 Hey guys, Vladimir here with desktop makes a bit of a different video for you today But one that I think many of you will appreciate. I asked one of my students at Kayvon Peijoux to join me for an Interview because he has such a cool story on how he turned his 3d printing happy into a business So just to give you a quick summary before we get into the interview Kayvon got into 3d printing at the start of the pandemic You know, this was a time where many of us looked for new habits to fill in for the things We could no longer do due to lockdowns and just wanting to stay safe and protect others Some started making sourdough bread some started knitting and some started 3d printing Kayvon got his first 3d printer and started with downloading and printing other people's designs But this got old really quick and he realized that he wanted to design his own stuff So eventually he made his way to my youtube channel and ended up enrolling in my fusion 360 quick start course And then on to my 3d printing design academy and also to my weekly live class Right away. He started designing his own stuff and this led him to come up with a 3d printed accessory To an exercise equipment he was using He found it extremely useful and printed a few more for his friends to try and they really liked it So he then took the next step and posted the model on Etsy where he now sells it worldwide He opened up his Etsy shop around the summer of 2021 and At the time of me posting this video if we check his Etsy shop He sold five hundred and seventy five units at forty nine dollars and ninety nine cents each Which is almost thirty thousand dollars in sales. Remember, this is a habit-turned business And he's not even a full year into this So I asked Kayvon to join me to talk about his journey because I think many of you will find the knowledge He's going to share about his experience going through this process And the advice he's going to give to be very valuable Especially if you're looking to do something similar The video is a bit long and I was originally gonna cut it back quite a bit But as I started editing the video, I just couldn't do it And it just wasn't that much that I felt I should cut all right enough intro Let's dive into the interview and if you have any questions about anything we discussed I'll leave it in the comments below and I'm sure Kayvon will be happy to answer some of your questions Hey, Kayvon. Hey, good morning for afternoon for you. Oh, yeah, it's afternoon Yeah How you doing? I'm good. How are you? Doing good doing good. Good. Yeah, thanks for doing this I've actually I've been meaning to do this for a while and Finally, it was like one of those things where I'm just like, I just got to schedule this Like just throw it in the calendar and then you'll have no excuse So last week I was like, let me just send him an email now and then got it in the calendar and I was like, all right, we're in Well, I appreciate it. Thank you Yeah, thanks So the reason I I wanted to do this call is because I think you when you have a really neat story here of Basically kind of, you know, just kind of summary real quick But we'll dive into it is, you know, you got into 3d printing and then You learned how to make your own designs and then you had a problem which you were able to design and print your own solution And then you thought hmm like I wonder if anyone else could use this solution and you threw it on that See and then, you know, I get an email from you a few days ago That's just like, you know, I think a few months later from when you started and it's like, well You just crossed a huge milestone of $10,000 in sales. So yeah, it's a pretty incredible story And I think a lot of my, you know subscribers would would be interested in hearing it because I'm sure there's quite a few who are in that boat Who would want to hear how, you know, how you would do something like this. So so, yeah Yeah, it's been an interesting ride for sure. Yeah. Oh, that's cool So yeah, my usually my channel is more of like tutorials and projects, especially focusing on fusion 360 But I think this is one that that would really really resonate So why don't we start with just give us a little introduction about like who you are where where you are what you do for a living and then we can Like transition to, you know, how you got to to 3d printing and and in your journey Yeah, absolutely. My name is Kavon Peju. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area specifically more in Redwood City, California, which is roughly about 30 minutes south of San Francisco And I've been living here for quite a few years And, you know, I love this area. I'm a big sports fan and, you know, also I have a commercial printing business So I've been, you know, in this business for quite a few years And as a hobby, um, I referee soccer, you know, as my kids started when they were really young Playing AY. So I've played myself on high school a little bit of junior college So I figured I didn't want to play so much because I didn't want to get injured But, you know, I started helping as a referee and volunteering and then just carried on and I've been doing it over 20 years and, um you know, in 2019 sort of late in 2019 about September, October My daughter found I found out something about a Like an indoor rolling studio that was going to be opening up next door house And, you know, I figured okay, I'll go with her once and see if I can You know, support her or or just see if I like it and, you know, maybe do it myself and You know, five minutes in I sort of got hooked And um, and I've been rolling just about five to seven days a week since then Yeah, and then, uh, you know, one thing led to another and, um you know, we Like a few months later in the pandemic hit and You know, I stopped refereeing soccer and and of course they closed down the studio And so basically any hobby that I had was taken away with the pandemic, which is I here was mostly for everybody and I saw everybody was getting to all kinds of new hobbies and bacon bread and all kinds of things were going on on youtube So I I was sort of searching to see if I could find a hobby And, uh, you know, my background, you know, my degree was actually an industrial technology with emphasis in plastics So I figured, you know, I'm in a printing business and I have a background in plastics putting the two together Taking it to the next level 3d printing may be the way to go you know, so I started to do some research and, um I started watching certain channels or popular ones, you know, I started watching Angus on makers muse and then Devin and make anything Then I got a little bit more serious with Thomas and letter and then lastly I started watching 3d printing there Joel telling and it was I was watching that pretty religiously and it was one of the units one of his episodes that he mentioned you And by that time I had done just like anybody, you know, I got a 3d printer was downloading You know files from uh thinkiverse and printing those and they were cool, but it gets old really fast Yeah, and you really want to learn well, how do they do that and I want to make more stuff Yeah, so doing one of his episodes he, um mentioned you And he said he was shocked that why you don't have more followers and I go, okay he must be really good and I so I started watching a few your um youtube videos and um Right away. I really really liked it that your method the way you speak that soft spoken sort of way of teaching that it was it was kind of relaxing and very uh educational so I really liked it and uh, I think shortly after you put up a free sort of sort of mini series that you had Yeah, and um, so I took that and because I finished it like really fast, you know In a night or I don't know it's two days or something And then I wanted more, you know At your, of course You got me hooked and uh, and I I started taking your online lesson, um That you had more sort of Complete and there was a couple modules if I recall Yeah, I think did you start with the the design academy that one first? Yeah, design academy exactly Yeah, so You know every time I start one of those lessons I sort of went down a rabbit hole of I got to do this and I got him because you always asked us To sort of make your own