I've given this advice elsewhere, and I'll give it here. Go look at the small business initiatives by each branch of the U.S. military; many are now posting lists of open contracts that you can bid on for an incredible array of things.

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 < 30 employees in "garages" scattered around the country instead of very large factories. That was one of the reasons American bombing by Superfortresses was so ineffective at first, and one of the reasons incendiary bombs began being used.

Happy to provide more detail on this. I've been thinking about this space for awhile.

I used to be a contracting specialist in the USAF. Anything you'll find on SAM is incredibly competitive and CO's will receive anywhere around 20 bids for anything that is purchased. I would recommend going after state and local. You can use bonfire, deltek or govspend to find those more local contracts with less competition.

I've been IN this space for a while and I can tell you while we are trying, it's not a clear cut as you make it seem.

For the most part there is no more low hanging fruit like you would see in movies like 'War dogs' etc... simply because Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) budgets are basically gone, and that's where a lot of the fast money was.

Now, you need to know what you're doing because you're competing with the companies that survived the last few decades and live off of these smaller SBIR/STTR/OTA funding lines

To be clear this is not what Palantir and Anduril do. Both groups have professional and skilled proposal writers and very deep technical policy expertise when it comes to winning (and defending and contesting) awards and doing it in a way that will ensure that their products can get an Authority to Operate and actually work

You're not the first person I've heard this from; when you say "many are now posting lists of open contracts you can bid on" where are they posting these things? https://sam.gov/content/home is what my cursory Googling found, is this what you mean, or is there some other, more relevant site involved?

I just searched "CNC", a bunch of contract opportunities showed up: https://sam.gov/search/?index=opp&sort=-modifiedDate&page=1&...

This is what my Dad does...and he has a lathe in the garage typically producing things for helicopters and airplanes.

There should be a program that's easily accessible (not behind lawyer language) that DoD sponsors: We'll buy you a CNC machine, a laptop and a bunch of bar stock on our dime if you produce these parts as per these quality requirements by this date and of this quantity. If we're happy, you can keep the equipment for your next DoD project and you'll get a priority as an experienced vendor (that we invested in).

The issue with CNC machines is that one error in your code can and will easily crash one part of the machine into another part of the machine and thus break it. Often requiring a technician from the company and a bunch of spare parts to fix it, which, trust me, is never cheap. So giving a CNC machine to just anyone without proper training is quite a bad idea.

The SBIR program is essentially what you describe… though with a research bent. Virtually zero red tape with a Phase I grant (apart from the application itself).

SBIR grants require a lot of expertise about the arcane application process.

There’s an entire service industry around helping businesses apply. The companies that I’ve seen be successful at it hired several people with SBIR experience specifically to handle the grant proposals.

I had 3 successful NSF proposals and could not have done it without an experienced team helping me just with the legalese and process.

My buddy and I did it last year. I wouldn't say you need a whole team. We picked an area and spent a two years honing an idea. He is a retired Air Force officer and had some contracting experience from the other side. I have a PhD in an unrelated field (math), a handful of papers and one unsuccessful NSF attempt. He learned all the application rules and took care of 100% of that stuff. I formulated the technical proposal and work plan, wrote the budget and the bulk of the technical writing.

My partner reached out to a few small business development centers but, while they were very eager to help, we ultimately received only very minor feedback and a general thumbs up. I'd say in the two years it took us to hone a winning technical proposal, my partner was able to become somewhat of an expert in the rules. During that time we also applied for a non-SBIR government grant, unsuccessfully, where we lost a lot of points for being a 2-man team. If you're willing to put in the time, it's very doable to write an application which follows the rules.

In fact, I'd say one thing we ran into was finding ourselves "inventing" rules because we were overly cautious with our compliance to what we thought were the rules. The application truly is the most difficult part of compliance for a SBIR Phase I.

The problems with our Phase I were purely technical. We weren't able to advance the state-of-the-art enough to be able to write a convincing commercialization plan. And I don't think there was any consulting firm we could have hired to fix that problem.

I did one once and it was a huge PITA and a very slow timeline. The free money part was nice, but the overhead and timeline mean I’ll probably stick to other funding sources in the future. If your founding team has extra PhDs and you want to pay them to do “research” it might work.

Not understanding what the benefit to the taxpayer is for this, when right now plenty of entrepreneurs willingly take on these startup costs themselves?

Huge benefits: Increase competition, overthrow incumbents, equip populace with basic skills and manufacturing capacity in case of when shit hits the fan, cheaper parts. Downsides I can think of: Exploitation of the program through various means by bad actors. It is no different than SBA low interest loans, just instead of capital, you get machines for specific purpose. Another one is injection molding, the entire industry has been shipped overseas. IM is fundamental to producing parts in large quantities and the dark art of making molds is almost extinct in USA.

I urge everyone to study WWII history. Overnight, they converted button/zip manufacturers to making carbureator parts for Airplanes. Literally, overnight. At 8pm, they were producing mother of pearl buttons. By noon next day, they were making first batch of pins for the deflector plate.

Today's generation has no clue what happens in trying times. They need to study history to see what really happened, almost overnight.

> I urge everyone to study WWII history

I read a lot of WW2 history, but not about the manufacturing part. Any good books you’d recommend?

Freedom’s Forge is one I’d recommend, I started reading it and couldn’t put it down until the end.

Your reply in no way addresses my question...

Why not, as a taxpayer, my interest is in defense of the nation and getting more “bang for the buck” so to speak :-) instead of giant defense companies milking billable hours.

Yes it does, at length

No, it doesn't.

I asked what the benefit would be of funding private enterprises that private enterprises are already willing to fund. And he provided a nonsensical spiel about WW2-era policies without explaining why those policies were necessary today, given that private enterprises are already willing to spend the money to fund those activities.

His suggestion would result in massive amounts of fraud and wealthy techbros getting free toys they don't need from the U.S. government courtesy of their fellow taxpayers.

Keep the pork projects and run the investment aids as a separate program.

There is even a movie about this https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2005151/

While an awesome movie; Wardogs (actual Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz) were mostly just arms dealers not really innovative new technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efraim_Diveroli https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Packouz

Eh, I was thinking more like, "Build us a web portal for viewing the status of <random thing> and requesting more <random thing>." than, "Run guns for us cheaply."

hmm facilitating war, even if it means defence just doesn't sit quite right with me. shame we live in a world where this is even a thing

War happens when one of two nations assumes that they are more capable of winning than another.

If you stop spending in the US and assume that Russia and China will sit idly by without invading our allies, you are living in a land of fantasy.

> War happens when one of two nations assumes that they are more capable of winning than another.

That’s only part of the equation - said country needs to have a desire or need to go to war as well.

Indeed. Look at the US immediately after WW2.

Huge power imbalance between USA (sole holder of all nuclear arms), and the rest of the world.

So ... yeah, kinda proves your point.

Nuclear weapons were developed by the Soviets before the end of the 40's, so it was a very narrow window where the US was the sole holder of all nuclear arms (about five years).

Five years is an eternity though. The major factor was more likely we didn't have the capacity to produce a large number of nuclear weapons to tip the balance

> Nuclear weapons were developed by the Soviets before the end of the 40's

Developed/stolen.

It's definitely a land of fantasy today, I agree but one can always hope that maybe one day instead of killing each other we'd learn to live together and work together. Imagine how much more productive we'd be. To be honest I nearly didn't post this message because it's a bit off topic and definitely divisive. I definitely support all the brave people fighting for me to be safe because I sure as hell wouldn't feel comfortable killing someone else myself to protect my "country".

Looking at human history, that will never happen. As long as there is scarcity in the world, and as long as sovereign states exist, geopolitics and thus the looming threat of war will always exist.

Perhaps with that attitude. There's a lot of amazing things humans have accomplished that were once thought impossible. We are likely very, very early on in the anthropocene. Thousands of years from now I'm optimistic that the world will be a better place and that they'll look back on us as barbaric environment destroyers.

Either that, or the one-eyed cannibal mutants will keep our descendants in fattening pens.

Kumbaya, m-fer.

judging by recent political events in the UK and the US combined with the level of obesity and overconsumption in these nations I'd say we're already there

I don't buy that history is a good guide for the future here. All but the most recent history was in an era where we couldn't talk to eachother without physically travelling for weeks/months. The nature of diplomacy, politics, countries, and war have all fundamentally changed. The world has not "settled into" a new steady-state since those changes have been made (partially because significant changes are still happening).

You could reasonably extrapolate from bodies like the EU and think there is a chance we end up with a single global order that doesn't include war in the future.

That said I think you can look at the current and say with some confidence that there are at least a few wars left - there are too many current armed conflicts, and too many threats of armed conflict, to seriously believe otherwise.

> You could reasonably extrapolate from bodies like the EU and think there is a chance we end up with a single global order that doesn't include war in the future.

