When to Quit Your Job with Area 419 Founder Jon Addis

[@maker_greg]

Videos like this and the BoM podcast are gonna be what eventually pushes me to go off and do my own thing. A home cnc setup funded by my day job is in the works. So glad these entrepreneurial videos are getting presented side by side with machining content.

[@COdrummaCO]

I just did it. The HAAS will be here at the end of the month. Been pushing harder than my entire life the last year. Still have the day job and will continue to have a day job for next foreseeable future though.

[@garrettp.5018]

Where is your shop? Garage shop? What type of Haas?

[@daryllemire6503]

Hypothetically if you did do your own thing would you be making your own product and selling or making parts for vendors

[@44mod]

This interview and video content is priceless. I have owned and built several successful small business. The advice that took me years to learn was just given freely and that is awesome. I still try to pass on the knowledge I acquired to other small business owners, that will listen. I am retired now. I have enjoyed watching this video and feel smarter from receiving the information and advice from Jon and NYC CNC, even with many years of experience. God Bless! Thank you Jon Addis and NYC CNC for your time!!!

[@hunterbruce8382]

Would love to see a video on how to approach a machine shop about manufacturing a product for you and how to tell if the work is worth the time and money!!

[@danking3093]

Sounds good

[@Chimmy912]

Wow, his story about his CAD background is mind blowing. Not using 3D CAD while pursuing a BS in Mech Eng is crazy to me in 2010.

[@bassgojoe]

Yeah that's nuts -- all the Mech Es I graduated with in 2005 were solidworks pros.

[@motivemachineworks6890]

@@bassgojoe Doesn't sound that crazy to me. I graduated from a 2.5 year program in Automated manufacturing. another 1.5 years would have been a Manufacturing Engineering program. We still were programming from mastercam X6- X7 in 2014 using 2D cad files. We made 3D wire frames for 3D geometry on multiple planes. no joke. The school I went to wasn't cheap either. Some education platforms are incredibly far behind. I think that school is doing better now but still. Crazy to think. The issue is a lot of the teachers I had have a 1970's tool and die mentality. For that they are 100% experts. I do agree with you though, it isn't right to me. lol.

[@hammurambi]

I studied mechanical engineering from 2012-2017. My B.S. program didn’t include an CAD training whatsoever. We had a few weeks of “drafting” in Intro to Engineering Design, but that was mostly with pencil and paper. We had a dedicated CAD course offered but it wasn’t required and there weren’t enough seats for everyone in the major to take it. Luckily, all the computers in the engineering labs had SolidWorks licenses, so I was able to teach myself/use it for projects.

[@capnthepeafarmer]

I really like Jon, he is such a chill dude. Jon and Jay Pierson are some of those entrepreneurs I really look up to because they're so chill and so relaxed. At least on the outside.

[@shadowlab9543]

i cant thank you guys enough!!!! you just addressed a lot of my concerns & worry's. love the 419 shop tours.

[@NTK_FabWorks]

I graduated with my BS in welding and metal fab engineering in 2009, same boat with having nothing more than AutoCAD 2007 experience. Granted, I never needed 3d modeling for about 8 years after graduating, when I bought my cnc plasma table, it was a rude awakening on how behind times I was with software. Luckily there’s this guy named John that has a KZbin channel about machining and he’s posted tons of Fusion360 video tutorials! More videos like this please! I still regard your appearance on the welding tips and tricks podcast as the most informative show they’ve ever had and there was no welding talk 🤣 🤘🏻🇺🇸🤘🏻🍻

[@carnagefpv8256]

Super cool seeing a (semi) local company doing so well and making a big name for themselves. Great video

[@clintw438]

Camera work and interviewing skills on point!

[@valdiorn]

amazing video, really useful. As someone who is juuuust about to take that leap, thank you both for providing that insight! :)

[@samo4866]

Currently in the process of making a similar move. Bought a CNC router, and doors have been opening left and right.

[@garrettp.5018]

How have you been marketing your router services?

[@samo4866]

@@garrettp.5018 I've been hitting some road blocks getting up and running, mostly life and work, but a few equipment issues, and shipping. I have just been word of mouth so far, and have a few companies that need a subcontracted router to fill in when they get too busy. Also have a few friends that do cabinets, and I have planted the seed there. Once I get fully operational I'll start spreading from there.

[@Zlatkodemon]

I was waiting for this forever.

[@shrimuyopa8117]

I absolutely love this. Thank you for sharing it.

[@riversvic]

Not planning on quitting, but very useful information.

[@texasermd1]

Would LOVE to quit my day and night job to do something like this. Perhaps someday. Being an ER physician just has so many perks these days.

[@nickhankins5088]

Very well done. Camera setup looks amazing!

[@icegod16]

learning a lots from you guys !

[@WilliamPayneNZ]

Have been looking forward to this

[@TrPrecisionMachining]

GOOD VIDEO

[@sansbury95]

I started my business 20 years ago, and the decision to go full time was made for me when my day job closed and let me go. Prior to that I had gone from working full time to 3 days a week, and I was chomping at the bit to quit and go full time but my business partner kept telling me "don't do it, we're not ready yet." While I was happy in a way when the hammer dropped, in hindsight I had a sweet deal and I would have been a lot happier in the beginning if I could have ridden that horse another 6-12 months. I lived 100% off savings for the first year, then emptied my 401k, borrowed a bit from my dad, and it took seven years before I made the same $ I did the last year I worked full time. Partly that was a decision to plow almost everything back into the business to keep it growing but if I hadn't done that I don't think it would have worked out half as well as it did. Ten years in I was starting to live well again and at fifteen years I got to ring the bell, so it all worked out, but it was a very hard road and there was never any guarantee of a payoff until the wire hit. A lot of this depends too on the type of business. Mine is a product business, so there was a massive investment up front building up a book of business and scaling that before starting to skim some cream for ourselves. For a job shop, you should be able to be close to profitable almost from the start. For a product business, the single most consistently fatal mistake I see entrepreneurs make is to scale too early. You have to know your product market fit is dialed in well and that if you plow cash in to manufacture and market to sell 100 or 10,000 units, that the customers will be there. Too often I have seen OK ideas go to market big only to discover that the ten customers who liked the prototype were the only ten customers that existed for that product at that price. DIY micro-scale manufacturing is great because it gives you the chance to make a lot of adjustments and test things before committing the farm. Absolutely everybody in my experience drastically underestimates the time it takes to get product-market fit right. Another huge mistake I see many people make is to sell their product too cheaply. Discounting is simply buying business and it is a way to get volume but unless you absolutely know what you're doing, you would be better off mailing $20 bills to random people because you'll end up in the same place but it will be a lot less work. The better your product fits the market, the more you can be the high-cost, high-quality supplier. I think for small startups your odds of success are far better at the top of the market than the bottom.

[@icegod16]

love it

[@thebeaver6596]

Lol I already quit !!!