version Yeah, right and then so And I started doing that and you know, then you start getting more creative and making it So a couple things there, um So you didn't really get into 3d printing until the pandemic like that was kind of What you so you're looking for a new hobby and they just so instead of like baking bread or getting into tie dye You're like, I'm gonna get a 3d printer That was it. Okay. That's cool because you see I mean, you know, of course a lot of really sad stories with the pandemic But you kind of see some like also stories of opportunities that arrived from people You know, um, you know, like from being stuck at home that being able to do their normal routine and And you know finding finding new things in life. And so for you that was that was the 3d printing and 3d design So, so yeah, because we had to stay at home, right? Yeah, we couldn't go out much and I gotta say I mean Not I for some reason I thought you had been in it for a while because I mean seeing what you can do now And it's like it wasn't that long ago that you started and like what you're designing is pretty incredible. So Well, I wouldn't say that but you know what I owe it a lot Well, mostly to you because You sort of kind of motivated us and you sort of got me going in this path And actually it's been an interesting path. And like I said, you know, I went down a rabbit hole I think in one of the lessons, you know, like I think the second lesson maybe In that I can't design the academy course was making a phone stand. Yeah, your own phone Right. So I started doing that and by that time I had gotten my second printer I got a Prusa printer and I I learned how to do color changes, you know So I really dove deep into that and I started making my own phone stands. In fact, I have one here and you know Yeah, the 49ers and this is just a single color obviously printer a single extruder printer And but I started doing the layering and so with the layering, I was able to do accomplish a lot of things and I you know, there's another example With a Chevy Camaro logo and so I started doing that and You know, I started making Gifts for everybody for holidays or whatever, you know, just staying in the house and not leaving I was making a lot of these Based on their hobby I remember that I remember you would send me emails of like all the different ones you were making and they Were all personalized for whatever that person's interest was That was pretty cool. Yeah, I even made made one for me with my desktop make logo and um A few that I gave to to I remember giving one to my sister and she really loved it But those are really special because you can make them really you can really personalized personalized them, right? Like and it really means right put in names on the back Exactly their names and whatever it's important whether it's their football team or or like that, you know Their their favorite car. That's so yeah, so those are excellent gifts Yeah, and before I forget I guess I should give Joe telling a shout out and a thanks for sending you my way Because it was his video that actually got you towards to my channel. So and then Hopefully a lot more people. Yeah Not definitely absolutely um Yeah, so taking the story further down, uh, the road is you know the uh as pandemic evolved and I think maybe Maybe the vaccination at least the rates were kind of dropping and For these businesses, you know the gyms to try to stay in business They started taking their equipment outdoors in a parking lot So they reopened and by that time I had bought my own, uh rowing machine, which that was another big to do because Everybody was doing that everybody was buying their own equipment to work out at home And there was like a eight to ten week waiting list to get on to get an equipment So but I did get my own I was rowing on youtube or zoom with friends and You know do what I could but then when the gym opened again in the parking lot, you know, of course we all went and You know, we were six feet apart with a mask on rowing outdoors not ideal, but it worked It worked until You know started to get towards fall and you know, of course, we don't get a lot of rain here in northern california you know sometimes would do but And so then started to rain a little bit and these machines don't have Power connected to them. So it's not a big issue But the monitor is a sensitive area And so you've got these 20 machines sitting outside and then start to rain a little bit and It was an issue They were putting ziploc bags on top of them and I thought you know what I could do something better And so I made this thing and I had just started taking, you know The design academy course and learned enough to be dangerous, I guess So I made this sort of cover That would fit um on the on the monitor and basically the way it fits I put these two grooves inside here So that it was just slide right on top of the monitor case Well, it did a good job and I showed it to them The thing is each one of these took about five hours to print and I really didn't know I don't know if they really wanted to buy it. I just didn't see a market for it. So I took it home and I stuck it on my own machine I figured well, it's something I made. I want to look at it because I'm proud of it But it's nothing. It really wasn't good for anything Then, you know, I started staring at it and I'm thinking, you know what I got the phone stand Yeah, I put the phone stand on here. These machines actually have come with an app It's a concept to machine and it comes with an app called earth data Which basically uses bluetooth to sync up to the machine and sort of takes all your data and and and Syncs it with their database a logbook as they call it and the cool thing about it is You could compare yourself to other people your age Around the world on their database. It's very cool So I was just putting the phone on top of here. Let it sync And that worked okay for a while and I thought, you know what I really would like to By that by that time this indoor gym also started posting videos on their app So you could take classes at home And I wanted to do that but I had to put a computer, you know to the side or my ipad to the side Find a table or something put it on so I thought, you know, what if I could make this into A tablet holder instead of just a phone holder So far I really like the fact that it's sort of it's very iterative, right? It's not like you see these sometimes like the finished project and you just see like that end product But it like to see how you're describing it started with just the rain cover And then you were able to connect it with this like phone stand you made and then that's for another idea And then it's it's like it's slowly evolving into what what we're going to see it become which is how these things normally take You know take shape and it usually like I find with me a lot of times It's just sitting with a design sitting on the chair leaning back and kind of Twisting it in your hand and just giving you that time to think about it You know that really leads to the next step and it's not like it's not like you get there in one step It's it's it's a process of of letting time in your in your mind to catch up Yeah, it wasn't nothing that I started with a certain goal in mind to start with and it sort of just came about by accident mostly You know just staring at something which is basically what I always do when I make something I keep staring at it every chance I get now. How do I improve it and all of a sudden the idea hits you You want to try something and then I started at that for a while until some better idea hits me So basically by then I was taking your classes, you know online More and more getting deeper and so I sort of took that same idea and added these horns to it basically You know, I'm not adjustable sort of like a viking helmet. Yeah, that's what it kind of reminds me. Yeah Yeah Yeah, they're not adjustable. It was just made for my iPad and so it was great and I put it on the machine and Actually, it looks like a transformer actually now. I think like one of them. Yeah, that is true I wasn't very good at understanding tolerance as yet about my printer So I think I made these things way way too tight And so I have to use a