How, precisely, does one extrapolate from the EU (of all places) to a one world government? The variation across the world in everything from cultural and religious norms to even technical approaches to solving problems is extreme, and it has been like this since forever. The genesis of the EU seems, in my view, an evolution of American dominance of the continent after WWII. Is that what you mean? Further American influence tends to encourage (or coerce) countries into further integration?

I’d put the odds of any of that happening on a global scale at approximately zero, because there actually have been globe spanning empires in the past (multiple iterations, in point of fact), and they all collapsed or shed their empires when it became clear ruling it was no longer in the interest of the Sovereign or the Subjects.

Who said anything about an empire? That is obviously not going to work and is not what the EU is.

The EU is far from perfect but is an early iteration of a workable model. I can’t see this happening even in somewhere with a pretty similar societal model as the US currently as the political siuation is so polarised.

That would require the introduction of negative interest on cash and land value taxes including a citizen's dividend.

This makes no sense. Using this logic, why don’t more countries attack, say Costa Rica, which doesn’t even have a military?

I think the OP probably doesn’t have a problem with actual defense projects, but if you’ve been paying any attention over the last 70 years, you will know that the US has attacked many countries under the guise of “defense”.

Because Costa Rica has agreed to act as a client state of the US and is protected as long as they do what the US government says.

> Using this logic, why don’t more countries attack, say Costa Rica, which doesn’t even have a military?

You might want to read up on the "Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance". Essentially, "the rest of the Americas".

That mostly works because the set of potential aggressors is small. (Nicaragua and Panama). OK, fine, the US might want to, but they're close enough partners that they don't need to.

> they're close enough partners that they don't need to

I think that might be the crux of what GP was getting at. There's more to it than the ability to win (and in a hopeful dreamy world, I'd wish we can all get to the state where collaboration is always the obvious better choice, but that's obviously at least a few hundred years off... something to strive for, though)

To the US, "winning" is basically defined as having access to local resources (including workers) at market rates without the responsibility of governing.

AKA -- free trade. Global free trade exists because the US wants it to. In that sense, it's currently winning/won. The size of the US military and economy (and it's close allies) are largely what enforces that world order.

Personally, I think it's better than the old model of imperialism (it's certainly way less violent and has rapidly increased living standards across the globe). But it's still a case of the big powerful countries enforcing their will on smaller countries.

Free trade lives on the back of enormous military spending. Particularly commercial shipping lanes are protected by the power of the US Navy.

The past few years have seem drastically reduced US Naval spending, particularly on the protection of commercial shipping (the shipping and military news sites are almost ready to agree that the US Navy has abandoned this part of the mission entirely). Under Obama's administration we balked at protecting the commercial fishing rights of our allies in the Philippines and it's expected that this kind of policy in reaction to Chinese aggression in SEA will continue.

Then COVID hit us and we might actually see a real unravelling or the last 60 years of global economic policy.

This means that we should probably expect more conflict rather than less.

> why don’t more countries attack, say Costa Rica, which doesn’t even have a military?

Because of the Monroe Doctrine [1], which has been applied in some form or another for the past couple of hundred years.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine

> "This makes no sense. Using this logic" ...

I was almost-directly quoting the co-founder of Anduril.

This is a hippie ideology that seems to only be held by people who live in secure circumstances that they take for granted and are oblivious to what it costs other people to create.

Hippies were the children of WW2 vets and were an entire generation who seemingly failed to understand that the world they lived in was forged at great personal cost by the previous generation and the anvil upon which it was forged was The Great Depression and WW2. The Hippie antiwar stance was like the collective voice of the subconscious of the previous generation that was deeply scarred by WW2 and wanted to just fight no more forever.

My country was actually raped, pillaged and involuntarily ruled by the British for a very long time. I am no child of a WW2 vet. There is a world outside of the United States of America. Please take your derogatory chat elsewhere. In another comment in this thread I pay respect to those that have fought in wars. You are reading too much (or perhaps too little) into my original comment and combining that with small minded pessimism.

I wasn't suggesting you were the child of a WW2 vet. Just disagreeing with the idea posited and doing my best to explain my reasons why, which is always a risky exercise on the internet.

Have a good day.

Perhaps my reply was a bit too defensive - I’ll use the excuse that it’s uncharacteristically hot where I am and I can’t sleep. I do feel like you were being derogatory in your labelling of this as a Hippie ideology which I still think isn’t quite fair since you go on to generalise this negatively. I’m definitely aware that there have been many sacrifices made by older generations for the younger generations to live better lives - yet I do think that we can all do better at trying to build a world where we wouldn’t need as much conflict to make the world a better place for future generations.

Have a good day, too, stranger.

FWIW, I am the child of a WW2 vet and also a former military wife. People who know me well have described me as a pro military hippie tree hugger.

It is my understanding that Shaolin priests believe "A man of peace must be strong" and both willing and able to defend his views in a fight to the death.

I hope you get some sleep. Stay hydrated.

Ah, the shape of hackernews flamewars. So refreshing ;)

"man of peace" is a hell of a way to describe a government that completely destroys and destabilizes nations on the other side of the world.

It's a shame you feel so dismissive toward people who prefer peace. The world would be a much better place if people didn't feel like it was ok to take what they want from others by force, or if people didn't follow ideologies that make them want to attack other people.

I'm not the person you're replying to, but I feel like you've put many words into their mouth that may not have been there. It's perfectly reasonable to acknowledge that the current world order was built on the back of centuries (millennia, really) of aggression and violence, while still wishing it did not have to be that way -- or at least hoping the future could hold something better. I don't think that's naive, as long as we continue to make choices that recognize the actual state of the world, while still holding our hopes dear.

I, too, would not feel ok starting a company whose sole or primary purpose was to build for the military. Fortunately we live in a world where many, many people can choose not to fuel the military industrial complex without damaging our countries' preparedness for the wars they might need to fight, as there will always be others who ok with this line of work.

>even if it means defence

Can you elaborate on why you feel uncomfortable with the idea of defense? Related[0]

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_operations_other_than...

As a US citizen in a place that's more or less evenly red/blue split, and given the trajectory of US politics lately, I'm worried that if I help improve US military technology, it will later be used against me or my neighbors.

Even if the current posture for whatever nation is predominately that of defense, you have no idea what is going to happen in the next few years geopolitically, or even just when your country has new leadership. The defensive capabilities you help build today could easily be used for offense tomorrow.

We're gonna have a global hegemon, that's just how 21st-century geopolitics is, and I'd certainly rather it be USA than PRC.

Lesser of two evils I guess.

> hmm facilitating war, even if it means defence just doesn't sit quite right with me. shame we live in a world where this is even a thing

I don't know what this is supposed to even mean. Do you mean "it's a shame to live in a world where defence is necessary" or "it's a shame to live in a world where aggressors face defence"?

Everywhere you look around the world right now there is a money making machine. Imo more and more companies start choosing non ethical ways to earn currency. There hasn't been many sacred things in world nor lately nor ever..

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

We live in dangerous times, with multiple situations that can devolve into all-out wars very VERY quickly, and as Ukraine has shown it is extremely wise to prepare:

- obviously, everyone with a border to Russia has to fear invading orcs. Moldavia and the Baltic nations are at particular threat, given the speeches by Russian officials and think-tank representatives that suggest Russia wants to build back its Russian Empire glory days. Additionally, everyone is at threat from Russian cyber actors and Russian-backed separatist and far-right organizations.

- China has not only the Taiwan question, but also ongoing border skirmishes with India and resource-grabbing operations in the entire Pacific - hell they have been caught illegally fishing in waters as far away as Africa [1]. The risk of Chinese cyber attacks is just as high as Russia, although China seems to focus more on industrial espionage for now.

- The entire situation around Israel and Iran is highly volatile. Israel routinely strikes against targets both in Iran and Syria, and at least for the latter Putin has pretty much clarified that they won't keep looking away for much longer. And everyone in the region is worried about Iran, to the tune that it's likely that the idea of a "middle Eastern NATO" is already reality in secret.

- Almost all of Africa is under threat from internal conflict, both ongoing and future. Dictatorships of various kinds, border fights, civil wars, religious wars - name your idea of conflict cause and you will find it in Africa somewhere. Add to that economic insecurity and pressure from the effects of climate change, and the entire continent is an explosion just waiting to happen. The US doesn't have to take care much, but Europe will have to deal with a lot of refugees sooner or later (and to make it worse, we still haven't decided on how to deal with refugees in a way that doesn't threaten to destabilize our interior politics and complies with the ideals laid down in various international treaties).

- Half of South America is a similar bomb waiting to explode. Failed states (Venezuela), narco states (Mexico), states collapsing to gang warfare (Haiti), and the open possibility that it might need world-wide military intervention to stop Brazil from burning down the Amazon rainforest.

