Maybe I'm overly ambitious to even attempt this, as I said, I'm starting from zero. I have some product designs I think could be successful and I've invested in the tools and developed the skills to prototype them, and now I'm looking to expand to producing them. I would probably be better off contracting with professionals to have this done, but I have a personal interest in learning to do it all myself; it's just something I've always wanted to do and I have a day job that pays better than I could make starting from over again in the trade, so I'm just going it alone.
So with that.. I have no idea how many I will need or how quickly. The AR accessories market can be feast or famine, so I could struggle to sell 60,000 units over 10 years or I could need 60,000 per month for a short duration. I'd like to position myself to be capable of meeting a high demand if required to capitalize on what would probably be a short window of opportunity. And if not required, I'll do a limited run of that part and switch to another design for another industry. If I could sell 60,000 units in total over several years, I'd call that a success. At this point, if I can break even with what I've spent for all my equipment, I'd be happy. I was 3/4 of my way through an engineering degree until the college decided to change the curriculum on me, adding extra class requirements and removing previous exemptions to extort more money out of me. I told them to pound sand and decided to spend the rest of my college funds on machine tools and CAD/CAM software. So the prospect of having to redo 200 hours of work is nothing compared to the time I wasted in college and in the end I get to learn something useful and keep a shop full of machine tools. The 200-300 lbs of scrap steel is the bigger issue, as my funds are not unlimited.