load dryer to kind of heat them up and then shove them down But they're in there good. I don't think I'd be able to take them out ever so That worked great and I would show it to my friends and like, oh, it'd be kind of cool But then, you know, when you want to turn something to a product other people could use Then you can't predict what kind of equipment they have what kind of tablet they have So it needs to be an adjustable You know tablet holder And it was roughly that time I got an email from you That you were going to do live classes online And I think I think one of the lines in it was if you're Stuck in making something Let's get you unstuck something like that. Yeah, and I thought hey, I'm stuck You know, let's see if I could get unstuck. Yeah, so That's that's where the next step was nice. Okay. Yeah, so Yeah, so that part actually as you mentioned with the live class. So that's something I do with my design classes That students have the option now and I started it was almost like it's just that Let me see if this, you know, just trying it out You know almost kind of be like, let me just throw something on Etsy and see how it works. But yeah, it actually, uh I think students have found that really helpful because you get actually one, you know, one-on-one design I mean, it's it's a full class but you got to bring in your project and get some feedback on areas that you You were stuck on right like that Like there were some Remember, I mean, there were quite a few times because I think a few of the classes We just kind of like focused on your design like Because you ended up a you mean I'm sure you'll show the next part where you actually get to Sort of adjust it and and how do you, you know, they were quite like these little problems of how do you adjust Without falling off. How do you Yeah, how do you get the talents is right so Right. So what I did is, you know, if you're going back to this, I had these two groups So I thought maybe I don't need all this extra stuff Yeah, you know, I could get it all that stuff. So I really needed just that that area It's just the cover that go on the monitor. So that's basically what I did and then I added That track so this is the case that slides on top of the monitor and I added a track on top And of course the trick was this is where I'd really got stuck was I put a dovetail Under track and then I made these guides Well, like this and So these guides go back and forth, but their problem was they were falling out I had no idea how to stop it And the part the part you're saying goes over the monitor. That's the monitor on the rowing machine At a constant it slides on top of it. Okay Yes So, yeah, so all that went away and it made it so much simpler And so in one of the classes I was showing this and you sort of Get me right away as soon as you saw it and you said, oh, what if you put a pin on it and put a groove on the track and Cut the groove short. So once go all the way through and it will stop it from going through And I go, oh And then I added a bigger opening in the middle. So basically just drop it from the middle and then And so Yeah, so these were not adjustable And and then I Showed it to one of my friends and he said, well, my tablet has a charger Port at the bottom. So I had to put a slot in it to allow for different type of chargers So I got that far And I was stuck at this for a while and it was great and I was you know able to use my iPad here or anybody else Hopefully Could use the iPad here, but there was something missing, you know, as I mentioned earlier Yes, I could watch a video do a rowing class But it my phone was still I needed my phone near that thing So I could use that erg data app that goes with the rowing machine So the hardest part was figuring out how to make another attachment So it would hold the phone And that took me probably a couple months I don't know. It just one day. I think we were doing in a live class I think combined cut or maybe was also one of your videos. I think you did a I think a cover for a camera on one of your youtube videos. Yeah And so Correct. Yeah, so That's sort of the idea I took from that and I I don't know. I I have never seen anything like this thing that I made but You know, I figured What's worth a shot? I try it. So yeah, I sort of put a couple Well, I put a couple as you could see Rectangles, you know Extruded them here and did a combined cut so it did a cut into here And in fact, I got a strand hanging up Um And then I had to play with the tolerances a little bit, but the nice thing about it was it just It snaps in really easy And um, so you can see this whole thing kind of snaps together in seconds And the nice thing about it was which surprised me. It's like a rock solid. It doesn't go anywhere once you attach it um so yeah, and uh So the phone now goes here and of course the iPad goes on top and the the The rowing machine monitor is in the middle So it was all three things all in one place, which is something I hadn't seen before nice Yeah, so that was uh You know a lot of Things that came about because of your classes honestly um, so one question Had you started using fusion 360 before you took my classes or So that that was it. So you had you were you using any other modeling software? I had not modeling at all Not at all. Um, the only thing i'm familiar with is adobe illustrator and photoshop because that's what I use in bigly basis from my business Um, but that was it. Oh, okay. So when you when you came across my channel, that was your first time You were actually hearing of like fusion 360 and you used it for the first time I had heard about it obviously many times watching everybody's videos But it was always the portion of their uh, their video that's sort of kind of glossed over me and I sort of stopped watching Because you know, I don't have no idea what they're talking about, you know So I always wanted to learn it, but I had no idea Okay, cool. So that is that was that the last version the way you just showed us? No, so this is basically um, the version I finally came up with I um, like anything I I don't really want to Go out and sell it because I think it's a good idea Were you thinking at this point like hey, I can sell this or were you not even that wasn't even on your mind? No, no, it wasn't I started making it for a few friends, you know, there were also I knew I had the machines and there were a couple of guys that I row on zoom with Um, so I made it for them and they really liked it and of course I got some feedback and do this and do that And then the thing that really put it over is one of the guys that was in the rowing class with me He had his own rowing machine home. He's a former collegiate rower And big tall guy and it's really rowing is really meant for tall people And so same with the rowing rowing machines, which they call irgs at least this type of machine called short for agometer and um so I wanted him to test it Because that would be a real feedback and people like me that just picked up rowing from indoor rowing It wasn't the same I wanted somebody because I know that they are using this in particular concept to machine By all rowing teams by all colleges So it's a really popular machine that most people are using okay It is and being on that app on that logbook. I could see how many thousands of people were on it like I don't know was like 40 000 something like that. So I knew that there was a decent size market But once these guys tested it and they liked it a lot Give me a feedback and then by the encouragement of my my two daughters and my wife Keep saying open an Etsy store and I you know, I signed up for a store and it was like There for like a month or two, but I never put anything on it because it was sort of overwhelming I would see all these things that you got to do and I thought you know, I don't know. We'll see I just didn't think anything of it at the time I I think that's actually really important and step you went through where You didn't just make like your first iteration and threw it on there You gave it to a few friends and actually someone who was an avid rower and said test it and give me some feedback you know, so Yeah, right away. Yeah, but you were still it sounds like you were still kind of Reluctant