With the growing demand for custom parts, precision milling, and unique handcrafted products, CNC machining offers countless opportunities to turn your skills into a profitable business. Whether you’re interested in woodworking, metal milling, or plastics, starting a CNC business allows you to tap into various industries, from kitchen cabinets to automotive components. We put together this guide through the essential steps to launch your CNC business.
1. Setting Goals
Regardless of your long term goal, you should break things down into smaller goals to get things started, create cashflow, and momentum. Even if you do have big goals of building a full time CNC business, the first step is to start with more simple goals like paying off your machine and starting a side hustle.
Establish short-term financial targets, like earning enough to cover your machine's costs or reinvesting profits into materials and tools. As you gain experience and confidence, you can gradually expand your goals to include scaling your operations, targeting larger clients, or even hiring additional help. Remember, every small milestone brings you closer to your ultimate vision, so celebrate progress along the way!
2. Position Your Product
Focus on creating projects that you are personally interested in. The truth is, boredom stops progress, so you want to make it easy to stay excited. Plus, you are likely already an expert in this area.
For Example, you could position a general product for an extremely specific niche. Instead of making a normal wooden cutting board, you could make a cutting board designed for offshore fishermen to cut bait. This product is selling for over $70 on Amazon!
Figure out what motivates you, what problems you have, what hobbies you are interested in. Focus on positioning your CNC business toward those things.
Make sure to check out our guide Top 5 CNC Projects That Sell to see what’s possible.
For more CNC project ideas, CLICK HERE.
3. Tell Your Story
Share your progress on social media. We recommend making a dedicated instagram account for your CNC business. Keep it focused on sharing your builds and telling the story of your progress. You don’t need to suddenly become an influencer, just share what you think is cool. We promise, other people will also find it interesting.
Don’t worry so much about getting a big following and finding customers that way. Think more about the networking opportunity. When you meet people in your every day life, being able to quickly pull up an instagram account and showcase your work to people that you meet in person and online. This will also make it easy to build connections that do similar things to you online. These connections will help you avoid mistakes and inspire new ideas. Building connections will speed up your learning curve.
4. Getting Off The Ground
Figure out where the best place is to buy the CNC product you are making. Find out where customers in your niche typically go. Don’t just sell those offshore fishing cutting boards on Etsy, take them to your friends and family who do offshore fishing. Take it to community events like local fishing tournaments. Get feedback on the product. Continue to post on social media. Work on refining your production and selling process to make this a consistent side hustle.
Pro Tip: Networking gives you an opportunity to offer custom versions of your product to prospective customers. This is a good opportunity to charge more for your builds.
5. Create A Brand
Once you feel you’ve got something special, give it a name and start a brand. Be the best at a specific thing and your customer base will come to you. “We sell offshore fishing bait cutting boards”.
Creating a full time business with your CNC isn’t about waiting around to sell thousands of cutting boards on Etsy. It’s about selling offshore fishing bait cutting board with a unique design that makes it personal and solves a key problem for it’s audience.
Building a brand is about building a relationship with your audience, plus it allows you to charge high prices for your work. Choose a niche you care about. Make a product that is special. Tell your story as you go. Engage with your audience. The rest will sort itself out.
Conclusion
Starting a CNC Business can be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling, but it requires a clear plan, dedication, and the right mindset. With passion and persistence, your CNC machine can become more than just a tool—it can be the cornerstone of a successful and sustainable business. In the end of the day, when you set out to build a brand, you'll find much more excitement and purpose behind your work. This is key to long term success.
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