Author Topic: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?  (Read 10784 times)

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Offline DTJTopic starter

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Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« on: October 29, 2018, 06:46:31 am »
What ideas do we all have for a small cottage or home based electronics related business?

Perhaps something that would generate a few hundred dollars per week for a day or two's work.

A few ideas:

  • Design a widget, build it and sell it - depends on if you can come up with an in-demand saleable product.
  • Consumer electronics repair -  unless it's a niche product that you have experience with eg hi end audio amplifiers or musicians effects pedals I wonder about the viability of this.
  • Find a local small business and repair failed gear specific to their business that are very expensive - air conditioner controllers or PLC I/O units or PSUs perhaps?
  • Prototype hardware construction - limited demand.
  • Purchase or build a value adding machine & offer a service - small CNC router or LASER engraver?



I'm interested in what others do or have ideas about doing.




 

Offline bd139

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2018, 09:06:35 am »
Test gear repair and refurb. This covers my other interests in cash at least.
 
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Offline mrpackethead

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2018, 09:13:15 am »
3d chocolate printer.
On a quest to find increasingly complicated ways to blink things
 
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Online Psi

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #3 on: October 29, 2018, 09:38:02 am »
10 step process.

1. Go on specialized forums
2. Ask people what electronics they need but which doesn't exist or is way to expensive.
3. Filter out all the ideas that are too complex.
4. Gauge what they would pay for it.
5. Filter out all the ideas that are not cost effective. (You need to sell for at least 2.5x what it cost to make)
6. Prototype/design with lots of checking to ensure it meets the users needs
7. Pre-production build
8. Send out free units to people who will do reviews on YouTube or forums.
9. Production.
10. Support/returns
« Last Edit: October 29, 2018, 09:40:20 am by Psi »
Greek letter 'Psi' (not Pounds per Square Inch)
 
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Online nctnico

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #4 on: October 29, 2018, 09:42:39 am »
This plan usually runs out of steam at point 4.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 
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Offline bd139

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #5 on: October 29, 2018, 09:47:58 am »
Very true.

The whole "build a product for a niche" thing is filled with failed products and wasted time.

The best thing to do is:

1. Perform a service. This requires nothing tangible and no stock.
2. Make sure it's one someone will want to come back and do again.
3. Make sure you're good at it.
4. Premium price yourself right up front.
5. Maintain the appearance of total professionalism, even if it's carnage behind the scenes.

If someone wants you to build a product, make sure the 50% up front at least allows you to break even.
 
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Offline DTJTopic starter

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2018, 04:52:43 am »
10 step process.

1. Go on specialized forums.............

I like your thinking. I've followed that process with only a small degree of success. I guess I needs couple of more iterations to hit on the right product and really make it worthwhile.
 

Offline DTJTopic starter

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #7 on: October 30, 2018, 04:57:10 am »
Test gear repair and refurb. This covers my other interests in cash at least.

That sounds good, I imagine in the  UK (and the US) there's a lot more used TEQ available. I Australia it's not all that common.
 

Offline DTJTopic starter

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #8 on: October 30, 2018, 04:58:08 am »
3d chocolate printer.

I somehow thing I'd end up consuming all the product.
 