like you're getting your your daughters and your wife are encouraging you but you're still not sure yet If you're ready to make the point. I wasn't I wasn't I really wasn't sure But you know, finally, I just got tired of Just twirling my tone my thumbs and And I just said, okay, you know what I'll take the time I'm going to go take pictures because you got to take a lot of pictures And I watched a few videos on how to open an Etsy store or what the steps are that you got to go through And so I finally did it and it was like on a weekend I want to say my bill was a sunday afternoon and then by sunday night. I was okay. Well, not what what am I going to do now? Well Fortunately because uh, this is zoom growing that I do I had gone on instagram. I'm not a big social media guy, you know, so But I got I got on instagram because what we do is We post one of the our team leader basically posts the Workout of the day then we do twice a week and then at the end of the workout we'll all post our numbers So we sort of hold each other accountable that we did the work And so I was on instagram and I figured I got to learn about hashtags and what do they mean? What do they do? This pound signal pound sign right so I had to reach out to my daughters and they helped me out with it And so I did a post I did an instagram post with this thing and I did a hashtag on like US rolling the concept to anything I could think of I could come up with I did it And you know, I didn't know what to expect and then within minutes, you know, I was getting this like like like like It was like hundreds and I go, whoa, maybe I did hit something that people like Yeah, you know and then within an hour. I had my first sale from a general from australia Australia for all that all the places So within an hour of your first instagram post you had a sale from australia Australia That's pretty cool. And and the cool thing is no, I've had 10 sales to australia Oh, wow You know, some people actually Yeah, I guess some people actually pay more for the shipping cost than they do for this part Wow Yeah, so that really makes me feel good. Yeah How can I talk a little because rewind because just that feeling of getting that first sale like how did that feel to you? It was very cool. It was like really there's some people think that this is really good But at the same time now, you're nervous, you know, I see all these Likes and I think what if all these people decide to order? What am I going to do now? I had like one three the other end of the problem. Yeah. Yeah one 3d printer What the heck am I going to do that and I'm sorry and this thing takes 12 hours to print. Oh, wow Yeah, right So of course, I don't have to do anything during the 12 hours, but so I figured out a schedule if I Do one at 7 a.m. Then I get home after work at 7 p.m Start the next one and just to keep going like that and hoping that nothing goes wrong And everything just prints perfectly and of course I got creative and I offered six colors So it's like wow It was that's more than apple man. That's more than apple offers for their phone. I know I probably shouldn't have done that. There's too many choices You know, but You know, I didn't know which one I would really like best all the colors are coming out so nice and I figure Of course, no, I know a majority of people like the black But there's still some that order the colors So what's the percentage of the black ones that you get compared to I'd say probably 80 percent Okay. Yeah Nice. So yeah, you sort of learn and then of course with encouragement my wife. I got my second Prusa printer and I got to say those that have these printers and get them as a kit It's a work to put them together. It's like not that simple And so, you know, once you get it great No, I got to spend four nights after work trying to finish putting this together and hope that it works As you know as I finish it. Yeah, well You choose to get them unassembled right because you you can get them Preassembled you do it. I cost a lot like yes. Yeah, you like the little punishment of Well, you know always it's fun. Maybe you Yeah, and also I think maybe you learn a little bit more about the whole thing and also it honestly I would recommend it because Not too long ago. I had a you know Clog in my nozzle and I wasn't sure I had to take everything apart and finally figure out It was the nozzle when I had to replace it But No, I know how to do what everything is so the terminology and all that and that's what all the youtube videos did for me That I was watching just the terminology of what they say something on a hot end or what does that mean? Yeah, I would you know in the plastics industry. I I knew Extruding injection molding, but the hot end is not you know, so I have to learn all these little terminologies What they meant no, there's definitely a level of education that you get from assembling it that You're not going to get from you know anything else no matter how many YouTube videos you watch like going through that stuff really puts you At a great advantage when something does go wrong to actually being able to fix it um No, the other thing you said is that So your wife actually encouraged you to get a second prince Which is really funny because like if you're in any of these like 3d printing groups a lot of the memes are about like Like how do I tell my wife? I secretly bought another 3d printer Like you know someone coming home with flowers, you know or like trying to Trying to hide all their printers and here you have your wife like trying to convince you to get another one I tell you if she had her way. I will buy a few more In fact truth be told she I bought the third one and not too long ago. I've had it for maybe two three months now So I have three of them going now the Prusa and she was telling me to get another one and I said no, that's it And I have room And then you've gotten all Prusas All three identical. Yes I really like it because I could start it and you know, once you get it all dialed up And you could just forget about it and feel comfortable leaving it for 12 hours. Yeah I mean, I you know, I do have failed prints And mainly my fault something I sort of got careless about But for the most part that print great. I don't have to tweak it I know there were other printers that were much less expensive But from what I learned was everybody was having to do upgrades on them and tweak them until they got perfect So, you know, I figured I see the video on the factory Then they're using their own printers to create all these parts and they're running 24 hours a day And so they're working. No, why do I need to worry about it? Gotcha. So that's the route I took Good. Yeah, so uh, so Of course, you know, once you get one product And other things come along with it is dealing with customers on the on etsy and And etsy basically keeps sending you emails and saying, well, okay You're shipping it a lot faster than three to five days. Maybe you should do it one to two days I go, okay. All right. Change it to one to two days. You know, you sort of put pressure on yourself And etsy would say, okay. Well, this is selling really well. Why don't you come up with other products like this? So then I did I sort of made what that what I call a light version basically without the track on top and just a phone holder It's really mainly suited for people that go to the indoor gym that you don't need the iPad on top You just need your phone to sync up with the machine. So You know, that that was okay not nearly as well as this Okay, and then then of course you get feedback from customers some people You know, you can't think about what how everybody is going to use your product Some people were using their phone without a phone case Well without a phone case, you know a hard surface on a hard surface will start to slide around when this machine You're rolling on it. So and so immediately I had to make modifications. I put a non skid I actually had to do a redesign. These were full circles before I changed it to sort of three quarters and then put a non skid rubber here and inside here So then there's just a lot less movement. Nothing's going to fall off the machine and then I break your phone And so for that was fairly early on So most