[1] https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/gambia-chinas-trawler-fischen...

Yeah agreed. It's a shame though isn't it. Imagine a world where hundreds of billions of US defense spending could go into public services like free healthcare.

The problem isn't defense spending, the problem is resource misallocation, fraud and waste. The US is at the top of the healthcare expenditure per capita comparison by far [1] - there is enough money "in the system", it just ends up at the completely wrong places.

The US spends almost double as much money per citizen as countries as Germany, and yet, the quality of healthcare and accessibility are so much better here than the horror stories that regularly pop up here or on Reddit. Not to say our system is perfect - it's far from what I would consider to be decent - but the objective measurements of how the US' health care system performs are speaking clear and loud [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...

[2] https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2...

Sure, but just consider how many billions (trillions when we consider global spending?) of dollars are spent on either ways to kill other humans, or ways to defend from other people killing humans. What an amazing civilization we might be able to be, hundreds of years beyond our current level, if we could put that money toward literally anything else.

Yes, the grandparent mentioned health care, but there's a lot more that's possible. And hell, even if no one fixed the health care system in the US such that spending could go down to reasonable levels, I'd still imagine we could have free -- if expensive -- health care for all if we didn't have to allocate so much money to the military.

But that's not the world we live in; military preparedness is an absolute necessity.

Indeed, I agree with you on this and also read this report recently. But I think we're going down a bit of a rabbit hole here. My initial post was merely a comment on the unfortunate human condition currently, with the undertone of my desire that it shouldn't be this way.

Every institution with a big enough research budget gives SBIR grants. I got money from NASA last year (project didn’t work out, unfortunately).

Hi, if it's not too much to ask, could you please post some direct links for the open contracts for small businesses? I am merely curious but others might find those more useful.

On the SAM site above you can do an advanced filter for small business set aside and leave the search string empty. Not in this space so someone correct me if this is not what it means.

Former DoD contract specialist here, Sam.gov is the correct jumping off point for both information on how the process works and for where to find opportunities. The small business set aside is very important, since the regulations require that small businesses be considered to the maximum amount practicable, before larger companies can even be considered (Federal Prison Industries gets first dibs though). Veteran, woman, and minority owned businesses also get higher precedence, and those qualifiers can stack up - a minority woman veteran owned small business is golden, assuming the company can actually bid and perform properly. There are some other areas, such as HUBzone/economically disadvantaged areas that are also considered, but that's better to learn about direct from the information on Sam.gov than from a HN post.

It is a daunting task to register and follow the procedures, and you must be very attentive to detail as a small business owner; however, there are a ton of resources from the Small Business Administration to assist. Don't hesitate to contact them. Be persistent, patient, and proactive.

It used to be much harder than it is today, which is why it might seem to most people that federal contracting is a corrupt good ol' boy network; newcomers simply didn't follow the instructions right, due to complexity and/or confusion. Today though, it's a perfect time to get in the door.

Note that the "minority veteran woman" thing can be gamed a bit (and is) - I know of a few small businesses that are officially owned by the spouse of the actual leader so that they can qualify higher.

So even if your spouse doesn't check all three boxes, having the company officially be owned by your wife can help.

There is a bit more to the requirement than the company being owned by a woman, namely the requirements for women to be in control of the day to day operations of the business.

It is a similar requirement for veteran owned small businesses and I imagine “gaming” this would be tantamount to fraud.

About as far as I’ve seen be acceptable for “gaming” things is to use a joint venture that is 51% owned/controlled by whatever interest group (e.g., veteran, women, disadvantaged, all of the above, etc.).

Not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s not a common occurrence from my experience (15+ years active duty, as government employee, and working for a contractor on the actual contract/BD side).

Yeah, see my other comment here, but you make a good point about the definition of "owned" - it can't just be a name, it has to be a legally binding level of control over the operation s and finances. Unfortunately there's not really any standard metric for that which is enforceable.

Claiming a preference can be fraud, and is often abused, but... in reality, nobody's really checking unless there's a justifiable reason to. Not that I'm endorsing such fraud, and you're right, 51% is usually the safe way to go, but many LLC type setups don't have any easy way to help determine that. It's really quite time consuming and intrusive to determine "control" as the person writing or signing the contract. It's very much based on the assumption of honesty, unless there's some clear indication otherwise (and yes, due diligence is performed and documented, at least to some extent - it isn't just a Google search for "companies that sell widgets near me").

For an extreme example, I won't know that a company is a sweatshop using undocumented drug addicted children if their representations and warranties documentation says they don't.

Of course, and you are right on many/most accounts.

However, it is worth mentioning that it is definitely a dangerous game to play, even if the government doesn’t do anything.

Government contracting world is pretty cut throat and all it takes is a competitor, a partner, or an employee catching wind of the foul play and you make your company pretty vulnerable to a few things:

1) extortion for work share (e.g., a partner company threatening to out you to the contracting officer if they don’t give more work share % or some other form of monetary compensation)

2) A competitor contesting the contract award due to the awarded company not meeting the set aside requirements. This can be very costly and lead to the government being forced to look into things more thoroughly. It’s also public record and could seriously damage a company’s reputation in perpetuity.

3) A company employee filing a qui tam suit under the False Claims Act. This can lead to at best, a costly settlement, and at worse, repaying the government even after the work has already been performed.

It’s definitely not a route I recommend taking!

Oh yeah, if someone else catches wind and argues, you're screwed as a contractor unless you can back it all up well. This is the dark side, the crab bucket, which often results in "the big guys" getting the contract in the end.

One simple example is a time I was trying to by doors. Simple doors, no special requirements, just doors, materials and installation, with knobs requiring a keyed access. The chosen provider bid properly, gave their description of key control and associated maintenance ("who has keys and what happens if we lose the keys"). Small business, local, etc. won the award. Competitor had a fit and submitted (after award) significant proof that the winning bidder was falsifying their minority owned status and had changed their business name several times to avoid previous poor past performance marks. TLDR the complainant was right, and eventually won the award.

It doesn't take a lot to get ruined, so please, just be honest. If you aren't, someone will know.

Disgruntled employees and competitors can do that regardless of whether or not it is true.

Yep that's almost standard practice by now, so there's lots of competition in that space. And most of the time you (the person researching/drafting/approving the contract) can't really verify it. For me I didn't mind, since it's on them if they committed fraud, not me. Plenty times I would ask to speak to the owner and find out it was "co-owned" with the wife's name on the business license to get woman-owned, and the husband's name (or wife's name, in many cases) to get veteran-owned. Hey, fine with me. Mostly all I wanted was that the work was to spec and delivered on time. If you can game the system without sacrificing legality or quality, go for it!

sbir.gov

While most local governments will post a Request for Quote list, and this often includes IT related services. I disagree this is the good choice for a first business project, as missing a deadline can incur egregious fines.

Local specialized custom hr/tax/legal/retail/city software is always popular, as it is region specific and constantly changing. ;)

Defense money is not worth the ethics

That username...

This is basically the origin of the M16 rifle, in its original incarnation as the 7.62mm chambered AR-10. The original prototypes were designed and built by Eugene Stoner and half a dozen other people in basically a garage.

> The Air Force has even opened its own venture capital arm and is actively investing in small businesses.

In-Q-Tel is the VC arm of the CIA. I've never directly done a deal with them but the employees I've met seem really nice and helpful

I just finished Dan Carlin's Hardcore History episode series titled "Supernova in the East". It details the context and history around Japanese involvement in World War 2.

It was absolutely fascinating. I highly recommend giving it a listen, even to people who think they aren't interested in war history.

The ASTRO America and Additive Manufacturing programs are great examples of this evolution, with 5 major Department of Defense contractors committed to sourcing 3D-printed parts from domestic suppliers.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

Shameless plug - come work for us at Anduril, we're steadily hiring. It's been the best job I've ever had.

> I think Anduril is a great example of the possibilities in the "new" defense space.

With "Anduril," are you referring to Toykeeper's (technically deprecated) LED driver (flashlight, torch) interface? If not, then what? If so, then please give me some idea how a flashlight interface may be employed in national defense. Thanks.

I think by Anduril, the parent meant Anduril Industries, founded by Palmer Luckey (formerly of Oculus), which is producing drones

https://www.anduril.com/

I’m pretty sure they’re referring to the defense contractor named Anduril[1].

1: https://www.anduril.com/

Can we not do this sort of thing here? Yes, I get that everyone has not heard of every single company in the world, but a quick web search for "anduril defense" or "anduril company" can solve that particular issue. There's no need to pedantically feign annoyance that someone used a term you aren't familiar with and need to do the most trivial of research.

> Can we not do this sort of thing here?

Can we please not do this sort of thing here?!? HN has mods, and I'm sure everyone would appreciate if you didn't try to do their jobs for them. Thank you.

