If you’re familiar with Tindie whatsoever, you know that the products here can be very specialized, sometimes appealing to only a small group of people. Making them one-by-one usually works fine if you’re only going to sell one or two, and becomes obviously impractical if you need to make, say 10,000. But what about products that you anticipate making an intermediate number of, say 30 or 40?
The video below shows that this kind of production isn’t unique to Tindie, and YouTuber Eric Strebel goes over his low volume production process. In his case, he’s designed a series of pained vacuum formed parts. While I’ve never seen something exactly like this sold here, much of what he has to say is applicable to many situations.
Design-wise, he notes that it’s a very good idea to know and keep in mind how your product will be made, and since most of us will be involved in the manufacturing process in some fashion, that would be hard to neglect more than one time. He also isn’t too “proud” to send certain tasks off to other shops. While it’s fun to make things yourself, your time and space/money available for the correct tools command a certain premium. Best to concentrate on what you’re good at!
Finally, all sellers here should keep in mind packaging, as he points out at 4:40 in the video. At a minimum, this needs to keep your product intact, but if you do a really good job, such as a nice cloth bag for each item, buyers will be quite impressed!