of the products I have shipped which now is close to 230 of these. Oh, wow Yeah That's all ours each already already. Have you been able to optimize the time any or is it still 12 hours? It's it's printing perfectly. So I don't just don't want to mess around with it There's things you probably do to speed the process a little bit But you have to tweak your print. So then you may have some failed parts until you figure it out That is coming out too good for me to even mess with them. Actually and how are you I was gonna ask you how are you keeping up with inventory on that but you can finish your thought if you're gonna say something Oh, no, no, I said I was gonna say that there is like about 10 50 minutes of cleanup, you know removing supports Especially underneath here And then putting these rubber pads on and then gluing this And of course, there's packaging part Yeah, like to keep up, you know, of course, you know, you don't have sales every day and originally I did and I had maybe one weekend that I had maybe nine or 10 orders And I had some but obviously I had to print non-stop and I had originally set it for three to five days turn around So they gave me enough time But once I sort of learned what people were ordering what colors and that sort of thing And so I started making like four or five or the black ones and then one of each color Now that was my inventory and as soon as the one color got ordered immediately I will replace it with another print and same thing with the black ones. Yeah So yeah, there's busy days on the weekend and then there's two three days. Maybe you don't get an order It is really don't know so Once sort of I figured it out and it made it a little bit easier. Yeah, so it sounds like so the nice thing is like You can sort of use existing data to predict like what you're going to get and for the most part it seems to be pretty consistent where you can go ahead and just anticipate like okay, I just need to Have like five of these kind of ready to go. Maybe or however many are just, you know And you have your system in place that When you like a color gets used you just print another one So you you tend to develop like your own systems that tend to work, right? And Right, you learn as you go. That's like a huge like influencer with You know 500 000 subscribers, maybe like You know tweets your product and then Yeah Yeah, then that'll be a problem, right? So I I mean, yes, I would love of course who wouldn't want to have But you got to be able to handle it otherwise you're going to disappoint your customers I need to lose all the business So I have to be careful and I try to be very very responsive to the customers Immediately after I get an order I send out an email thanking him for the order and letting them know what I'm going to ship it Which is mostly either the same day or the next day And then as soon as I ship it I'll follow that up again with another email Give it in more information such as don't leave this in a hot car Right, you know, so that sort of thing, you know just so that they know And then you know then listen to what they have to say One of the issues that some people have with this Is I can't I can't design this for thickness of everybody's iPad or Tablet cases, right? Yeah, so basically they have to take it out of the cover and put it in here Well, this is sitting on top of the monitor The system monitor and the machine has some movements on it So some people get nervous they buy a thousand dollar tablet right and they don't have a case on it So it makes them nervous So then I saw some people were posting pictures and their reviews. They love the product But they were actually putting the iPads on here, which is something I did not design for it wasn't it wasn't strong enough The layer lines are going this way and it's just not strong enough to fold But they were using it and they were happy with it and And one person even I think had a stress factor right there and he put a duct tape on it. He didn't care I don't want that's And that sort of made me think and in that it was another problem I had to solve and how am I going to solve this problem? And so that came basically my next product, which I just posted last weekend and basically that's This one Which I called Well, I called the other one er caddy And this one I call er caddy flip basically Ed from our live class suggested it and I went with it and And I just reversed the placement. So now the iPad goes to the bottom And the phone goes to the top that so that so that's really interesting just that approach there because It kind of shows the importance of feedback like here people are using it in a way you totally weren't anticipating But you know the fact that they're actually posting pictures of it on social media You you get to see that and then you realize okay. This is maybe something that they want So it kind of goes into the next iteration of the product Let me let me give them what they want And so you create an option where they can actually put the iPad on the bottom instead of the top So well this actually Created a sort of dilemma for me, you know just about when I was about to post this I would get an order And so I'm thinking if I ship this and if I think I got an order from australia or new zealand actually did recently And they paid like 50 some dollars for shipping which is more than the product itself. How much how much do you sell it for? Oh 49 99 which includes free shipping. Okay, so they put when they buy from new zealand or australia They're paying what like 50 dollars in Well, I think ground, you know, a u.s. Male is like 28 dollars typically, but Some of them order it because that takes like a month to get there. Okay Yeah, so I think some of them were like sort of expedited more and I think the one order from new zealand was like $58 for shipping. Oh, wow And I emailed the guys to look i'm coming up with this and I'm just going to post it just now And I want to give you the option. I don't want you to see this after I ship it. I said, wait, I didn't know about this Well, you said no, you know what I'm going to stick with the original because I'm 6 5 my son is 6 3 and It's great that it's on top. I prefer that Nice, so okay, so then people do want the option and this is not necessarily better than that one so I do offer both And so far I did up another instagram post with this and immediately add two or three sales But uh, we'll see how it goes. So that was last sunday Cool, you know, obviously for the shorter people, this is sort of sits up a little higher And so you got to look up Okay, it's if you if you're just rowing and watching a movie which a lot of people are doing just Okay, you know Rowing for fun and watch a movie or It's an avenge watch a tv series Um, that was sitting on a row or so you don't get bored. Uh, so, you know, it depends on where you want to Put it on The top or the bottom The bottom one obviously gives you the advantage of leaving the the phone the ipad cover on And it's really easy to remove it. There's other alternatives. In fact, the company that makes the rowing machine They come up with their own, um ipad holder. They have a phone holder. They sell separate They they sell um ipad holder, but you have to replace the whole arm You got to take everything machine apart and replace the arm and then instead of the arm being in this angle Sort of near you. You have to put it straight up so the ipad would be straight up Otherwise, it'll be tilted forward. You can't see it. So there's some disadvantages Um, and the advantage to this is uh, it's really easy to install. There's no installation It's a assembly that takes a few seconds to remove And you can put it right back on and you can move it to another machine They do make uh ski ergs and bike ergs and this would work well with their ski erg as well Well, that's that's a nice plus you can you can actually transfer it to the different equipment that they have right so But now it's like what else do I do? I have to come up with a new product or project now that you're doing it you know, you're it's sort of in it. Yeah, and So you have to constantly think about it. Yeah, and the neat thing is really Kind of how fast you can get that idea out right because like that next