much money. Um, the last thing I would say here about the small, smaller items, the easier to ship items, is that you're gonna have a broader audience. More people can afford a $50 item than a $5,000 item. More people can afford a cutting board for $85 at a market or online on Etsy on your website than they can an $8,000 bedroom set. You see what I'm saying? So it's, in my opinion, you're gonna have a broader audience. More people want or use or could need a small good, a small wooden good, whatever that is, or they can gift it. They might not even need it, but they're more likely to gift someone a cutting board or a sign than they are to gift them a bedroom set, or they need a bedroom set. Typically, if the bedroom set's built of good enough quality, they're not going to buy one ever again. A cutting board, they could buy five a year. Their sister-in-law, their cousin, their husband, their what you know, they can gift them. They can buy one for their house, their mountain house, their lake house, right? It's it's something that can be sold and made over and over, and you can get repeat customers. The next thing I would do is learn the marketplace before your tools. You need to sell first. And when I say marketplace, I don't specifically mean Facebook marketplace. That is a good spot. I would recommend starting with that. But I also mean like Etsy. I mean your local area. If there's a demand locally, start with that. Focus on trends, and that and trends are that. It's in the name, it's a trend. It can change by the day, by the week, by the year. Um, you know, farmhouse style, that is a trend. Um, modern, you know, shabby chic, that is a trend. Focus on the trends, jump on that train, ride it while you can. Learn the marketplace. Learn, which which means learn what people are wanting is a dumber way to say, if I dumb that down, that's a better way to say it. Learn what the market wants and sell to those people. Learn the pricing, learn you know what people want, what the current trend is, and how much they're willing to pay for that. And that is very vague. I can't really go into details on how to do that because it's going to be different for everywhere. But if you see in your area on your town's Facebook group or your neighborhood's Facebook group, that a lot of people are buying front door signs, or or better yet, here's an example. At Christmas time, everyone's buying snowmen, snowmen for their front porch. Then maybe you should make snowmen. Don't try to make a Santa Claus because everyone else is already buying snowmen. Stick to the trend, right? How much are they typically paying for it? Oh, they're typically, I see four of them for sale on here and they range from $80 to $120. Perfect. You come in at $100, right in the middle, right? Your market is going to matter, and getting the sales is going to matter more than the tools. I can't stress enough. Don't buy what you want for tools. Buy what you need. Your market matters more than your mitersol. Okay. Next thing, keep your overhead low. This goes into not spending your money on tools, but also don't spend your money just on your shop. Some people will remodel their shop, they'll put in the best lighting in the world, they'll add um, you know, flare on the walls, they'll do wall treatments and paneling and all. If that's needed, that's one thing. But most of these people doing that are for the sake of YouTube. They're doing filming content. You're probably not a filmmaker or a YouTube content creator. You're probably just trying to make some money side hustling with woodworking. So don't spend your money on all that stuff. Who cares what it looks like? Who cares what your shop looks like? You don't need the latest gadget off Amazon to organize your screwdrivers. Put them in a drawer. As long as it's safe, it doesn't have to be perfect. You're starting out, you're new. That's okay. Cut down and keep your overhead low. Start with the basics. Use what you have. If a tool does not have to be replaced, don't replace it just because the newer one looks fancier and looks shinier. A profitable shop beats an expensive hobby shop. You're trying to turn it into a business. Folk, think like a business person. Keep your overhead low. You want to spend as little money as possible so that you can make as much money as possible. Next thing I would do, and um, this is kind of a little bit gonna go against what I just said, but I would document everything. And I don't necessarily mean become a woodworking YouTuber, but just some sort of content. Maybe that is just taking pictures of your project when you're done, taking pictures of the steps that you went through to get to that project, you know, progress shots in progress, step one, you know, almost like a journal, if you will, but just document it somehow. Maybe you make TikTok videos, little short video clips. Maybe you just again just take pictures to post on Facebook and Instagram, just something to document what you're doing because that's gonna help you look back on them. And number one, mentally, it's gonna give you, you know, a sense of pride, and it's also gonna help you remember, oh yeah, I remember I did this on that project, and I wish I wouldn't have done it this way. And but you know, it's just it's good to document what you're doing in life in general, but um specifically for making products, and then you those pictures or videos or whatever it is also act as an advertisement method, they become your portfolio. They become now people can see the work that you're doing. If I was starting today, I would not just build projects, I