And have been so lucky. Replaced my 9-5 tech sales income within a month and store sales have been steady since. The product I’m making/selling is a pretty niche product under the home goods/home decor umbrella but it’s pumped out $40k in sales volume each month so far, only spending $1500/month on Etsy ads.

Obviously the downside is it’s a manual process of building this product so it’s been 12-14 hour days nearly every day. I have one full-time employee and I’m still completely capped on bandwidth. About to hire another so that will help.

But I’ve been thinking about the long-term outlook of scaling this thing into a legitimate business that someone would want to buy one day, and at some point I’d imagine manufacturing has to come into the picture. I have a tech sales background, so I have literally no clue what that looks like. My first (and only right now) product is a furniture-type piece that would require wood to be cut to certain lengths, dowel pin holes to be drilled accurately, and a couple other basic woodworking type activities. I know this is a niche question but I’m wondering if anyone here has any experience or resources when it comes to getting into manufacturers and working with them. I know it’ll come with a hefty investment but I’d at least like to see what numbers would look like. Or am I just better off hiring woodworkers and scaling it that way? Any advice is welcome.