iteration is just create the next design in fusion 360 and You know 12 hours later, you've got a new a new part which going through, you know, traditional methods You'd have to send that out to You know some some places to manufacture it for you and then wait, you know Weeks or months to get it back Pretty less. I mean one of the benefits of this being five parts is when I had to redesign You know a new iteration of one it would just be a quick print. Maybe three four hours I was just one part so there's always really nice one if you were to print them separately It's a full train. Yeah, the whole thing was one. I yeah with supports and everything takes 12 hours So you lay out one girl you lay it out as one print where all the pieces on the bed to get Correct. Okay. Yeah. So if you're doing a new part, you just need that one part It's going to be a lot faster. Yeah, right. And that's another thing is, you know, when you have failed print It's not always necessarily the whole thing. That's a fail print. Maybe Uh, just one of the items is bad and then so you got all the other parts It's all you have to do is re-print one one piece and then you got a full Unity actually so that's been pretty good. Maybe I'm We can transition to I guess sort of maybe lessons learned from Etsy Like when you made that plunge to go into throwing your design on Etsy like what You know what you learn or if you had to like do it all over again Was there anything you would do different or any advice you could give to someone who's Who's kind of in in that position where they have an idea for a product and they want to get it out Um, you know, we kind of live in a really unique age right now where you can actually do that I mean when you think about how quickly you can go from idea to actual part And in your case, we're not even talking about prototype part We're talking about like real end product, right that you're shipping out to a customer So, you know, it's it's pretty amazing that that we have that you can go from idea to Design having software like fusion 360, you know available Not only do we have like capable design software. We have 3d printers that can make these end products and we see you doing and as you mentioned like Prusa actually does, you know, they make the 3d print parts for their own printers And you have other companies using it for actual end products and you hear it just as like prototyping Which it's great for prototyping, but we can see that you can go even further than that Um, and then you add the other element of having uh, like places like Etsy where you can just throw your product into when So it's like just like all these things kind of come together and really, you know, kind of enable you to have Like your own little like production facility and and really start a business, you know Quite easily compared to what it used to be So I guess taking all that together anything that you like advice that you would give to someone who's looking who's in that stage of Maybe they've got that idea or they're not sure whether it would work or maybe they're just There's just so many unknowns that they're not sure, you know, that it's a bit intimidating to kind of get off the ground Like what advice or what lessons would you give? Well, actually, I you know, again, I had to do a lot of research on watching youtube videos on Etsy and different platforms I did like Etsy I mean you got to understand that it's going to cost you some money to be on there Yeah, there is no monthly fees to be on Etsy, but Etsy takes their cut and Rightfully, so I mean, right basically they're hosting your product and they're handling their credit card fees and everything Um, and you know the handling the shipping, you know, of course you pay for the shipping But you get out of discounted rate So they do have fees and also that the thing that's more important than even that is the avatars for you now Yes, you can buy Etsy ads and you pay up for it up front But I'm not doing I did that for a little bit, but I'm I'm not doing that because if I if you go on google and search for concept to ipad holder My ipad holders show up on the top of the screen And that's like that ranking on google for like your product is Is huge. So yeah the advertising part is a very significant part of it I mean they do take a cut Don't get me wrong if you if you click on that ad and you purchase the product they take 15% On top of the 20% value. So basically 35% Will will be used up and that includes, um, I think your shipping costs in there so that's if if someone googles I like the concept to ipad holder and Google shows them your link and they click on it then And trace that that they were able to get there because of their paid advertisement. So therefore they'll take a bigger cut Yeah, so under under And the app that they have and you go in to set up your store they have all those areas and you could see What sales were driven through their ad? You can see everything they have a breakdown and everything that gives you great analytics Now, how about if you put if someone goes through your website clicks on a direct link to your etsy shop And yeah, so I don't have a website, but say those instagram Publix that I did it'll tell me that I drove the the traffic for the sale You know There's no fees. They don't take anything and so you they take the Standard fees like the credit card like I said the credit card fee the sale fee that take 20 cents um, I think I forget I was 20 cents every sale and then they charge you This this inventory thing that every basically every couple months for every item You have you have to charge you 20 cents. There's the one time fee So there's some small fees here and there and they kind of add up But so you figure about 20 percent They would like you to offer free shipping They promote you more if you do offer free shipping So when you come up with a product you want to make sure you don't sell yourself short You need to figure out all these costs So it is in the pricing that if you're gonna, right Yeah, yeah, and then of course your time You know, the hardest part is The printer is doing the work for 12 hours. What do I charge for that? That is not an easy answer I don't really know the answer to that I sort of based it on other products that I saw and then what's the videos I watched I said If people really want your product, they'll pay for whatever it is. Don't sell it too cheap So I think and I've heard that that's a problem that Maybe like entrepreneurs really don't anticipate like they don't price their product, right? And and they end up like actually selling themselves short They don't price it high enough to anticipate all these other things like advertisement and shipping and All the costs that if you're doing it from the first time that you're not aware of, yeah Right. So it took me a while. I had to come up with a number and $49.99 seemed to be the right number. I had one guy complain about the price. But that was it And he loved the product He loved the product But he gave me a three star review because he thought it was too expensive That was like he said best idea ever great engineering, but it's too expensive. I'm really seriously And I've had, you know, of course, you're gonna get people Either order it for their machine and it's the wrong product the wrong machine or wrong monitor Or it's just they're just too nervous about their iPad being in there without a case and they say, you know what or they have You know, I only have the rowing machine. I don't have the ski or the bike But those machines also have the same monitor. So technically this would work But there's some limitations that those machines would provide Such as where other parts of the machine are where maybe interfere with the the phone holder or something So they couldn't use it. Um, so I don't question it immediately I refund them their money and I email them a shipping label so they could ship it right back to me That's happened. Maybe three times and I've got to say I think two out of three times people left a review of with a five star review Oh, really, even though they've asked for refund is yeah, so I love the product very important concept into or I guess an important thing to keep in mind that You know, we treat