would try to also build an audience. And I'm not talking about on YouTube specifically, but maybe it's on Instagram, maybe it's just on Facebook. You know, people start following you, they start liking your pictures on Facebook because you're always the guy that posts amazing cutting boards or amazing keepsak boxes or whatever it is. Let's talk about where I would sell these projects. I did mention Facebook Marketplace. For me, this is a big one. It's a big one for everyone. Everyone's on Facebook. It's very underrated, in my opinion. You can do a lot on Facebook Marketplace. A lot of sales for me have come from Facebook Marketplace. It's also local. You know, there's people on Facebook Marketplace that are near you. You don't have to worry about you being on the East Coast and they're in California. Facebook Marketplace is very easy to do because, again, everyone goes on Facebook Marketplace. They're looking to buy stuff. I do. I mean, a lot of my tools have come from Facebook Marketplace. If I need something, I look on there first. And with Facebook Marketplace, the biggest thing is that generally speaking, there's no shipping involved. Again, these people are local. You don't have to ship, they can just meet you at a gas station or come to your shop or whatever it is. The next thing is Etsy. I talked about this in a previous episode. Etsy is good because the platform is already there, the brand is already there. So that's the benefit of it. There's a lot of SEO that goes into Etsy. Uh SEO is search engine optimization. Basically, when someone searches for something, SEO is the work that you put into where you show up on the search result. There's a lot of competition on Etsy, though. Um, and that can work negatively, you know, against you. However, Etsy is um very trendy. Etsy follows trends, and you can learn a lot from Etsy before you start selling on Etsy. The last thing I would talk about, Etsy, is that all the good and bad that comes with it, there are a lot of fees. That's okay. I sell a ton of stuff on Etsy, even currently to this day. But build the fees that you pay to Etsy into your cost of the product so that you're not losing money. You might think you're doing fine, but if they charge you $3, that $3 could cut your profit from, you know, nine to six. You cut 33% of your profit, whatever. Crafts fairs. That'd be the next thing I would talk about. The the craft fairs, the biggest thing to keep in mind is your product selection. Again, learn your market, know your market. If you're going to a craft fair and the demographic is primarily, let's just say women between the ages of 35 and 55, then you might not sell very well if you're selling, let's say, wooden trays with football teams, logos engraved, or whatever. That you see what I'm saying, though. Typically, a football team is not marketed primarily to women, it's primarily marketed to men. So know the market. If you're um, maybe you would aim more at, you know, mom type items. If it's primarily women, there's only one gender that can be a mom, and that's a woman, right? So maybe you would market something like that. Set up your booth accordingly. If you're at a craft fair, you have a blank canvas in that 10 by 10 space to be the marketing person. Get the sale of the people that come there. Set up your maybe um your flashiest, most profit, profitable, you know, popular products at the front of the table. Then the not so popular behind that. And then maybe you, and then behind at the very back of your booth is one big ticket item that kind of catches everybody's eye. Right. I'm just trying to come up with some examples here. But customer behavior is a big thing at craft fairs because you're going to get a lot of walk-by people. That's what they're doing. They're at a craft fair, they're walking down, up and down the aisles, all the booths, all the tents, all the stuff. You they're they're they're there to spend money, though. They're at a craft fair. They're looking at crafts, they're looking at stuff that people have made that they're trying to sell. The next thing is social media. Um, I of course revert back to this a ton, but it is very important. Short form content is very important nowadays. And short form content is basically think TikTok, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts. That's short form content. Um, these type of videos do go viral easier. Um, and if you are documenting everything, like I talked about a minute ago, you can kind of use these clips as a storytelling process. And they don't have to be long, they can be 30-second clips, just you know, maybe a time-lapse of you building something for your project. Maybe you um film yourself sanding the wood and you talk about the process of sanding and finishing your products. Just use social media as a way to build the audience and possibly get sales because short form content does go viral very easily. Let me talk about some of the products that I think would work best. I'm gonna give you just straight up examples here. And some of these I have talked about. The good beginner side hustle products, cutting boards. It is a saturated market, but you there's so many different possibilities to make a cutting board a one-of-a-kind and customize it different than everyone else, which is how you can get the sale. So, cutting boards, keepsake boxes, these are very big. I don't really know what you do with a keepsake box. There's not a one size fits all. You can literally do anything with it, but they're very big. That's a big deal, too. Charcuterie boards that kind of goes along with cutting