Experienced novice newly come to the board.... :)
Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2021
Hi Guys,
So... wow. "Tell us about you" is supposed to be simple, right? haha.
So... My name is David, but just about everyone I know calls me Frosty - and have since I was in my teens. Its a carryover from a young life heavy in to DnD and role playing in general (SCA etc).
Then there was 20+ years of software and hardware development and the associated college courses... fast forward to mid-2019. I am now in my mid 40s and semi-retired in Thailand, and my old gaming buddies and I have been talking for years about starting up a gaming related company... and we finally decided to pull the trigger. After a bit of research (tho in hindsight, not near enough!) I was chosen as the "obvious" person to do the manufacturing - since I live where labor is cheap and I have a heavy background in tech... and lasers are tech, right? Bah. So we ordered a cheap(ish) chinese laser cutter (bogong lasers 100w full size model), found a suitable location, purchased land... did all the boring legal razzmatazz required to open a business in Thailand... and poof - like that I was head of manufacturing for a multinational corp. Boy was I excited... (I can be really stupid sometimes). I have 2 full time employees, plus myself and my significant other who puts in 20+ hours per week helping out. We make tabletop gaming accessories - dice towers and the like, then ship them to the USA where my partners promote and sell them.
Our laser was delivered in Jan of this year (2021) and about 12 hours later I made my first cut. At some point I may write down some of the mistakes I've made since then in an attempt to help others from running in to the same traps, and there are ongoing issues I have yet to resolve... but all in all it has been an exciting adventure that has yet to pay off... though we do have a shipment going out to the USA next week that should turn that part around at least! To give an example of the breadth of the mistakes made - we have produced more in the last month (despite the technical issues with the laser that ill explain in a more tech-centric post later) than we did in the preceding 6 months.
I joined this board in an attempt to find some help on a couple serious issues I'm having with the laser... and even before writing this post I have found a number of articles I wish I had read before I started this business haha... but you know what they say about hindsight
- but ill post those questions in the appropriate forum later. Its 6am here and my staff are just arriving for their work shift, which means my shift is done so ill write those from home
I hope I will have some input for others here as well... I have learned a number of lessons the hard way
So... wow. "Tell us about you" is supposed to be simple, right? haha.
So... My name is David, but just about everyone I know calls me Frosty - and have since I was in my teens. Its a carryover from a young life heavy in to DnD and role playing in general (SCA etc).
Then there was 20+ years of software and hardware development and the associated college courses... fast forward to mid-2019. I am now in my mid 40s and semi-retired in Thailand, and my old gaming buddies and I have been talking for years about starting up a gaming related company... and we finally decided to pull the trigger. After a bit of research (tho in hindsight, not near enough!) I was chosen as the "obvious" person to do the manufacturing - since I live where labor is cheap and I have a heavy background in tech... and lasers are tech, right? Bah. So we ordered a cheap(ish) chinese laser cutter (bogong lasers 100w full size model), found a suitable location, purchased land... did all the boring legal razzmatazz required to open a business in Thailand... and poof - like that I was head of manufacturing for a multinational corp. Boy was I excited... (I can be really stupid sometimes). I have 2 full time employees, plus myself and my significant other who puts in 20+ hours per week helping out. We make tabletop gaming accessories - dice towers and the like, then ship them to the USA where my partners promote and sell them.
Our laser was delivered in Jan of this year (2021) and about 12 hours later I made my first cut. At some point I may write down some of the mistakes I've made since then in an attempt to help others from running in to the same traps, and there are ongoing issues I have yet to resolve... but all in all it has been an exciting adventure that has yet to pay off... though we do have a shipment going out to the USA next week that should turn that part around at least! To give an example of the breadth of the mistakes made - we have produced more in the last month (despite the technical issues with the laser that ill explain in a more tech-centric post later) than we did in the preceding 6 months.
I joined this board in an attempt to find some help on a couple serious issues I'm having with the laser... and even before writing this post I have found a number of articles I wish I had read before I started this business haha... but you know what they say about hindsight
- but ill post those questions in the appropriate forum later. Its 6am here and my staff are just arriving for their work shift, which means my shift is done so ill write those from home I hope I will have some input for others here as well... I have learned a number of lessons the hard way