your customers right right because those reviews really matter in Etsy into like how well your product does so even if someone says Well, this wasn't for me. But as long as you then, you know, you're responsive and you you give them their refund and And you know, do they send it back? Was that what happens? Do they repackage it? They have they have they keep the box and they just stick the label on and ship it back and To me, it's it's fine because now I have inventory. I could ship it to somebody else I examine it and I make sure everything works and there's no scratches or marks on it And if there is I change the part shipping back or do they do I do you pay for the ship? I send them the label back, you know the cost of shipping for this thing is less than five dollars for us mail So I don't I don't question. I'm not going to worry about five dollars. Yes. I would love to say no no refund But you know what that's just going to leave a bad taste and bad reviews and I don't I don't want that I think that's more important to me that people are You know, one of the nice things is the guy that left me a three star review He had a different type of machine that I cannot test on maybe had an iPad mini And the machine is more din it's called a dynamic ruler or it's more static So everything moved on that machine So so he said oh, maybe the tolerance could be this or that or whatever And originally he had asked me a bunch of questions about it and I explained to him everything But I said look I have not tested it I'm willing to send it to you if you don't like it. I send you a label ship it right back to me No problem. I'll give you a full refund Well, he decided not to do that. He decided to leave a review instead and say well, I have to jerry rig it to make it work But I love it And you know, I he kept the thing and he didn't return it So the nice thing on fc is you could actually post a response to the review and I You know, of course, you know, I'm gonna lie I sometimes do this. I sort of like when somebody upsets me. I think it's just the stupid thing they did I would write a sort of nasty email And nasty and then once I get out of my system I hit delete and you're absolutely right. I'm so sorry Yeah, that's so that's a good. That's a good thing. Usually like when you write an sd email It's probably a good idea to wait 24 hours before sending it Absolutely. Don't don't write it if you're mad and write it but don't send it. Yeah All right, get it out of your system hit delete then say you're absolutely right That seems to work Most of the time. Okay. So treat the customers, right? Yeah, um, you gotta understand that It's a business, you know, once you start it, you can't just say, uh, you got to be responsive We got etsy actually keeps you to task on that They've come up with this thing. They're called a star seller and There's three categories in it is one is your responsiveness answering emails One is five star reviews and one is shipping on time And you've got to be at 95% or higher so in two categories and My shipping on time and my responsiveness. I'm at 100% My reviews I'm at 88 or 89 and I would get to like 94% and like so close and then I get a four star review And somebody writes something really nice both for whatever reason that put four You know, and then that then none you need to get 10 more five star reviews to get back To to replace that basically for makeup without four stars. So it's not easy Yeah, so you really got to be on top of your game to really If you really want to do it you got to make sure to treat it as a business And why is that important? Does that mean do they promote you more the higher the rating? I haven't figured it out yet, but it's just something to put out there And I so I haven't been one yet to know exactly what that is And I think there's a lot of pushback from other sellers Oh, you know, I don't have time to respond all my customers, but you know, that's all BS You know, if you really want to do your business, right? You need to be responsive and so You know, it's just the goal that they put out there and I like to achieve it if I can Gotcha the the shipping now you said that they measure how fast you ship it Is that something where they automatically get an update once you ship it? So you could ship through their service so they actually sell you a usps shipping label So you could just say oh you want to purchase it? $4.80 or whatever usually I say yeah, and I have a dimo label printer right next to me here And I just you know does a label for it and then I print out a Basically a packing list or an invoice and I put that inside So Yeah, they make it really easy for you. You don't have to think about it And I can say if you want to do a return they do it Gotcha and shipping in the for anyone who orders in the us shipping is free I offer it for free shipping. Yeah, okay So you got to keep all of that expenses in mind when you try to fall with your price Now you were saying that somebody wants to start I was watching an interview with this young lady. Um, she makes she got into 3d printing Um, relatively about the same time as I did during a pandemic and she makes cookie cutters And she's has so I tell you the trick that the people that are doing really well on Etsy are using Is don't go in inventing something new. Well, I didn't really invent something new They're a product similar on there, but only do one thing one or the other not both So I sort of improved on what was there basically But cookie cutter and if you're familiar with fusion 6 360 and you could do a rendering of your product Then a lot of times she doesn't even make any of them. So she has no inventory of these products So what they do is they just throw designants on the site as many designs as they can until one hits So the idea is just okay today. I'll do 10 more new designs and I just do a rendering of it and post the render I only print it if somebody orders it. Yeah That's a neat idea. Yeah, so you can now you can just like kind of experiment like just especially fusion has that nice rendering capability So you can just throw it a rendering and once, you know, I don't even have to make it until they order And especially if you're doing a cookie cutter, I mean that probably prints, you know In less than an hour for some designs and you can just go ahead and and ship it out when it's done. Yeah So the trick with that is more Photography like I think she had to probably make a cookie of her own Or I'm not exactly sure how they do that because I see some really fancy cookies But really they're not selling that design. They're just selling the cookie cutter So how they're getting all that of who's doing that? I don't know But it's selling selling the sizzle and not the steak. Isn't that a marketing term like that's the key If you want to sell the cookie cutter, you show some beautiful cookies or maybe you show like, you know Your kid biting into the cookie with a huge smile in her face That'll sell the cookie cutter, you know, but not even showing the actual product The biggest stores on etsy are stores that sell shirts shirts t-shirts That's sort of thing because you could do it for free to throw a design on there for free That's another thing they do thousands of designs You just do it put it out for free and there's these sites that you can buy the 3d that not the 3d But they buy the model from basically Their app Whatever shirt you pick puts the shirt on that person with your design as if they were wearing it in different lifestyle pictures and you post those again cost you virtually nothing until one of those ideas hits and then they sort of Take that to the next step. Maybe they would do a hoodie or a hat or a sticker Just try to build off of that one product that they're selling a lot of So it really allows you to just kind of test a bunch of different like ideas that you have without actually making the part And then finally when you hit something that strikes accord with people and all the orders come in you're like, okay That's it go with that one, you know and then start making basically Yeah, basically your investment is 20 cents each new design you post costs you 20 cents Okay, so that's it. That's the only investment you have in it. So how can you go wrong