> but a quick web search for "anduril defense" or "anduril company"

OP gave no hint that it was a company or had anything to do with defense, and was talking about innovation. I'm not going to defend my ignorance, but I'm also not going to apologize for asking for clarification, not will I change my posting behavior based on your irrational sensibilities. Try to be a little tougher next time and not get so bent out of shape by an innocent question.

What type of issues are involved when you don’t deliver to the government on time?

Other poster summed it up nicely, as there's a range of remedies from fees to lowering the payment you get to investigation to prison, but by far the most significant impact is this key metric:

Past Performance.

You can probably get away with screwing over the government once, maybe even twice. But good luck once you're legally and nationally blacklisted.

You might get paid extra to complete. Or you might get investigated by the Feds and The Congress.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules

It seems like I'm constantly hearing about large companies bidding at price x and then winning the bid, only to have the budget run over 10 times the original bid. So it seems in some cases the issue is becoming filthy rich as you rake in billions in profit from deliberately going over time and over budget.

Somewhere between late fees to congressional hearings depending on how badly things go.

sssssjhhhhh, the next rfp for afwerx closes in August:p

Link to the list.

I used to be the education director at a makerspace and now run a 3D printing company selling small plastic parts and teaching entrepreneurs how to start small manufacturing businesses at home.

Few thoughts:

- Focus on your hobbies and other industries you know well. What problems exist? Where can you make things better? Are there problems people mention over and over again?

- CAD modeling is often THE fundamental skill needed for people to bring their ideas to market. You can make CAD models that look almost real using software you can get for free. This allows you to work backwards, first determining if there's a market, and also working out many of the design flaws before making something

If you're just excited to make stuff, and want to get your hands on something, you can do all kinds of things in a tight space.

- 3D printers are small and provide many automated opportunities - Laser cutters are dead simple to set up and use to make real products and are easy to automate. - CNC machines can be had for under 5k and are super powerful - Portable MIG welders have a small footprint and welding tends to be in high demand - Leather working tends to be high perceived value though automation is limited - Soldering and electronics repair requires little space but again, automation is limited

I've got loads of other ideas too but I'm guessing that's good for now. My contact information is in my profile if you'd like to talk more.

For CAD modeling, what software do you suggest for a beginner?

Onshape (onshape.com) is generally a good starting point - its cloud based, so the usual PC performance requirement issues don't apply. Free accounts require you to have publicly viewable documents, so if you're working on something for profit, you might want to splurge for the paid version after you get up to speed.

I’m a big fan of Fusion360. It’s easy enough to learn, full of online resources, and is free for tue first year. It’s also powerful enough to do machining (CAM), which is incredibly useful for manufacturing and scaling down the line.

CNC machines for under $5k? Where might we find some of these?

If you’re not interested in DIY shapeoko and x-carve are options well under $5k as well.

I second the MPCNC recommendation. Though if your goal is production and not tinkering with a CNC machine, it may not be the best fit.

For something that isn't a desktop toy, under $5k might be a bit of a stretch but it shouldn't be too hard to find a used CNC mill for well under 10k if you're willing to wait around for a deal. Of course when you factor in shipping and tools that's probably going to add a few thousand as well. Further if you don't know what you're looking at, you run the risk of buying something with a bent frame or some damage that'll cost more to repair than it's worth. I'd recommend anyone starting out without much prior experience to suck it up and go for an entry level model from a company like Tormach, it'll further add to your cost, probably pushing you beyond 30 when all's said and done, but with financing that might still be easier on the wallet than 10-15k upfront, and you'll know it works.

MPCNC and friends

Wow, TIL — homemade CNC for under $500! The same project also covers homemade 3d printers.

Are there any other projects similar to this, making normally-expensive pieces of equipment approachable for hobbyists?

PrintNC is the next step up from MPCNC. It still needs some 3D printed parts but is mostly locally-sourced steel profile and electronics bought from Alibaba: https://wiki.printnc.info/. Last time I looked the parts cost circa $1000 but that was a few years ago and I expect inflation has probably doubled that.

I started making jet ski tread mats out of astro turf in my garage last year. Dead simple to cut, margin is super high ($60 for a standard set of three on ~$8 worth of material), and time spent per unit from roll to package is something like 15-20 minutes. It was fun and made about $30k over the summer months but I stopped when I moved back to the west coast.

I could have handled the whole operation in a spare bedroom if I didn't have a garage, and there are plenty of areas where I could have dropped the time required or the cost. I never bought the turf in bulk and I used household scissors to cut from a template so buying a roll and cutting with something more effective may have netted me more. Niche leisure products in spend-y verticals typically do well.

My buddy did something similar.

He lived near a town where a mine had shut down a few years earlier. Him and his buddy went out and found a ton of heavy duty, industrial conveyor belts. They took as much as their two trucks could haul. Went back and cut them into lengths suitable for truck beds. Sold them at $100 a pop for any truck. Same thing. They'd just told the customer to measure their bed and they'd cut them to fit.

Not sure how much they made, but the rubber was like an inch thick, heavy enough to stay in place without any glue or tie downs and the rubber was really grippy on the one side. It was prefect for what they did with it. You could put a tool box smack in the middle of the bed it wouldn't move an inch on that rubber.

I've always wondered if you could do something similar with wholesale conveyor mats these days or if this was just a "right place, right time" kind of a deal for my friend.

"Found" a ton of heavy duty, industrial conveyor belts.

On my way to the rust belt with a hackszall right now.

Might as well steal some copper while you're at it

It's not stealing if it "fell off the back of the truck"...

Out of curiosity, how did you determine which skis you'd make mats for? Did you have to generate your own templates? Also, where did you sell?

My first prototype was for my own ('98 Kawasaki STX900) so I just asked if anyone was interested buying a set in a Kawasaki forum I frequented heavily. When custom orders started coming in I just asked for a picture of their current footwell/tread mat and cross-referenced measurements online. I erred on the side of leaving some models larger so the customer could trim it on their end, but the majority follow a really general form.

I sold about 70 through the forums, 300 from word of mouth, and another 250 on eBay. They make 90's-era skis really lean into that Dixie-cup aesthetic and they work surprisingly well, so a customer's buddy or dock neighbor would ask and I'd catch a referral that way. I think I priced them just right too.

Thanks for sharing! One last question. How did the astro-turf compare as a slip-free material compared to more conventional materials?

Surprisingly well, actually. The traction material I removed from my 24-year-old ski was some sort of neoprene-like foam rubber and worked fine despite being original equipment. Each individual astroturf blade has less grip compared to the rubber, but exponentially more surface area; your feet and toes almost sink into the grass instead of resting on top of a rubber mat that's typically covered in water. The benefits are particularly noticeable when leaning into the curves at higher speeds or just hooning it in general.

Because the turf is a highly-textured surface, there's far less tendency for your feet to slip in any direction when the mat is waterlogged and/or during high lateral-g maneuvering, while still retaining the "self-cleaning" characteristics of the foam rubber. The backing surface of the turf is very similar to the original rubber, just arranged in a square cell pattern. Slap some contact cement in the footwells and you've got a replacement that (IMO) exceeds the traction of the OEM mats and looks 100x cooler. I've been running them on my ski for two years now and have yet to see a blade come off after a ride, no matter how hard I push it.

Should have patented in and went on shark tank or something then sell it off and retire

Okay, so I'm doing it wrong. Interesting story!

I don't know what you can do in your garage, but in my two car garage I can do:

  * Basic blacksmithing (small furnace & anvil)
  * Woodwork using power tools & manual tools (table saw, miter saw, router table, band saw, planer, etc)
  * Metal working
  * Ceramics casting
  * Jewelry making
  * 3D printing (resin and reel)
  * Laser cutting (48 x 24)
  * Vacuum forming
  * Robotics
  * Paint spraying (just bought a five stage paint blower)
  * CNC (small format, would like to add a 5-axis eventually)
  * Shoot build videos
  * Electronics design & diagnostics (just finished my new ESD workbench with component storage)
  * Laundry
  * Mini-CostCo with freezer section

Will be adding a 48x48 CNC in the coming weeks, once I finish some more cabinets

What I cannot do in my garage:

  * Park a car
  * Find enough time to do what I want

If you've got a 4x8 CNC and/or large format laser cutter, you pretty much have a small business at that point. It is then up to you how you monetize it.

That's not a garage, that's better equipped than many hacker spaces where people pool money to finance shared equipment. This is not like an ordinary thing everyone can just do if they want to, at least not if it's not part of a business plan to manufacture a particular thing with it.

my garage looks like yours. noice.

I used to work for a manufacturing company that started out as a married couple making Christmas ornaments with a $2000 laser cutter/engraver.

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.

> The difficulty is not in determining what's possible but rather what's profitable.

If you troll Etsy or eBay or places like that, you'll quickly begin to realize the quantity of things that are obviously made on a CNC milling machine, or a laser cutter, etc.

