Those doing more than the "hobbyist", what have you done to maximize workflow?

[LightSoundGeometry]

I am sellign pedal at almost cost but word aroudn the big city from craigs list says to get one of mine on the cheap - later  in time, and when I have mastered my craft, people will spend a little and I can make a quick buck here and there ..but yes work at anyplace and build effects because you love it and it is what you will do. it will show through in the final product, that is my unique niche

I think the money is in amplifiers ..I just seen a hand wired amp go in a local shop for over 10K ..dude probably put it together in 8-10 hours if that ..whoever the engineer on tube city/youtube channel puts those fender and Marchall amps together in what seems a few hours (although edited) ..its so crazy how easy he makes it look..like watching bob ross paint an oil on canvas in 30 minutes.

[acehobojoe]

Seriously good advice from everyone.
1. It's a hobby first and be honest with prices
2. Batch build 10 or more at once
3. Maximize workflow.
4. Come up with new stuff
5. Get toddler battery eating insurance
6. Have fun

[PRR]

> If you want to make an annual salary of $50k, and you sell your basic OD box for 100$, you need to sell 500 of them in a year,

I do not think it is that simple.

Pedal selling for $100 has to have some parts ($$) in it. My experience is that very few buyers will pay much more than the parts cost (in small quantity). And that counting solder-time, keeping parts inventory, putting the WORD OUT, buying-off unhappy customers, you will be very lucky to clear $10 on a $100 sale.

That leads to 5,000 of the $100 pedals to pocket $50,000.

There's not even 5,000 people in my town, maybe only 50 guitarists, maybe just 5 who have $100 to spare. And they don't all hang-out in the same places. So I have to reach-out BROADLY. Yes the interwebs make a global reach easier than ever. These are the best times of our lives. It is still head-down pushing to get the word out and build enough excitement to sell 5,000 pedals ever, much less per year *consistently* in an up/down/down economy.

It is VERY hard to make headway against $49 pedals marked-down to $29 at Guitar Center.

Don't quit your day-job.
________________________________________________________________________

An excellent (if out-dated) book is Don's Incredible Secret Money Machine
$14 dead-tree-- http://www.amazon.com/The-Incredible-Secret-Money-Machine/dp/1882193652
10MB PDF at author's site-- http://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf

First, you have to be heavily into a technical or craft trip on a total lifestyle basis.

The world has changed yet many of the basics stay the same.

Don is not a musician (but his ideas do apply). However the 1992 edition has this passage:

Of the thousands of people in the audience, at the most only five realized they were now witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime performance.... To nearly everyone else, it sounded like a bunch of god-awful squawks.
Always play for those five.

[LightSoundGeometry]

I have sold 6 pedals in 7 weeks on craig list to people in my community who reached out and wanted to support me because they all thought it was cool to have a hand built effect by a local guy, the music scene is craving it but it has to be the right price. I averaged 40-50 bucks a box from them.

In this upcoming June, at a local VA park, a really nice facility, they are holding a namm type thingy for locals which is being sponsored by local radio shows and magazines etc . you can get a booth for ten bucks. I will be their for sure!

[PRR]

> averaged 40-50 bucks a box

Gross or net? (Sale price, or price minus parts and fair payment to your workers (you)?)

[LightSoundGeometry]

gross

they only have I bet 20-25 bucks in parts at most in them ..good stuff though like neutrik jacks etc..some mojo here and there.

when all said and done I really made nothing considering all the parts and stuff i waste etc lol

its a hobby is all..if I invent something someday watch out !!

[GGBB]

> If you want to make an annual salary of $50k, and you sell your basic OD box for 100$, you need to sell 500 of them in a year,

I do not think it is that simple.

But I think there is a simple way to look at it.

Assuming a one-(wo)man operation working out of your own living space. Labor costs don't figure - you just want to make a living.

If you want to earn $50k a year, then you need to make $50k profit on all your pedal sales. If you can sell 100 pedals a year, you need to make $500 per pedal. They need to be really good pedals, really desirable, so they might cost more in parts etc. to make - ballpark $100. You are trying to sell $600 pedals. Good luck with that.

If you can sell 200 pedals a year, then you need to make $250 per pedal. They still need to be really good, but not necessarily exotic, so they might only cost $50 to make. You are trying to sell $300 pedals. Maybe, but not likely, not right out of the blocks anyway.

