As some of you know, I have been self employed in one form or another for most of my life. I have owned a soil business, a glass business, a tech service, and right now I own a successful music instrument repair business in a major US city. I'm not getting rich in terms of money, but I make enough to cover all my bills, save a bit, provide for my wife and kids, and it allows my wife to be a stay at home Mom. Soon, I am going to launch my next business and I wanted to post about it from it's inception here for others to be able to see the process. For my next business, I wanted to start something that will bring music to children, be very inexpensive in terms of item retail, start with zero debt and no loans, and be environmentally thoughtful. Since I am a musical instrument builder by trade, I decided to go that route. I designed an instrument based on the mountain dulcimer. It has 3 strings tuned D A D. It is fretted in a manner different than a guitar. The way it is fretted, there is no way to play a wrong note. Every note you play on any fret on any string is in key. Also, any series of notes you play makes a chord that is correct and relative to the key. The point I am driving home is that there is no way to play a wrong note on this instrument no matter how many people are playing instruments with you.
To keep with the "green" theme, I am going to be using reclaimed wood. Wood that would have normally been discarded after use will be perfect for this instrument. My main source of wood will be old shipping pallets. It is usually well aged, easily worked, and the pieces that arent strong enough to withstand woodworking have already cracked while in use.
I have a few different target customers. My main target customers are families on vacation. Look at it from this point of view. Say you are an average middle class family on vacation at the beach. You have 2 kids between the ages of 3 and 12. You want to be able to entertain your kids for not a lot of money. Everyone likes to idea of playing music on the beach at night, but most people dont want to put in the hours, months, and years to become proficient at an instrument, nor carry a thousand dollar instrument to a place with ocean spray. You should be able to spend under $50 to buy 2 instruments that your kids could play together and never play a wrong note. And if they got dropped in the ocean or accidentally thrown into the fire... you're out less than the cost of feeding the 4 of you one single meal.
Here is how the numbers break down:
My cost for doing a run of 50 instruments: $375
Cost per instrument: $7.50
Instrument Wholesale to retailers: $15
Instrument Wholesale to distributors: $12 in lots of 50
Output capacity of just me building: 50 per day ustilizing a very basic assembly line
At 50 instruments a day selling just to distributors, the profit per day is only $225 which is about what I make now in my current business, but in my business it depends soley on my years of knowledge and experience. In this new business, I can set up an assembly line with the help of a few employees turning out hundreds a day.
I have most all the tools needed for the job. there are a few left I need to pick up. I need to pick up a new table saw with a top notch fence. I am going to dedicate the one I have access to for cutting fret slots. To do that, I need a table saw blade that is 23 hundredths of an inch thick. I am ordering that saw blade tonight for a little under $70. I should be able to get away with a < $300 table saw for the time being. I also need a jointer (a 4" will do) and a thickness planer. For everything, I am looking at about $600.
So to do my first run of 50 instruments, I am looking at a one time hit of $600 for machinery and $375 for parts. We can round that up to an even $1000 to get the ball rolling. I figure it will take me about 2 months to save up that cash. (I could do it sooner, but I have another baby due in the next 2 months.)
Another thing I want to do is give instruments away to elementary schools. I believe that if you get musical instruments in the hands of children at an early enough age, they have more of a chance of being musically inclined for the rest of their lives. I am thinking 5% of net revenue will be put into free instruments.
This is the basic plan for the instrument. It will be painted solid festive colors like bright greens, peach, red... you know... colors you would see in the caribbean. The green dots are where you hold down a string to tune the next one. It really doesnt matter how you tune the first strings just as long as it is tuned to itself (hence the dots.)
Another idea I had was to build a small amount a week, say 50. Then just before next summer season starts, load up a van and start at the jersey shore and drive down to key west hittingevery decent vacation community and give away instruments to those shops on the beach that sell beach toys and knick knacks with brochures on how to order more and and the web URL. I wouldnt be able to get out to California just because it would be too much of a haul for an east coaster like me. If it takes off, I would also like to sell to shops at major cruise ship docks in the caribbean.
What do you guys think?
This is my current distributor list. if you would like to distribute to a city not on this list, please pm me:
- San Diego, CA
- Los Angeles, CA
- San Francisco, CA
- Portland, OR
- Seattle, WA
- Phoenix, AZ
- Boston, MA
- Nashville, TN
- Indianapolis, IN
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No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical. ~ Niels Bohr
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