boards, wooden desk accessories. I mentioned this earlier, but what I'm talking about is like maybe it's like a wooden cup to put your pins in on your desk. Maybe it's a little, I don't know, a drink coaster or a little wooden bear or a bird or some like a little trinket, something that people people put crap on their desk all the time, right? That's the stuff I'm talking about. A little organizer for your charging cable, right? Floating shelves. That's a big thing that's in style right now. That is a trend. If you can find a way to make some really awesome custom, you know, not like the others type of wooden shelves, I would recommend that. Laser engraved gifts. This is very vague, but the reason I have it on my list is because it truly, the possibilities are endless. That is what makes it custom. People pay for custom. If you have a laser engraving capability, you're going to make money because you can literally add stuff that no one else can because you have a laser engraver. Personalized items, that kind of goes along with a laser engraving. Anything that you can personalize is going to make more money than something standard, right? Small home decor, that was on my list earlier as well. What I'm talking about here is like again, trinket type stuff or stuff that you would sit on a shelf or like a knick-knack or something that goes on a mantle, um, just decor type of things. Maybe it's wall art, you know, there's like geometric wall art, abstract wall art, wooden stars and stripes, and you know, there's there's a ton of stuff. But the key point with all these though is that they are repeatable, they are simple, they are giftable, they are shippable, right? I mean, that that's the stuff I would start with. The stuff that I would not start with are the giant tables, are the fully custom furniture pieces, are the super artistic one-off type wooden pieces, the low-demand complex builds. Those will kill you. They will not scale. Complicated projects do not always equal profitable projects. Not when you're starting out, especially. So the mistakes that I see most people when they're starting out a side hustle in woodworking is underpricing. I've talked about this several times. Do not underprice your work. They also try to build everything, everything for everybody. Mistake number three, ignoring the marketing. This is a huge point. You've got to learn and know your market. Sell first. You've got to sell the product, then you can build it. Give the people what they want. That's marketing. Spending too much too fast. Again, buying the latest, greatest, flashy tools because they saw it on social media. Mistake number five, last one on my list. Waiting too long to start selling. Maybe you're thinking, okay, I'm gonna learn the hobby. I'm just gonna do this for a little while. We'll see what happens. No, if you want to turn this into a business, put in the work and turn it into a business. You can start side hustling right now. Again, you don't have to build all the projects. I've said it. Sell first. Just start. If you wait too long to start selling, I have that as a mistake because you're losing out on opportunity. Okay. The biggest thing with the side hustle here, just kind of uh working towards wrapping this up, is that it does take time. Like anything, you don't get rich overnight. You're not gonna have a sell overnight. You might not sell anything for six months starting out, right? It takes time, it's not instant money. You do run the risk of getting burnt out, which I'm hoping some of these things I've talked about can minimize that risk, but it's certainly a possibility. And you also have to learn to balance. If this is your side hustle, you have to balance work and life with the side hustle. It's not your full-time job yet. So there is going to be some compromise and there's gonna be some late nights, there's gonna be added stress, but it's all in the name of getting your side hustle off the ground if that's what you want to do. A woodworking side hustle can absolutely work for you, but it is still a business and you have to treat it as such. So, what I would do differently today to wrap this thing up is focus more on the audience, focus more on the people, the people that are going to be giving you money, the people you're gonna be selling to. Focus on those people, those people. Do less or do fewer custom jobs. I made that mistake tremendously. I was making everything I possibly could, big or small. Do not do that. Do fewer custom jobs, do something that is simple and repeatable. If you can get into a digital product, that's even better. That means like build plans or CNC files, laser files, something like that. Um, just something, even if it's physical though, just something that's consistent. It's repeatable, it's consistent. I would spend less time trying to impress people with the big, glamorous projects and more time building systems, building a good flow, building something that you can scale. I think a woodworking side hustle is still one of the coolest ways to make extra income. I've been doing it for almost 10 years. You can create things with your hands, you can solve problems, you can maybe even build something big over time. But if I started today, I would start way simpler than what most people think I would because I did not start simple, and I absolutely would if I started over. Please give this uh podcast a five star review on your podcast player. If you're watching on YouTube, hit the like button and subscribe. Let me know what kind of content you want to see next, and I'll catch you on the next episode. Take care.