postage stamp? Yeah Yeah So that's why I recommend Etsy for at least for people that are starting out I think a lot of them Maybe after a while go to other sites a Shopify or amazon or whatever I'm thinking about starting amazon store I sort of done the same thing that I did with Etsy. I sort of Got the store, but I haven't posted anything Because it's you know when I started Etsy, I thought wow, this is overwhelming There's a lot of steps that I got to do to set up the the product But amazon takes it to the next level man. It's just a lot more complicated So I'm watching videos on haru. He actually do it. Okay Maybe one day I'll have a Like Etsy like it's that like get to that step first and then right And you can do our options out there to graduate to Sort of uh, well something like amazon will have a monthly fee of maybe 39 dollars, right? So you spending money at Etsy You really just the 20 cents here 20 cents there if you don't sell anything costs you really next to nothing So we'll let you um go on to amazon and then we'll come back Next year to go around to the interview to see To uh, let us know what uh what you've learned from scaling up to amazon Um, yeah, okay. No, this has been really great any any sort of other last tips you would give either like any part of the whole process from design to 3d printing inventory to To Etsy or promoting just anything you think we missed that you That you would want well, I think So I'm sort of have to circle back to the beginning Honestly, I I couldn't have done any of the stuff that I have in front of me without taking your course And I'm not advertising for you because you asked me to I just I think it's the key thing None of this would have happened had I not taken your course had I not watched Joel and telling me to go watch your videos So if anybody has been similar to what I've been doing and watching all these videos on youtube and Want to know if they should get a 3d printer and then what next? This is a journey. This is basically what you could go through And it is not really that difficult. It takes your time. It costs you hardly anything and you know Even now, of course, you know, but I'm still part of your weekly class and every tuesday we meet on uh certain time for about an hour and a half and Anytime we have you always ask us to show you what we've made So we show you whatever we've made and any issues we have and you know, you sort of help us through it And if we're stuck somewhere in fusion 360, you walk us through how to do it correctly and what other approaches are So if anybody is thinking about doing something like this, yes, it's great You could you could learn a lot of things and watching youtube videos But having somebody to hold your hand when you need it That's just a game changer. So I would highly highly recommend Somebody watching this to take the course take the free course and see if that's something they want to do And then maybe join us on the weekly course online Yeah, thanks. Thanks for that. Um, yeah, and you were I think you were like in my original course like when I first started offering the live classes, but um, yeah, that's something I've kept going because I can see how valuable it is to students. I mean because I think about when I first started learning fusion 360 I started pretty early where there was There really wasn't much out there and it was so frustrating to try to Um, look at like the little tutorials that were there to try to figure it out And and I just know that feeling of being stuck and especially when you've got like a good idea of something You want to just get out of your head like place it like on the screen and you can't you know, because you just You don't know how to do it. Um, but yeah, so that's kind of Where you know what I try to approach it as I think about like what would have I wanted, you know If I go back to when I first started using fusion 360 That would have definitely been a like having the ability to have someone say oh Because a lot of times it's oh what you need is this tool that you never knew existed, right? Like just go go to revolve and there it is, you know Um, so yeah, I know that that's great to hear the feedback and now valuable You found the courses and and the life class that that you also have the option Yeah, and not only that but like you see it like what you've been able to make in your journey You know, like you said, uh, how many have you sold so far again? What was that number almost 230? I think it's 228 Wow, and then and then that was uh, they said five months and and within five months That's an important number within five months and that's $10,000 in sales that you that you passed. So yeah, that's that's absolutely and And I was gonna say and the cool thing is And I mentioned on New Zealand and Australia, but I sold to England France Germany India Japan Newfoundland Canada So a lot of other countries kind of cool. You get to talk to people from around the world, you know multinational Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, that's amazing Yeah, so cave on it if someone's watching this right now and they said, hey, I want one of those Caddies, where can I get one? Well, obviously google search concept to uh, ipad holder will be right at the top of the page Oh the best thing to do wait, but okay, so they can either search A concept to ipad holder Yeah, or just go to etsy My store is kp3d makes Okay, that's another thing That's another thing when you go to etsy trying to come with a name all the names are taken Gotta get creative Okay, I'll put that on the on the screen so they can see it But one more time they just go right to etsy. So just etsy.com and then they type on the search So it's it's usually yes, you could do that or you could do etsy.com slash shop slash kp3d makes Okay, that would be directly to myself. We'll do that because I think you'll get a bigger percentage of the cut if they go straight to the link instead of Googling it, right? Correct. Yeah, okay. So we'll do that and I'll have the link so If anyone wants to check out the the ipad holder they can go straight to it But cave on yeah, thank you very much for this. Um, so I think a lot of our Subscribers here are gonna find it very useful And hopefully it'll inspire a few people to you know that idea that they've kind of had on you know In the back of their mind that they can actually take that plunge and make it and and start selling you know because even just I think just you know Besides just Making the money from selling something that you may like how rewarding that is but just what you kind of described in the beginning the beginning of how satisfying it is to Create something that someone else like pays for and they find it useful and they like improves their life That's just a very satisfying thing that I can tell you just coming just from seeing it within my own product with my online courses but you think you have that similar Feeling with you know having an actual physical product that you're selling people that are helping You know that they're paying for and they're happy with it's just you know It's hard to put into words, but it's a really good feeling It definitely is it's hard to believe If you ask me, but yes, it's very very exciting All right, k-von. Thank you All right, glad to meet you. It was great to be with you. It's it. See you next Tuesday. Yep. See you in class Okay, bye. Bye. All right. I hope you enjoyed that interview When you think about it, it's crazy how fast you can go these days from idea to physical prototype to And product and with marketplaces like etsy how fast you can test the waters to see if there's demand Not only how fast but how inexpensive it is to get there compared to like 10 years ago However, you want to be prepared for when that idea strikes So if you're not fully comfortable yet with designing your own 3d models Then you'll want to get started with my fusion 360 quick start course Or if you're already comfortable with the basics Then check out my other courses including my weekly live class on my website at desktop makes.com This is the exact same path k-von tech and we see how this small investment paid off big for him All right guys, I'll be back in a few with a new fusion 360 project for you