The customizability can be the selling point - and if you can fit everything on a trailer, you can even haul it to state fairs, town fun fests, etc.

Think those fancy wood name plates you can buy at Disneyland kind of thing. But the big advantage can be you are local instead of some online thing.

The legality should interest you. I saw someone have their small business shut down by police because they were running it out of their basement. It wasn't the noise or pollution (which realistically are the nuisances you're going to be inflicting on neighbors) but the excess cars parked and delivery trucks coming and going down the street. One neighbor ratted them out.

The problem with the space isn't really the capital but noise abatement, waste disposal, and inventory. The ideal product would be quiet to make, not use tough chemicals to dispose, and materials you can buy in bulk and small enough not to take up a ton of space in the worksite.

The way I read it OP isn't saying they are going to ignore legal issues, but that they are looking for ideas and don't want to get into the weeds of legal issues for the moment.

I assume they intend to narrow down ideas based on their specific situation.

In reviewing neighborhood covenants whilst searching for a new home, I was surprised to see some of them make explicit the fact that running a business in your home is allowed, provided that it doesn't generate significant traffic/parking.

Gotta have a carve-out for the folks participating in an MLM scheme out of their house. They're quite popular.

Of course it also benefits remote tech workers who have an LLC or whatever. And handymen, et c.

There's also the angle of "we told you what kind of harmless businesses you can have, and automotive repair isn't on the list, so you can't do that even though the rules don't explicitly say so".

This is almost always exactly what it's for, and those with ears to hear can use it to their advantage.

The key is to fly under the radar and not cause problems.

The key is to never buy a house in an HOA, and write your lawmakers to pass laws to limit their power as much as possible.

I never really understood the idea of a HOA for single-family homes, or even duplexes. It makes sense if you have a condo building, even with a small number of units, since you'll invariably have shared space that needs to be cared for.

I've seen some large HOAs that cover lots of homes where they provide free or discounted community services, like a gym, pool, tennis courts, etc. But it seems silly to structure that as a HOA rather than some sort of voluntary community organization. Or just do it more traditionally and charge membership or use fees to use the amenities. If that's not financially feasible, then perhaps there aren't enough people who actually want them, and so maybe they shouldn't exist.

And I get that many homeowners want to control their neighbors in order to keep the neighborhood frozen in some particular state, but it's... pretty gross. I hear the line "protecting home values" trotted out all the time, but that just feels like an excuse for busybodies who want to control others' lives. Things like not allowing a garage-based business that produces lots of noise and pollution should just be covered by regular zoning laws.

And piano teachers

I suspect that is because home based businesses are explicitly protected in many localities in the US. AKA, the HOA couldn't actually tell you that you couldn't do it if they wanted to.

I actually got something along these lines into my deed--which was for a software business before that was pretty normal and not the sort of thing even worth mentioning.

Yeah it has been weird to me how many HOAs explicitly call out hairdresser as something you can’t do from home.

This is indeed the case in my HOA as well and I was (pleasantly) surprised to see it codified as such.

There are also zones for businesses that do or do not allow living there.

>The legality should interest you. I saw someone have their small business shut down by police because they were running it out of their basement. It wasn't the noise or pollution (which realistically are the nuisances you're going to be inflicting on neighbors) but the excess cars parked and delivery trucks coming and going down the street. One neighbor ratted them out.

Nobody is checking what's going on in garages and basements in Detroit and the police in that kind of place would laugh off a call like that. Not having snooty busybody neighbors (an impossibility in most of the "nice neighborhoods" and "good school districts" that HNers generally buy into) seems to matter more than legality in practice. Nobody else cares if you're legal as long as you're reasonable.

My next house is going to be so far from my neighbors that if they were complaining about noise from my basement they would be admitting to trespassing.

I don't think "there are some place where law enforcement doesn't give a shit" is a good reason to just not care about legality. At the very least, it would behoove someone living in a place Detroit to at least think about it -- and perhaps decide "nah, no one is going to bother me" -- before starting something.

I'm curious, what legal issues are we talking about here? What is not legal about running a business out of one's basement, and what law were they "ratted out" for breaking?

Not who you're replying to, but I would imagine its an issue of registry and/or zoning depending on the type of business (and maybe tax stuff too). I'm from Australia so probably pretty different laws, but here at least you have to register the businesses address of operations and a part of that process is identifying your 'primary operation or activity', ie what the business does, some operations will be excluded from being conducted in residentially zoned areas regardless (large scale manufacturing, waste disposal & recycling, etc) but most trades will be permitted, I know a number of car mechanics that operate largely from home.

Most local governments have zoning restrictions that dictate what kind of structures can be built and limit what activities can be done in an area. Typically there are certain activities permitted as a right, some that require special approval, and others that are just flat out banned. The single family dteched housing zones where most garages are located tend to be the most restrictive zones with regards to commercial activity. Typically if you violate a zoning law you'll get some standard number of days to comply or you'll get hit with a large fine.

You need a "Home Occupation Permit". The details will vary by municipality, but here are the requirements for Sacramento CA, just to pick a random example: https://www.cityofsacramento.org/-/media/Corporate/Files/EDD...

"The following occupations are eligible for a Home Occupation Permit subject to restrictions discussed in the next section. If the occupation is followed by an asterisk, the use is also subject to special conditions also discussed below. Eligible home occupations are:

1. General office uses, such as accountant, administrative assistant, answering service, appraiser, architect, attorney, bookkeeper, broker or agent (real estate, insurance, etc.), counselor, consultant, drafting service, engineer, interior decorator, secretarial service, word processing service, and other office uses whose characteristics are substantially similar to those listed.

2. Commission merchant, direct sale product distribution, internet, or mail order business.

3. Dressmaker, tailor, fashion designer.

4. Mobile vehicle glass installation and mobile vehicle detailing.*

5. Pet services, such as pet sitting, pet grooming, pet training, and veterinarian care.*

6. Office for contractor, handyperson, janitorial service, landscape contractor, gardening service.*

7. Artist.

8. Tutoring.*

9. Small equipment, appliance, and computer assembly, repair, or reconstruction.*

10. Healing arts professional, including physician, surgeon, chiropractor, physical therapist, acupuncturist, and somatic practitioner.*

11. Hair stylist, barber, and manicurist.

12. Swimming instructor.*

13. Cottage food operation as defined in section 113758 of the California Health and Safety Code."

=================

I saw somebody get dinged for this once for running a Twitch stream out of their garage and accepting donations, one of the only times I've seen the modern "contractor" trend work out in anyone's favor:

- https://nitter.net/happyf333tz/status/1036846647945261056

- https://nitter.net/happyf333tz/status/1040074413599678465

Cottage food per CA [0]

[0] https://casetext.com/statute/california-codes/california-hea...

Keep in mind that most of the world and even most of the US doesn't have to deal with this level of totalitarian regulation, simply because they won't tolerate being treated like livestock or prisoners.

compressed gas storage, flammables, chemical storage, hot work, etc are often governed by local law over and above needing a property zoned for light industry.

And if you run into any problems with the above that damages the property or other properties, you will be uninsured, and/or sued (and no liability cover).

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 entire product and process end-to-end.

Just need to find your niche.

How does making your own product on a home 3D printer compare to the cost per unit of having something like Shapeways or similar do it? Out of curiosity, I took my design for a Dremel gig that is about 4 - 5 hours of total printing time (biggest part is 3 hours, and several 1/2 hour pieces), and a single unit cost from an online quote was roughly $35. Plus there is a good selection of materials, including metal options (much more expensive though), but biggest advantage would be consistency of builds (I still find 3D printing at home to be finicky at best).

The material costs for 3D printing are really small. A 1kg spool of PLA is in the order of 20-30 USD, and most 3D prints have only a small amount of infill, so they're surprisingly light for their volume.

For example, I designed a set of sprockets to drive my blinds, and the total weight of the sprockets to drive 3 sets of blinds is less than 15 grams of plastic. This goose-shaped figurine is about 35g of plastic: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3906053

The labor costs aren't, however. I've helped maintain various maker spaces. Most 3D printers were nightmares that were constantly breaking down. The most reliable we've found have been the Prusas, and even they require regular work. We have 4 at the moment, and at any given time at least 1 is usually down for some reason or other.

For my application, it's much cheaper and I have the added flexibility of being able to adjust my design and rapdily prototype should the other components need to change due to unavailability -- I have already had to do this.

For something that costs me $0.17 at home, Etsy people want to charge upwards of $4 plus shipping and Shapeways or the like are $20+.

I’m very intrigued, as I have a couple ideas for things I could manufacture with my 3D printer + some custom electronics too, but have never invested the time into. Could you by any chance please share what you’re making? Or just a rough idea if you want to protect your niche? Thanks

I sell the only "generic" version of an item that is both costly in money and time to obtain.