If you can sell 500 pedals a year, then you need to make $100 per pedal. If you can get your cost down to $25 per unit and still make a really good pedal, you'll be selling $125 pedals. This is starting to be a very workable plan. 500 pedals a year is 2 pedals a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. Building them by hand should be no problem at all.

If you can sell 1000 pedals a year at $75 each ($25 cost), you need to make 4 pedals a day - still quite doable.  Sell those same pedals for $100 and now you are making $75k a year.

The problem isn't being able to make money building pedals - it's selling pedals that is the challenge. No matter what route you try to take, you need a market. That takes time, if you can even make it work. Very many have tried and failed, a few have succeeded.

Do it on the side because you love it first, trying to build up a market. If you get to the point where you have enough demand, then consider going for it. But don't quit your day job.

[karbomusic]

Respectfully, unless one is planning on dodging laws, taxes, licenses, hidden costs and all non-build duties, everything figures...  Additionally, one simply can NOT do the math that way because there is literally no time left to do anything else, not even enough to box, ship, order parts, make and take payments and paperwork, warranties, refunds, repairs and then .... the unexpected. It doesn't cover the bases and only serves to inflate success that isn't there only to be a disappointment (called going out of business and/or being carted off by the tax man) later.

As I eluded earlier, one doesn't simply multiply "pedals I can make per day by some price". They must accurately figure ALL costs most of which are completely beyond parts and labor and/or hidden then do that math that predicts the price number of pedals needed to exceed that. Back in the day that was called "You need to back into those numbers". In other parlance, it's called a business plan. Not to be argumentative but it's the biggest mistake I see being made anytime someone who has no real business experience considers starting a business. At first glance it seems like the perfect method but it isn't.

[R.G.]

500 pedals a year is 2 pedals a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. Building them by hand should be no problem at all.

Two pedals a day, start to finish? That's achievable, with good discipline. Although you have to use quick-dry paint.  
It's probably not achievable if you make your own PCBs, and probably not achievable with vero or perfboard at all.

If you can sell 1000 pedals a year ... you need to make 4 pedals a day - still quite doable. 

IMHO, this isn't doable without going to batch techniques: spend one day drilling a lot of boxes; paint a lot of boxes; stuff and solder a lot of PCBs; cut a lot of premeasured wires; wire a lot of controls and switches; solder a lot of controls to PCBs; insert a bunch of PCBs into (paint-now-dry) boxes; test a lot of pedals for function; fix the few that don't work; package a lot of pedals into bags, boxes, etc.; maintain your email and web site, process orders, design new pedals, eat, sleep, buy groceries...

Somewhere along the way, I personally would go stark raving mad at doing that same stuff over and over, day in and day out, without even any prospect of it getting better. I'd begin feeling like a slave to myself once the novelty wore off.

The problem isn't being able to make money building pedals - it's selling pedals that is the challenge. No matter what route you try to take, you need a market. That takes time, if you can even make it work. Very many have tried and failed, a few have succeeded.

Great encapsulation of the problem. Any time you get past the fun, exciting point of being able to sell something you've made, it begins to become just another sales job. There are easier and more rewarding sales jobs that don't require you to build all of the underpinnings and structure of a business while you're doing it.

[slacker]

If you're making any quantity of the same pedal then you're probably better off out sourcing at least some of it. PCBs are the obvious first thing,  the prices you pay for small runs for these days there's no way you can make them cheaper yourself. In some cases,  especially if you've gone surface mount it could even be more cost effective getting the boards populated as well.
Where you want to be spending your time is on stuff that adds value to the pedal, stuff that's going to make people buy your pedal instead of A N Others.

[GGBB]

start to finish?

No - not start to finish. It would be silly to try to do even small volumes one pedal at a time. Just production time (i.e. manual labor). Paint, quick-dry or not, dries in zero man-hours, unless you like to watch paint dry  . As you allude, some batch processing is assumed. It may take two weeks to complete a pedal start-to-finish, but in that time you've actually built 10 or 20 or however many your plan requires.

If you're making any quantity of the same pedal then you're probably better off out sourcing at least some of it. PCBs are the obvious first thing,  the prices you pay for small runs for these days there's no way you can make them cheaper yourself. In some cases,  especially if you've gone surface mount it could even be more cost effective getting the boards populated as well.
Where you want to be spending your time is on stuff that adds value to the pedal, stuff that's going to make people buy your pedal instead of A N Others.

