Side Hustles – Starting An Engraving Business

building a side hustle for business

Despite what you may hear from prior generations, millennials are even close to lazy. This generation is being defined by the side-hustle. The price of education is through the roof and jobs aren’t booming the way they did in days past. So, people are getting creative. One of the most recent side-hustles is laser engraving is this one has major potential.

Laser engraving as a concept is pretty simple. You buy equipment and personalize people’s things. Where it gets complicated is in planning and execution of orders, but that’s only if you intend to scale up eventually. You could start today with some art skills and a hand engraver if you wanted to.

The work you’re able to do depends on the type of engraver you have. Different engravers are needed for specific materials and styles.

I’m sure you’re ready to get out there and start making money, but there are some questions you have to ask yourself first.

  1. Who is my target demographic?
  2. What will they need engraved?
  3. Do the sizes of what I’ve be engraving vary?
  4. Do I need multiple engravers or will a single suffice for everything?
  5. Will I engraving by hand, with the machine or a combination of both?

The more you know, the better you can plan when making your initial purchase. Note: A quality engraving bed is always worth the money and the bigger the better. But, if you never plan to move this past a side-hustle, exclusively want to do hand-engraving or simply don’t have the budget, the bells and whistles aren’t necessary.

With that warning out the way, the reason you want the best and biggest engraving bed you can afford is to avoid needing another as you scale up. If you have no competition and people love your work it’s entirely possible to become quite busy, quickly.

It’s never a bad idea to speak to a professional when making your initial purchase either. They may have some insight that you haven’t found in your research (which you did because you’re serious about this.)

People may not see the potential in laser engraving as a business. That just means there will be less competition as the demand for personalized items continues to go up.

The potential to make money with a laser engraving business is there, even for small shops. Trophies, medals, awards, personal items and all manner of decorations need to be engraved more often than not. There is no standard for customized art, so the engraver sets the prices. This gives you the freedom to adjust as needed and make as much or as little as you want.

Engraver technology will continue to improve and demand will continue to grow. Engraving will get easier meaning so long as your business savvy and creative, business will get easier. Do some research, get out there and hustle.

I Write Things.