Imagine you had a bunch of arcade machines with a proprietary button to turn each on. You can buy the button, but the manufacturer requires their service people physically install and bind it your arcade. Most operators want multiple buttons cause they always break, but they also don't want to deal with downtime during replacement.

I sell the button for 1/3 of the cost with modifications allowing anyone to install it.

Thanks for explaining! That indeed sounds like quite a niche. Can I trouble you to ask how you discovered this niche? Is it very difficult to interface to these propriety systems?

I saw the need after wanting something similar, but nobody was offering it. Guess I have some cross-domain knowledge to know it was possible to do.

For me, reverse engineering it was easy, the most difficult part was/is sourcing electronics with custom specs.

This is basically how Lulzbot started: 3d printing parts for 3d printers. I know at one point they were experimenting with making molds and pouring parts, I think out of resin. But when I toured their new facility a few years later, they had a giant farm of 3D printers, so I gather that didn't work out.

I have since gotten into 3d printing and have printed molds and poured silicone with good luck. Some of that silicone has been the final part, some were then used as molds for pouring resin in. I've even added glass fiber to some of that resin before pouring to make some pretty sturdy parts.

Maybe some of the parts you are 3d printing now could be done with resin? Bondo makes a product with glass fiber in it, but most of the parts I'm doing are fairly small, and the bondo has long fibers in it, when I make my own fibers, I just cut fiberglass and can make it whatever length fiber I want.

Thanks for this suggestion!

I have looked at SLA printing and "bench/desktop" injections molding setups like MicroMolder, but I've ruled those out cause I don't have enough ventilation or appropriate space for handling resin -- I don't actually do this in a garage, but a spare room.

C'mon Jack, the resin fume high is like a bonus! :-)

That fiber reinforced Bondo is some pretty nasty stuff in the fume dept. If you really wanted to go that direction you could vent out a window or use some active carbon filtration I presume. But it starts adding up, depending on the quality you need you might also need a pressure/vacuum vessel as well and a pump.

I've managed without, for my micro volume of personal stuff I do.

If it's custom Guitar Hero guitars I'd like to get in touch to buy one. If not, I hope someone reading this does.

I've thought of making various custom (and ruggedized) game peripherals. The electronics and switches I could do (assuming the ICs are available), but designing housings to be 3d printed might be tricky.

For a guitar, however... possibly having the body made of wood like a real electric guitar could be a selling point.

I've always thought the way to go is take a normal controller say, and tear out the internal electronics, replace the switches if needed with stronger/better ones, and put it in a custom 3D printed housing.

There are plenty of guides for 3d printed guitars specifically, and from the perspective of someone who's never 3d printed anything they don't seem too complex. Not sure about other controllers though.

How did you discover the market for this product? Are you part of some interest-based-community whose members want/need this part?

I scratched my own itch.

I wanted the product and knew others in the industry would too. Once I was able to get it in the hands of a few operators to see and use, it started selling "organically" through word of mouth.

I know what they do. They make aftermarket attachments for simulated racing gear

How did you come to have the skills to design and build whatever it is you manufacture? I'm guessing you have a mix of mechanical and electrical background.

I always have ideas for little products (some involve electronics others not) I'd like to build, but how to go from raw idea in my head to working assembly, I'm lost on: choosing motors, control board, mechanical reliability, etc. Maybe I just need to read some ME books, but if they are like math and physics texts, there is gulf between the text how to do build something practical.

I have a background in electrical engineering, but a) it's 20 years out of date (I got the degree and immediately went into software), and b) my training was somewhat niche in that I focused on microprocessor design. So I'd never (for example) learned how to lay out a circuit board, or deal with mixed digital & analog effects (well, at least not at the scale of a PCB).

Recently I had a small project idea that involved a pretty basic PCB. I was surprised at how easy it was to teach myself board layout (using KiCAD) and several related skills. You can get one(ish)-off PCBs manufactured by PCBWay or OSH Park on the cheap. I haven't finished the project yet (supply chain issues), but I'm pretty sure it'll be successful, and fairly cheap, considering.

There are lots of resources online if you need more external help learning. Two I was pointed to (but haven't really dug into too deeply yet) are All About Circuits (https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/) and Ultimate Electronics (https://ultimateelectronicsbook.com/). For the more physical aspects, YouTube has been a great resource -- for example I needed to solder a 5mm x 5mm QFN IC to a breakout board, and didn't want to spend the money on a high-end rework station. A random video on YouTube taught me how to do it with some flux, solder paste, and a cheap hot air gun I bought on Amazon.

Next I'm going to look into getting a 3D printer, and learn how to design stuff for that. I expect the learning curve there will be higher (at least for me), but I don't see it as out of reach.

> Next I'm going to look into getting a 3D printer, and learn how to design stuff for that.

I'm in the high power rocketry hobby and a 3d printer was a game changer for me. I have a prusa i3 mk3s+ and can't recommend it enough. For software i originally started with onshape but then went to Fusion360 because that's what everyone else in the hobby uses. Learning curve is steep but there's tons and tons of good material to help you learn. My workflow is Fusion360 then PrusaSlicer then save to sdcard then print. You can really optimize further but i don't sell 3d printed parts so it's good for me.

On the other hand, i do have a big arse laser and i stood up a little website and sell a simple cutting service to my buddies in the rocketry hobby. I like my website, i have no database! I actually use some metadata features of the stripe api for my order database hah.

https://oakclifflaser.com

It's a little hyperbolic, but the idea was too good for me to ignore, so I had to do it, learning curve be damned.

I would like to hear any advice you/others have about finding a product in your niche to manufacture!

usually you find a market by scratching your own itch.

helps if you have breadth of knowledge and experience in a variety of fields also. interdisciplinary solutions still have plenty of untapped market potential

other than that there is no magic formula that i know of. its kind of one of those "if you have to ask..." type things.

To expand on this, make sure you itch like people with lots of money but no time/knowhow.

For example, hang out at small-town airports or boat harbors, or with lawyers and doctors. If you can find some small part that would help them use their boat, then $300-500 for it might not even be an extreme price especially if they see you using it first.

(This is not an argument to go buy a boat and plane).

Riders of high-end motorcycles as well. People absolutely love customising their motorcycles with things like GPS mounts, bigger/smaller windshields, auxiliary lights, footpeg extensions to make the bike more comfortable for taller/smaller riders, more comfortable seats, etc etc. The market for luggage and luggage mounts is probably quite well served, but especially for rarer or older bikes, it can be difficult to find the more obscure accessories.

An awful lot of stuff. I wouldn't even know where to begin, especially if you're willing to consider a hybrid model where some parts / sub-assemblies are manufactured elsewhere and delivered to you (for example, having PCB's produced by OSHpark or PCBway, etc.) and you do final assembly in the garage.

If it were me, I'd also be looking at scenarios that involve any kind of "thing" that I could acquire cheaply and re-purpose somehow. Making lamps out of old wine bottles, that sort of thing.

Robots, unmanned vehicles of various sorts, all sorts of small electronic gadgets, probably some auto accessories... really, the range of things you could (at least hypothetically) manufacture in a space that size is huge.

Now whether or not you could manufacture the thing at scale may be a different question. You could probably easily accommodate doing something the size of a small home appliance (think: washing machine size) if you only had to do one at a time. But doing that at scale might well require more space. So is the intent to stay in the garage and run an enduring business there, or just to ship a prototype, prove the model, and then maybe expand? Or is this purely an academic thought experiment?

I’m doing something very much like what you describe. Small footprint IoT device, we get the custom designed PCB’s shipped in and most of our BoM is generic off the shelf stuff that is already available on Alibaba/AliExpress. Our enclosure and other plastics are designed in house and injection molded in my two car garage with molds printed on a resin printer. Soldering is custom ordered overseas where possible and hand soldered when not.

The Buster Beagle was a real game changer in this space, though if your parts are really small there are other even cheaper options.

The goal is to, as you say, prove the prototype and then get a larger dedicated space. The product I have is not super niche and could theoretically grow a lot, but we are planning to be pretty adaptable by focusing a lot on COTS components, the kind that you can go onto Alibaba and find 5 factories for whatever you need.

Small batch soaps, candles, "bath oils" and such can be done with minimal capital and little regulatory oversight.

Print shop type things, especially specialized like vinyl cutting and large banners, could be a good business depending on where you're at. Might be able to buy used or lease equipment too.

Woodworking / furniture shop and / or antique furniture restoration might not be terribly capital intensive.

A friend and I manufacture a laser party light that makes your feet glow in a space smaller than most garages.

Just a 3d printer, some custom cut metal pieces, the actual electronic components and some soldering irons. [0]

[0] https://toeglo.com

Hah, that's a really cute little product :)

you know, that could be a very useful nightlight for the middle of the night when you can't see your feet, stairs, or... lego pieces.