+1

As I said, the problem is NOT building them, it's selling them. If you can sell 100, 200, 500, or 1000 pedals a year, you can probably find a way to make a profit doing it. Not necessarily a living though. Don't quit your day job.

Somewhere along the way, I personally would go stark raving mad at doing that same stuff over and over, day in and day out, without even any prospect of it getting better. I'd begin feeling like a slave to myself once the novelty wore off.

Great encapsulation  of life for most people on the planet. Most people I think, work to live. Extremely few live to work. I count myself fortunate to be somewhere in the middle - I like my job but it's not what I "live" for, it mainly just pays the bills. And buys pedal parts .

[R.G.]

A friend sent me the following statistics, gleaned from an online pedal- and pedal-seller web site.

For the years 2009 through 2014, they found 1709 new pedal BRANDS and 11104 new pedals. 2015 is on track for 111 new brands and 1263 new pedals.

Those are just the ones who have some kind of internet presence. That does not include the guys who sell to a few friends or through a local dealer or two, or by consignment, or only at guitar shows and such.

Can you say "crowded market"? Remember that the number of potential buyers and their potential spending money does not go up because there are more pedals to buy. Rather, the per-pedal price goes down, especially when you sift out the (very) few companies that sell a lot, and at a decent price.

[chromesphere]

Attack it as a hobby and its difficult to go wrong.  Some wasted time.  Maybe a bit of wasted money, but even that is unlikely if you get stuck with something you cant sell, just sell it at cost -> back to just a bunch of wasted time again. 

Day job is a whole different kettle of fish.  I would suggest working at your local super market for a better hourly rate.  Or go into mass production and pump out mediocre unreliable SMT clones at $10 profit each.  But then your going to need some fairly serious $$ to get that started.

Also remember, whether it be a day job or hobby, your going to be working for $5 an hour either way.

[vigilante397]

I plan to contribute to this conversation but I just got off work so I'll write something legitimate when I get home, I promise.

[Luke51411]

How do you deal with "we're gonna go big time with this" guy? I have a guy wanting to buy 10 at a time to sell for more through a parent company and talking like we'd take it to NAMM and I'm just like... I'm glad you like it but I didn't even design the pcb let alone the circuit. He thinks building more they should cost less because of quantity discounts but I'm like... It would actually cost me more to do this above a hobby level... Registered business, pay taxes, etc not to mention the monotony of building the same thing over and over again. "Well at that point you could hire someone to do the grunt work." Right so I could pay employment taxes and spend even more time on quality control to take home even less... Sheesh. Not to mention executing warranty duties of all these builds finding their way into the wild. I'm like... Uh... I don't mind building 3 to 5 at a time for a short run here and there with some money up front but beyond that...

[acehobojoe]

Vigilante397 is an example of someone who has not quit his day job.

Might as well try it. Got nothing to lose, plenty of time to learn foundations of electrical engineering. The knowledge also comes in handy when on a job hunt later too.

I was wondering if anyone found ways to do these things faster. I find that when I get friends to help, it's not so overwhelming. Can't pay them what they deserve yet, but I may be able to one day.

At the end of it though, I have gained more knowledge than most people who don't want to try anything. How do you know something will fail unless you try it?

[acehobojoe]

And luke, I am with you. I don't want to do more monotonous work and "go big". But I'll enjoy making a few as I am for now.

If something great happens, I'll be happy. If I end up hating it.. I'll have a bunch of caps and resistors if I ever need them.

[Luke51411]

And luke, I am with you. I don't want to do more monotonous work and "go big". But I'll enjoy making a few as I am for now.

If something great happens, I'll be happy. If I end up hating it.. I'll have a bunch of caps and resistors if I ever need them.

And you always know where you can unload said caps and resistors for a few extra bucks. I made a Facebook page to build a bit of a following and unload some extra pedals when I need parts cash. I've also recieved a few custom build jobs from it. I'll be happy if I can get to the point of a hobby that pays for itself. The other thing for me is you never know who it will lead you to meeting or what other opportunities it could lead to.

[karbomusic]

How do you deal with "we're gonna go big time with this" guy? I have a guy wanting to buy 10 at a time to sell for more through a parent company and talking like we'd take it to NAMM and I'm just like...

You ask for payment upon delivery (and since it is 10 at a time you need a deposit before you begin) and see if he still wants them that bad.   

[Luke51411]

Yeah that's what I've been doing (for 3 at a time) but I think I'm already not charging enough...