Offline sleemanj

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #9 on: October 30, 2018, 05:01:59 am »
1.  Buy cool electronic stuff.
2. ???
3. Profit!!
~~~
EEVBlog Members - get yourself 10% discount off all my electronic components for sale just use the Buy Direct links and use Coupon Code "eevblog" during checkout.  Shipping from New Zealand, international orders welcome :-)
 
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Online tautech

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #10 on: October 30, 2018, 05:04:17 am »
Find a brand of TE that's not represented in your country then build a relationship with the manufacturer with the end goal of becoming their authorized distributor.
Rinse and repeat if you're keen enough.  :)
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Offline gildasd

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #11 on: October 30, 2018, 08:39:45 am »
Flat screen repairs...
From what I’ve  seen and read, it is very often capacitors on the primary being insufficiently rated...
Nothing for a solder wrangler, dead TV for the rest of them.

In any case, try to specialise, you will get lost if you try being too many things.
I'm electronically illiterate
 
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Offline bd139

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #12 on: October 30, 2018, 09:33:42 am »
That's not a bad idea. My current television, a 32" Samsung 1080p smart TV cost me £0.99 thanks to one dried up capacitor and someone not wanting to post it :-DD
 

Offline DTJTopic starter

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #13 on: October 30, 2018, 09:52:43 am »
Flat screen repairs...
From what I’ve  seen and read, it is very often capacitors on the primary being insufficiently rated...
Nothing for a solder wrangler, dead TV for the rest of them.

Our council area has yearly hard rubbish collections. The verges have heaps of flat screen TVs dumped on them and I suspect lots have the exact problem you mention. Seems such a waste.
 

Offline Messtechniker

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #14 on: October 30, 2018, 10:38:08 am »
A friend of mine - an old age pensioner - started up repairing/refurbishing commercial coffee machines in his garage. From then on this thing grew and grew. Now he has rented a hall in an industrial area to stock the spare parts he needs.
He cheaply buys defective coffee machines which dealers have replaced. He then either repairs and thoroughly cleans them, and flogs them via ebay. Or, if unrepairable disassembles them for parts which he either retains for other repairs or flogs these too after cleaning and checking. He only does the mechanical side. PCB are replaced, if defectve. He does not do component level repairs. On occasion I help him out doing component level pcb repairs. By nature, he has always been precise and meticulous in his work.
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Offline kosine

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #15 on: October 30, 2018, 10:50:14 am »
In the UK there's a company that sells a cheap beginners electronics kit on ebay. They've sold thousands of them, and the components are nothing special.

What sells it is the documentation.
 
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Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #16 on: October 30, 2018, 10:54:29 am »
Our council area has yearly hard rubbish collections. The verges have heaps of flat screen TVs dumped on them and I suspect lots have the exact problem you mention. Seems such a waste.
I suspect it's a defect combined with people looking for a reason to upgrade their television.
 

Offline RoGeorge

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #17 on: October 30, 2018, 10:55:15 am »
The failure rate of a startup is 99% in the first few years.  :-\
If in need to ask the question of this thread, better get a job.

Offline TERRA Operative

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #18 on: October 30, 2018, 12:14:36 pm »
I used to replace capacitors in ECU's, mainly from Toyotas (late 80's to late 90's, the capacitor plague years) when I was back in Australia.
I'd charge about $80 including return express post and name brand high quality caps and made a good $60 or more profit per ECU. Used to take me half hour tops per ECU from the moment I sat down to the point it was packaged ready to send out.

Also did LCD TV's and monitors too. Get them free, a few bucks worth of capacitors and sell for insane profit margin.
Where does all this test equipment keep coming from?!?

https://www.youtube.com/NearFarMedia/
 

Offline DTJTopic starter

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #19 on: October 30, 2018, 01:07:45 pm »
The failure rate of a startup is 99% in the first few years.  :-\
If in need to ask the question of this thread, better get a job.


For many perhaps that is true, a job is much easier than generating your own income.

However there's lots of us through circumstance, planning or retirement for whom a small side business can be a source of fulfillment as well as generating some income.
 

Offline DTJTopic starter

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #20 on: October 30, 2018, 01:10:40 pm »
I used to replace capacitors in ECU's, mainly from Toyotas (late 80's to late 90's, the capacitor plague years) when I was back in Australia.
I'd charge about $80 including return express post and name brand high quality caps and made a good $60 or more profit per ECU. Used to take me half hour tops per ECU from the moment I sat down to the point it was packaged ready to send out.

Also did LCD TV's and monitors too. Get them free, a few bucks worth of capacitors and sell for insane profit margin.

I wondered if anyone did automotive electronics work. I imagine there might be a good side business in repairing some dash board instrument clusters.

Did you have to rig up a full test system for the ECUs?
 

Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #21 on: October 30, 2018, 01:21:40 pm »
Search "orgone" on ebay. Add some blinking LED, or better, a proximity sensor so it glows when you put your hand near it.
plenty of morons willing to pay for this sort of nonsense.

 
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Offline bd139

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #22 on: October 30, 2018, 01:41:22 pm »
Search "orgone" on ebay. Add some blinking LED, or better, a proximity sensor so it glows when you put your hand near it.
plenty of morons willing to pay for this sort of nonsense.

Hahaha. Peep Show covered orgones...

 

Offline AndyC_772

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #23 on: October 30, 2018, 01:43:44 pm »
The best thing to do is:

1. Perform a service. This requires nothing tangible and no stock.
2. Make sure it's one someone will want to come back and do again.
3. Make sure you're good at it.
4. Premium price yourself right up front.
5. Maintain the appearance of total professionalism, even if it's carnage behind the scenes.

If someone wants you to build a product, make sure the 50% up front at least allows you to break even.

This is exactly what I've been doing for a living for the last few years.

#5 is more important than you'd think. Posters sold as 'motivational' make me sick, but I do have this on the wall of my office:

https://shop.theoatmeal.com/collections/prints/products/bob-mirror-signed-print?variant=28626724355

Online coppice

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Re: Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
« Reply #24 on: October 30, 2018, 02:17:43 pm »
If you are looking for a cottage industry in electronics, how about fire detectors for thatched roofs.
 


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