Laser Cut Card: Neues Cyborg Gelände

Kommentare

• Puh, sehr spartanisch.

• Errinnert etwas an die Necron-Gebäude aus dem Dawn of War – Dark Crusade – Spiel
  fehlen also noch die Energietanks, die Krypta und diese anderen komischen Klötze, die wie schwarze Kleinkinder-Spielzeugholzklötzchen aussehen.
  Nein mal im Ernst: Diese Lasercut-Geschichte nimmt langsam Überhand und scheint mir doch etwas überteuert. Bedenkt bitte, dass solch ein CNC-Desktop-Lasercutter für DIN-A4 und DIN-A3 (Zeichenblock-Format) ganze 10000,-€ kostet.
  Wenn man das Ding nun 8 – 10 Stunden durchmarschieren lässt sind die kosten nach 1-2 Monaten schon wieder raus.
  Stehen lediglich die Urheberrechte diverser Designer im Weg 😉

  • Tolle Milchmaedchenrechnung hast du dir da ausgedacht,,,

    Das Zeug muss auch jemand kaufen, und ich denke nicht das Neal mal eben die 800 Einheiten in 1-2 Monaten absetzt, die er verkaufen muss um das Geraet zu bezahlen. Rohstoffe sammelt er vermutlich kostenlos am Strand und ich denke er lebt auch von Luft und Liebe allein… o.O

  • Und keinen Strom oder Arbeitszeit kostet und die Laserröhre eine unendliche Haltbarkeit hat.

• Falkal and Dennis raise some interesting points here – and maybe I can expand on them.

  First – LaserCutCard is not some big company that has staff. It is just me, Adobe Illustrator and a box of envelopes. I don’t own a laser cutter and this is not something I do full time… it is my evening job. And Falkal is correct. I mostly do it out of love. I make the models that I want to own and then since I have already done the work, I sell copies online. The company certainly does not make enough money to pay me even a fraction of what my day job pays but it at least pays for itself.

  I pay another company to do the cutting and obviously this is more expensive per unit than if I owned the machine but the machine is expensive. I need a machine capable of cutting 3mm MDF and with a bed size of 50cmx50cm. This machine costs about €30,000 and also needs liquid CO2 and a special tube that costs €8000 to replace every 3 years. This is too much for me now (maybe later I will do this).

  So it is easier just to have someone else do it for me.

  As for the cost, I have a spreadsheet that I put in all the costs (the cost of the card, the laser, the packaging costs, the paypal costs etc) and it tells me what the retail price should be. I work on a gross profit of 40% (so if the cost of the cutting and materials is €10 then I will sell it for €14. Out of that profit comes all the other expenses for the company… the printer, the petrol and travel expenses – things like that).

  After all of this, the operating profit is about 15% and this is used on important things like the occasional dinner with the wife or buying models from other manufacturers

  The main thing though is that I never add in the cost for my time. If I did that, the company would never make a profit 🙂

  This story is not unique… almost all small internet businesses start like this. I have been running for a year now and I am beginning to understand what works and what does not.

  Hopefully in the future I will be able to develop a product that finds the right balance between cost and appeal and that will make me my fortune but until then the occasional dinner is good enough 🙂

  • Thanks for this interesting inside view! Its puts things back into perspective. I think people tent to forget just how small the market for things like this really is and thus develope unrealistic expectations. Even Manufacturers with a really high market visibility seldom have more than a handfull regular employees and basic equipment, most things have to be outsourced to producers with a broader range of customers than just wargaming nerds ;-).