Where do you purcahse the laser beam from

We buy them wholesale from various Chinese manufacturers. I believe the first ones were through Alibaba or Ali Express.

You're thinking of this in reverse. First find something you want to manufacture, then figure out how to build it in your garage.

Don't be the solution searching for a problem!

Prototyping can be done easily. CNC or 3D Printing? Protolabs. PCBs? Oshpark. Get a prototype made first, it is going to be a little expensive, but less than investing in a bunch of manufacturing equipment.

Isn't a job a solution to the problem of needing money?

You take stock of your skills, hit the job boards, ...

That's one kind of person. A different person sees what they want to do for their lifetime and figures out how to live off it. The problem is wanting to make art for a living and the solution is figuring out how to get paid for it.

Came here to say something similar.

First, the ask is to help find things that can make money in the garage. I think that would be like finding ‘problems’ then applying a ‘location:garage’ filter to narrow the choices down.

Then, after choosing the product, it’s to tool the garage to manufacture the ‘solution’

New framing:

the problem is "convince partner that I need a sweet shop in the garage", solution is "become entrepreneur requiring sweet shop in garage" ;)

I'm going to use this in the future.

》First find something you want to manufacture

I'd add that it's something that you want to manufacture for which there are buyers, otherwise the inventory won't go anywhere and they'll waste their investment.

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!

Do note that commercial nurseries are generally licensed and inspected by your state agriculture department or some agency.

Not spreading plant diseases around ends up being a big deal.

However, the inspection and license is not very hard or expensive.

(My dad grows and sells seedlings of a particular and somewhat obscure native fruit as a side business.)

That's a good suggestion. Check out this guy, he has a way to root ornamental shrubs in garbage bags. One could go around town with pair or pruning shears and get cuttings of many different plants and trees to root.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyXSNzywqvw

The only problem with living things though is then you have to care for them. Even if you don't feel like it that day. And if they don't sell you still have to water them or throw them out.

There are people who breed specialty plants also and make a (modest) living from their backyard. I know a retired guy who does this and sells his developed cultivars (ships once a year) on Facebook marketplace. He does like 20-30K in sales a year from his yard but it took him years of growing to start developing the cultivars.

I had an acquaintance who made a very handsome living cultivating apple tree starts. I don't know how much exactly but he lived very well.

Plus 1 on this! I use my back yard in this way, but plan to set up some indoor areas also. So far I have not been trying to sell things, just playing and seeing what works best. There are some plants that are very easy to propogate that people enjoy such as rosemary.

Or, you know, marijuana.

> ...not particularly interested in the legality of this...

A couple years ago I became quite interested in building my own grow lights for starting garden veggie seedlings. The YouTube recommendations surrounding such videos were quite interesting... It turns out another plant needs high power as well.

Selling cannbis clones and support etc could be very lucrative.

And potentially legal, depending on locale.

The issue is that business teaches people how to fish. People can take their own clones from the first clone. If you sell fancy fertilizer eventually people will realize they can get away with regular cheap dry amendments once they realize what they are actually doing with fertilizing.

Yep, you start off buying obscure soils and obsessing about ph levels and light and moisture and years later I use the cheapest 4-4-4 fertilizer I can find and water when I stick my finger in and it’s dry.

I get better product now than I used to. Mostly it’s about genetics anyway.

The number one bit of advice I give to new gardeners (my garden is pretty well developed) is ‘less is more’. Basically leave the plant alone as much as you can. Water deeply instead of frequently and use many seeds to start with whittling down to the best genetics.

For example for my 5 pumpkin plants I planted around 50 seeds from last year. Waited a couple weeks and then pulled the smaller plants. Do the same again a couple weeks later. Then when transplanting cull once more. Plant three in every hole. Two weeks later cull until there’s one plant in each spot.

Then for advanced mode you use the seeds from this selection process next year, and they get more and more adapted to your micro climate.

Is your view on this unique to marijuana or pretty much all plants? I'm looking to grow some berries but would love to avoid some rabbit holes that lead to nowhere. The 'less is more' concept is definitely appealing, but does that mean the latest wave of agtech startups optimizing every part of growth fall under the hype umbrella?

> Is your view on this unique to marijuana or pretty much all plants?

>> for my 5 pumpkin plants

Is this some sort of code-speak, or marijuana variety, or are they really just talking about pumpkins?

I’m really talking about pumpkins and gardening in general. Sorry I live in Oregon thus I don’t really think of cannabis as any different to other crop plants.

I deffo could have made that more clear though!!

I want to say something between "There's a new sucker born every day" and "In a gold rush, sell shovels" to this comment.

There will always be new customers

Here's a tour of the late Grant Imahara's workshop. He worked on robotics and, I believe, props in there?

He's got a pretty significant amount of capability -- "CNC mills, laser cutters, lathes, paints, electronics, work tables, and, of course, multiple 3D printers" -- built into a space that looks closer to a 1-car garage than a 2-car garage.

edit: here's the actual link https://youtu.be/hsCSTO8SaQU

I think that's more 4 car garage than 2 or 1 car. It also has quite a tall ceiling and industrial power and ventilation hookups.

I have a workshop/gym in my 2-car garage and his space doesn't look much bigger than mine. (It is, however, infinitely cooler than mine)

He's got the tall ceiling, yeah, but he wasn't using it in any way that I can see.

Power hookups likely wouldn't be an obstacle if one was recreating this in a residential garage. Would just need 220V for some of the machines I bet. Key here is that for Grant's line he surely you running all of the power-hungry machines at once as he was (to the best of my knowledge) working on bespoke one-off projects.

In the video, they call out that it's "about 5 or 6 hundred square feet". An average 2 car garage is ~360 square feet, so it'd definitely closer to a 3-4 car garage.

You guys have garages? That would be the #1 issue for people in my circles. I get that the thread has that as a premise, but to assume that it's larger than the size of the vehicle you need to house in it surprises me. Also, where does the vehicle go? is what I've always wondered when hearing of american garage startups.

Edit: just re-read the OP, they do mention 2-car specifically actually

Seems like you're outside the US, so I can share some fun little garage facts:

(context: I live in the american quintessential "suburbs", cul-de-sac and all.)

Around my parts, garages are ironically barely, if EVER, used for the cars! Something that surprised us when we moved here. Many houses around here are good examples of american excess; I've seen a couple houses with like between 4-6 cars(!) and all of them are just parked in the driveway (remember with all that space we also have room for like 6-8 cars in a driveway parked 2-by-2 behind each other). People just park all ("all" lol) their cars in the driveway, and then the garage is used for any number of things: - "shops" for wood/metalworking, or crafts - table/chairs for those "garage startups" - giant freezers for meats/breads/etc for larger families - massive amounts of STUFF -- I've seen way too many garages here that are just filled with hoarder-levels of STUFF. It's disturbing.

Personally, our garage is a 2-car garage, and we put our 1 car in there, and I use the rest for my little hobbyist carpentry area. Not enough space for a full workshop, but when I need more room I pull the car out to the driveway for a bit, then put things away and pull the car back in when I'm finished. That works well enough for me for now.

American suburbs are a bizarre place for sure. Hope that clears some stuff up!

At a point, machine tools need three-phase power, which may not be available in a residential area. Little hobbiest machines don't, but heavy duty commercial grade machines often do.

In the UK lots of second hand industrial equipment requires 3 phase 415v. It can cost a lot to have this installed by your power company. I used a 3 phase converter.

Link: https://youtu.be/hsCSTO8SaQU

Oh my gosh, thanks, can't believe I forgot it.

Sam Zeloof alone managed to manufacture chips with the early 1970s technology in his garage using old fab equipment bought cheap (sadly don't remember the exact budget): http://sam.zeloof.xyz/

Maybe with more people and more capital this could be scaled to something that can be sold, like replicas of classic CPUs.

That was my first thought upon reading the title, but you have ton ponder it, though. Does it fit the "reallistically" criteria? I mean, sure it's been done already so it is possible, but this is advanced work and probably not really accessible to the average hacker.

It's definitely one of the cooler ideas but there are much easier ways to make money if that's one of your primary goals.

Many small scale manufacturing suppliers operate on that scale - or at least could, with sufficient organization. And maybe fudging a bit and using the driveway as a loading dock to store materials and outgoing products.

Lathe, CNC Mill, Drill Press, Bandsaw, Bend Brake, CNC laser/plasma cutter. That'd be the basics of a fully featured metal shop. Buying used and upgrading as you bring in some revenue would keep you under your price target.

I would suggest looking at the mechanical puzzle community.

A quick look around https://puzzleparadise.net/ will reveal many people willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for bespoke homemade sequential discovery puzzles made with laser cutting, woodworking, 3D printing, CNC, mill, lathe, custom PCBs, etc.

To go further down the rabbit hole see: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j5V0nECn9hqUCmPmxPqi...

I stumbled on this place, https://puzzledabq.com/, in Albuquerque earlier this year.

Probably one of the busiest establishments in the area from what I could tell.

So the retail side is probably pretty solid right now too.

This is so cool and a niche I never knew existed, thanks for posting.

With a really good graphic/packaging designer you could make small batch, die cut and laser cut packaging. Stores flat, materials are cheap. Bring some fancy samples to farmers markets and craft fairs, pitch people who want prototype or short run packaging on Kickstarter, etc.

You'll never outcompete a large market, but for people making < 1000 of a thing, there's not a lot of options.

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.

One of my favorite ideas was told to me by my uncle who works in the die cast industry. He met a guy who made lug nuts for Semi tractor tires in his garage. One item, and he made a living off of it. I have always thought that this idea was the perfect example of how to get started in an industry. If you were ambitious you could start adding more spare parts one at a time.

To expand on this, there are entire "fan clubs" around old military trucks - for example https://www.steelsoldiers.com - so you could infiltrate said groups and find what parts are starting to become rare/hard to find NOS anymore (new old/original stock) and start making replacements.

There is a big fan club for Kubota kb250 tractors on Facebook with people making custom mods and implements. I'm sure there are lots of similar things out there

This is the way in. Garden tractor enthusiasts, VW camper van enshusiasts, vintage motorcycle enthusiasts -- they all want to customize, and will spend to get it.

A trivial electronic gadget to turn an oil cooler pump on and off is a good start. Electronic assembly isn't noisy or stinky. At most you might need to bend sheet metal for a case.

Guitar players love audio processing gadgets they can turn on and off with their toes. Make something that can be adjusted to give them a unique sound. Distortion is easy to layer on.

I think super-niche small-run hobby/lifestyle/specialty products are the big answer if you want to monetize your skills and experience.

I'm really into analog photography and I can think of several products that people (including myself) would pay for but that it's just not economically feasible for a big company to hire a bunch of people and pay them wages, health insurance, and 401ks to make, on top of the actual cost of the product. I'm looking to gradually put together a workshop to try and make some of them, and if I do them, I might as well sell them. Even if it's $100 out the door for a $5 piece of metal, there's actually a market for that in terms of hobby income, it's just not a market that will sustain full-time employees and mass production.

Between 3d printing, stamping, a CNC mill and lathe, casting, a laser cutter, and a vacuum oven, you can really do a tremendous amount of stuff in your garage, especially if you are willing to leverage these tools together. 3D print a part and then cast it in a durable metal, machine it to clean it up. CNC mill yourself a stamping die. Use the vacuum oven to cure things, or dehydrate your filament, etc. Like on paper that's pretty much a tool-and-die shop, given sufficient effort you can make things that will let you make whatever else you want - much like chemistry you're never more than a couple tools away from the thing you want, you just have to make the thing that will let you make the thing you want.

Optical lithography is not that hard either as long as you're not working at semiconductor scale. There's that kid that is making chips in his garage over in the UK or something. But you can use that as a manufacturing technique for other stuff. Or use resist etching like for PCBs.

In a lot of cases, really the only limit is when you bump into something that's restricted or too hazardous to keep around even if it's unrestricted. Like boy, mercury intensifier works great but... I like my nervous system the way it is. Even selenium intensifier or pyrocat developer are pretty yikes in terms of the MSDS, very much a "better have a fume hood" thing, or do it outside (in a daylight tank).

Incidentally, but, my most insane "I'd love to do that in my garage" is custom lenses. I know the accuracy is probably just not there compared to what you'd realistically need for good results, but it really seems like single-point diamond turning should be something that is achievable with a high-end setup (say $25k) in this era of solid CNC mill or lathe setups for half that price. Maybe it's something you could build out of a CNC setup but again, is it accurate enough to make it worth it (not sure of the tolerances required, at least 1/1000th, probably 1/10,000 is better, 1/100k or finer should do it, which I guess isn't too far out of what you can do with a lathe, it's all just end work and you have to be precisely optically centered and aligned). Coating is one where you'd need the vacuum oven for sure, assuming it wasn't too toxic (iirc coatings are fluoride based). Growing optics-grade fluorite or calcite crystals also might be possible for lens blanks (although again, maybe too nasty) - or glass casting too. You'd need an optical bench too of course.

There is definitely a market for that I think - all-fluorite lenses are excellent for wide-spectrum photography (UV to IR in the same lens without focus shift - see the Coastal Optics lenses f.ex) and people (companies) pay big bucks for those, like $50k is entry-level for something in that class if you go out and buy it new. And with single-point you can make aspheric lenses as easily as spheric, so you could do all-aspheric designs that aren't commercially viable for mass-market lenses... as well as super-high-quality repros of classic lenses that are obscure or just classics. People would pay for a neo-retro Hypergon or modern takes on sonnar/heliar/etc if you could produce good results. Or you could make tools that let you do it in the traditional fashion with spheric surfaces.

http://www.savazzi.net/photography/coastalopt_60.html

https://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkor...

http://www.company7.com/nikon/lens/0105f4.5uv.html

https://jmcscientificconsulting.com/testing/asahi-pentax-ult...

Anyway though another place where some of this ends is "too difficult to make at home"... that's actually a more interesting question in some ways, a dedicated hobbyist with tool-and-diemaker level machinist skills fluency with modern CNC and 3D printing and the techniques enabled by that, and enough knowledge of chemistry/optical/electrical/RF to get yourself in trouble, can of course make an enormous amount of stuff. But things like single-crystal turbine blades for micro-turbine designs are difficult and without the "real deal" you are leaving performance on the table. In some cases (again, things that are too toxic to handle, or illegal) you do basically hit a wall, not all projects scale down to the hobbyist level.

Similarly - I was recently looking for a replacement pivot for my mountain bike, and found a machine shop in Whistler, BC (arguably the current Mecca of mountain biking) that specializes in making upgrades for parts that regularly fail in current models, as well as specialized accessories.

https://pinnermachineshop.com/

Yeah! For photography there is SK Grimes who does the same kind of thing - they're really a make-to-order machinery shop who just happens to be involved in photography stuff. They have both "standard" stuff they do all the time, but if you have some novel idea that you really need manufactured, they'll do a one-off for you.

https://skgrimes.com/

I think specialist components for niche hobbies is a great niche generally - especially when the hobby has the potential to blow up into something bigger.

Bikepacking bags (and to some extent ultra-light hiking) are good examples that come to mind where people started things as hobby businesses in their garage and they quickly expanded because of demand.

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.

Yes, that's the hard part. Often times harder than the mfg work. I believe he took over the contract from an acquaintance.

Yeah this seems so strange a thing to do. Maybe they're personalized/ruggedized in some nice way?

Small aircraft. https://www.kitplanes.com/17-kits-for-under-25k/

Dude, yeah, fixed wing VTOL drones airframes/kits.

The margins are really high.

Black Garlic maybe? But it's energy intensive, because it needs constant high temperatures for months.

Saying this because I recently discovered it, and like it, because it's basically garlic without the 'stink', useful for spicing up many things, again without the stink. Hard to describe. Anyways, it's seen as a gourmet thing. So one maybe could make some money with it, without much volume. OTOH energy isn't getting cheaper. Dunno. See and search for yourself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_garlic

With some woodworking equipment you could make loudspeaker enclosures. Add a CNC machine and you’ll be making enclosures just as good as the big brands.

I will add that there are a lot of excellent publicly-available DIY loudspeaker designs out there. Many of which do not have readily available flat pack DIY kits.

There might be an opportunity there.

The kits are frequently sold out, so I assume the demand is decent. It could be that margins aren't great so producers aren't eager to keep stocks high, but I've never looked into it. I just know that when I want them, they're sold out.

That size and capital outlay could be the basis for a very nice custom furniture/woodworking shop; but the skills necessary would require some work to gain.

Someone is basically doing that for keyboards, though they mainly rebox/ship from China.

I know guys that make small tables in their garage and they sell for a thousand bucks each

I guess at that scale your not looking to beat anyone on price. Your going for bespoke quality, I'd say. So you want something that people pay a lot for already so you can charge more and put the word "bespoke" in front of it.

One idea I had was bicycle frames, if you know arc welding. Custom size frames or of unique design go for a lot. I guess it depends on how fiddly they get, but if you can bang out the standard fittings then the main part should be quite quick to put togther.

With a fairly basic set of woodworking tools, you can turn out high-quality cutting boards and charcuterie boards pretty easily. Advantages of these include the fact that they're easy to produce in batches and don't take up a lot of space to store (so it's straightforward to keep some inventory on hand). I've done this and ended up with a steady drip-feed of local sales. It's a nice source of pocket money, though not a reliable one.

You can do this with knives as well, and probably other things that you can either lathe or piece together with a bit of value added craftsmanship.